ANDREW THOMPSON, Employee/Appellant, v. MINN. TRIAL COURTS – DIST. 4 and STATE OF MINN. DEP’T OF ADMIN., Employer-Insurer/Respondents, and ALLINA MEDICAL CLINIC, ABBOTT NW. HOSP., BLUE CROSS BLUE SHIELD OF MINN., N. MEM’L HEALTH CARE, NAT’L DIZZY & BALANCE CTR., and THE HARTFORD, Intervenors.

The employee appeals from a determination that his injury on December 27, 2021, did not arise out of and in the course of his employment.  We affirm.

The employee, Andrew Thompson, started working as a court operations supervisor for the employer, the Minnesota Fourth District Trial Courts, in 2018.  His job duties were to supervise 11 court reporters, a lead person, and an audio-video technician from an outside agency and to oversee the audio-video technology used in the courtrooms.  The job was generally performed working at a desk, on-site, using a computer.  He did not regularly work from home.  On occasion his duties included moving courtroom equipment between courtrooms, but not outside of the building.

The employer leases space for its operations from Hennepin County on the eighth floor of the Hennepin County Government Center (hereinafter HCGC).  The employer does not provide or reimburse employees for parking, nor does it specify how employees should commute to or from the workplace.  The employee typically walked to work in warmer weather, but in the winter, he usually drove his car and parked in the SPS ramp, a public parking ramp across the street from the HCGC.  From there, he would walk through the public skyway system to the HCGC.  In December 2021, a high-profile trial was held in the building and, for security reasons, Hennepin County had limited the access to the HCGC to a single public entrance at ground level on the north side of the building.

At about noon on December 23, 2021, the employee and other court staff received an email from the employer notifying them that a verdict had been reached in the trial which would be publicly announced later that afternoon.  The email instructed all nonessential court employees to leave the HCGC and to work offsite at a place of their choosing for the rest of the workday.  The email authorized the employees to take with them any equipment needed for their work and advised that any updates to these instructions would be provided via the employer’s email system.

The employee packed his briefcase with his laptop computer, a headset, audio equipment, and paperwork.  The parties stipulated on the record at the close of the hearing that these were items he used in his job at the employer’s jobsite, but that the employer kept backup equipment that he could have utilized if he forgot to bring back these items upon his return to work.  Taking these items, he left the HCGC and returned to his home to finish his workday.  Sometime later, the employee received an email informing him that he was to return to work as usual on his next normally scheduled workday, December 27, 2021.

On December 27, the employee packed his briefcase and drove from his home to the SPS ramp.  While driving to work, he noticed that the roads and sidewalks were extremely slippery.  Because the skyway entrance to the HCGC was still closed for security reasons, the outside north public entrance was the only entry available to the employee.  After crossing the street, he used the public sidewalk to approach the HCGC, walking “as carefully as [he] could.”^[1]  At about 7:15 a.m., approximately 75 feet from the SPS ramp and about 70 feet from the north entrance of the HCGC, the employee slipped on a patch of ice on a sidewalk traversing the public plaza adjacent to the HCGC.  He lost his balance and fell, landing on his back on the sidewalk.  He was carrying over his shoulder the briefcase containing his laptop and the other items he had brought home but testified that carrying the briefcase did not contribute to his fall nor worsen its effects.  After lying on the pavement for a few moments, he got up and walked into the HCGC.

The employee subsequently noticed an onset of various symptoms and left work early to go to an urgent care center, where he was diagnosed with a fractured rib and taken off work.  Eventually, he was also diagnosed with a post-concussive syndrome.  He was entirely off work through January 1, 2022, and then was partially off work under restrictions through May 10, 2022.  By the date of the hearing, he had returned to full duty.

The employer and its insurer denied primary liability for the employee’s injury on the basis that he was injured while commuting to work, rather than in the course of his employment.  The case was heard before a compensation judge of the Office of Administrative Hearings on April 11, 2023.  Following the hearing, the compensation judge found that the employee’s injury did not arise out of and in the course of his employment and denied the employee’s claims.  The employee appeals.

On appeal, the Workers’ Compensation Court of Appeals must determine whether “the findings of fact and order [are] clearly erroneous and unsupported by substantial evidence in view of the entire record as submitted.”  Minn. Stat. § 176.421, subd. 1(3).  Substantial evidence supports the findings if, in the context of the entire record, “they are supported by evidence that a reasonable mind might accept as adequate.”  Hengemuhle v. Long Prairie Jaycees, 358 N.W.2d 54, 59, 37 W.C.D. 235, 239 (Minn. 1984).  Where evidence conflicts or more than one inference may reasonably be drawn from the evidence, the findings are to be affirmed.  Id. at 60, 37 W.C.D. at 240.  Similarly, findings of fact should not be disturbed, even though the reviewing court might disagree with them, “unless they are clearly erroneous in the sense that they are manifestly contrary to the weight of evidence or not reasonably supported by the evidence as a whole.”  Northern States Power Co. v. Lyon Food Prods., Inc., 304 Minn. 196, 201, 229 N.W.2d 521, 524 (1975).

A decision which rests upon the application of a statute or rule to essentially undisputed facts generally involves a question of law which the Workers’ Compensation Court of Appeals may consider de novo.  Krovchuk v. Koch Oil Refinery, 48 W.C.D. 607, 608 (W.C.C.A. 1993), summarily aff’d (Minn. June 3, 1993).

The employee appeals the compensation judge’s determination that the employee’s slip and fall injury did not arise out of and in the course of his employment, asserting that certain exceptions to the general time and place requirements of Minnesota Statutes chapter 176 apply.  Based upon the facts in this case and the law, we affirm the compensation judge’s denial of liability for his injury.

Workers’ compensation benefits are payable “in every case of personal injury or death of an employee arising out of and in the course of employment.”^[2]  A “personal injury” is defined as an injury an employee sustains while “engaged in, on, or about the premises where the employee’s services require the employee’s presence as a part of that service at the time of injury and during the hours of that service.”^[3]  The phrase “arising out of” requires evidence of a causal connection between the injury and the employment, while the phrase “in the course of employment” requires that the injury occur within the time and place boundaries of employment.^[4]

These general principles focus on those injuries which are not only causally associated with the employment, but which occur during an employee’s working hours at a location where the employee performs duties related to that employment.  In accord with these principles, Minnesota and a majority of states follow the rule that an injury sustained during an employee’s commute to or from work is ordinarily not compensable.^[5]

There are, however, situations where work activities are not clearly confined to rigidly scheduled times or clearly separate workplaces, and a considerable body of case law has identified various exceptions to a strict application of the time and place of injury principles.^[6]  The employee in this case claims his injury falls under three exceptions, specifically: 1) arising from exposure to a “special hazard,” 2) sustained while engaged in a “special errand,” or 3) arising from exposure to a “street risk.”  Each of these exceptions has its own specific elements and the tests pertaining to one may not necessarily apply in the case of another.  Accordingly, we consider each of these doctrines in turn below.

In applying these principles, we are also cognizant that each case addressing whether an injury arises out of and in the course of employment stands on its own facts,^[7] that whether an injury arose out of and in the course of employment is generally a question of fact for the compensation judge,^[8] and that the burden of proof is on the employee.^[9]

The employee asserts that his injuries on the morning of December 27, 2021, were the result of an exposure to a “special hazard.”  He contends that Hennepin County’s security measures from the high-profile trial included closing all but one of the entrances to the HCGC, which caused him to deviate from his customary route into the building and thus, the injury he sustained from a slip and fall resulted from a “special hazard” of his employment.

The requirements of the “special hazard” exception were set out in the Minnesota Supreme Court case Nelson v. City of St. Paul.^[10]  In Nelson, a schoolteacher was injured on a public sidewalk near her school on the way in to work when she was struck by a school-supplied baseball that had been batted from the school playground by a student during a supervised school-related activity.  The supreme court held that the requisite causal connection for the “special hazard” exception was met when the employment exposed the employee to a hazard which originated on the employment premises or was part of the working environment which peculiarly exposed the employee to an external hazard subjecting the employee to a different and a greater risk than when pursuing ordinary personal affairs.^[11]

The employee cites Snickers v. Fingerhut Corporation^[12] as support for his special hazard argument.  In that case, we affirmed a finding of a work-related injury where, after punching out from work and leaving by the only available door, an employee slipped and fell on ice on the sidewalk outside her workplace.  However, in Snickers, we expressly declined to affirm the judge’s conclusion that the fall was compensable simply because it occurred outside the only egress door in close proximity to the workplace.^[13]  The award of benefits was affirmed solely based on the judge’s alternative finding of a “special hazard,” predicated on the judge’s factual finding that the ice on which the employee fell had been caused by a spill of an employer-provided beverage by a co⁠-⁠employee.  We concluded that the evidence that the ice originated from the workplace was “minimally sufficient” evidence to support the compensation judge’s determination that the employee’s injury had been occasioned by a hazard peculiarly originating from the employment.

We distinguish Snickers from the present case because there was no indication that the actual hazard which occasioned the employee’s injury, the ice on a sidewalk, was present due to any reason associated with his employment.  In fact, the employee testified that the “extremely slippery” conditions he encountered that day, both driving in and walking on the public sidewalk leading to his slip and fall, were the result of a “freezing rain event.”^[14]  No evidence in the record below indicates that, at 70 feet away, the single entry door limited the employee to a single route.  The compensation judge also noted that the employee acknowledged the work equipment he was carrying played no role in either causing or aggravating his injury and that he chose to drive to work, where to park, and the specific route over the public sidewalks which took him onto the icy spot where he slipped and fell, a risk that was equally shared by the general public.  The compensation judge could reasonably conclude that the element of a work connection to the injury was missing for the special hazard exception to apply.

We note that the Minnesota Supreme Court has long followed the rule of law that off-premises injuries sustained during a “special errand” are generally compensable.  In a 1935 case, the supreme court explained this doctrine as follows: when an employee, while off from regular employment, is called to do an errand or sent out on a mission by the employer, the errand is “a special service” that begins the moment the employee leaves home, or the place where the call comes in, and ends only on return.^[15]  Here, the employee asserts he was required to perform a special errand of working from home and was implicitly required to bring back the work equipment he had brought home the next workday.

We note that the employee offered no direct evidence that bringing the equipment back to work with him on December 27, 2021, was an expressly requested or necessary work errand.  He acknowledged on cross-examination that backup equipment was available on site had he not brought back the equipment on that date.  The compensation judge could draw various inferences from the evidence to the special errand exception, and under our standard of review, this court will not disturb the judge’s interpretation of the evidence absent an abuse of discretion.

This situation also implicates the “dual purpose” doctrine in that the employee contends his circumstances involved both a personal and a work-related purpose.  In analyzing such off-premises activity, the Minnesota Supreme Court adopted the “dual purpose” doctrine in Rau v. Crest Fiberglass Industries,^[16] stating:

The “street risk” exception has long been recognized in Minnesota workers’ compensation law.^[19]  The Minnesota Supreme Court set out this doctrine in an early case, stating that when an employee is “engaged in [the] employer’s service in a duty calling [the employee] upon the street . . . [the injury] arises as a matter of law out of [the] employment, although others so employed, or the public using the streets, are subject to such risks.”^[20]  The employee contends that his injury from a fall on ice was compensable as occurring due to a “street risk” he encountered while he was transporting equipment for the employer.  As with the “special errand” exception, however, the evidence in this case does not compel a finding that the employee was brought 70 feet from the door of the building on the plaza by the employment.  The compensation judge reasonably concluded that the employee was brought into the street solely by the act of commuting to work and was not called into the street by a duty of his employment.^[21]  Even accepting that there was some incidental service to the employer, the application of the “dual purpose” doctrine here also similarly defeats the employee’s argument for reversal of the judge’s determination.  The compensation judge’s finding that the employee’s injury was not compensable under the “street risk” doctrine is supported by substantial evidence in the record.

Based upon the above analyses, we affirm the compensation judge’s conclusion that the employee’s slip and fall injury did not arise out of and in the course of his employment.