Under the Act, an injury generally occurs in the “course of employment” if it occurs within the time and space boundaries of the employment and in the course of an activity whose purpose is related to the employment. See, e.g., Phillips v. PMB Safety & Regulatory, Inc., 44 BRBS 1 (2010). In cases arising under the DBA, the Supreme Court of the United States has held that an employee may be within the course of employment, even if the injury did not occur within the space and time boundaries of work, so long as the “obligations or conditions of employment” create a “zone of special danger” out of which the injury arose. O’Leary v. Brown-Pacific-Maxon, Inc., 340 U.S. 504, 507 (1951); see also O’Keeffe, 380 U.S. 359; Gondeck v. Pan American World Airways, Inc., 382 U.S. 25 (1965); Battelle Mem’l Inst. v. DiCecca, ___ F.3d ___, No. 14-1742, 2015 WL 4072072 (1st Cir. July 6, 2015), aff’g 48 BRBS 19 (2014); Kalama Services, Inc. v. Director, OWCP, 354 F.3d 1085, 37 BRBS 122(CRT) (9th Cir.), cert. denied, 543 U.S. 809 (2004), aff’g Ilaszczat v. Kalama Services, 36 BRBS 78 (2002). Thus, an injury is covered by the statute where it results from “one of the risks of the employment, an incident of the service, foreseeable, if not foreseen.” O’Leary, 340 U.S. at 507; see also DiCecca, 2015 WL 4072072, at *4; Kalama Services, 354 F.3d at 1091-1092, 37 BRBS at 125-126(CRT). However, theO’Leary Court also recognized that in some cases an employee “might go so far from his employment and become so thoroughly disconnected from the service of his employer that it would be entirely unreasonable to say that injuries suffered by him arose out of and in the course of his employment.” O’Leary, 340 U.S. at 507; see, e.g., Truczinskas v. Director, OWCP, 699 F.3d 672, 46 BRBS 85(CRT) (1st Cir. 2012); R.F. [Fear] v. CSA, Ltd., 43 BRBS 139 (2009); Gillespie v. Gen. Elec. Co., 21 BRBS 56 (1988), aff’d mem., 873 F.2d 1433 (1st Cir. 1989). In its recent decision in DiCecca, the United States Court of Appeals for the First Circuit stated that “the determination of foreseeable risk is necessarily specific to context and thus turns on the totality of circumstances.” 2015 WL 4072072, at *5.
Jetnil v. Chugach Management Services, BRB No. 14-0361 (7/21/15)
Jetnil v. Chugach Management Services, BRB No. 14-0361 (7/21/15)