Aqua Massage v. Labor Commn

Aqua Massage v. Labor Commn

IN THE UTAH COURT OF APPEALS
 

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Aqua Massage, LLC; and/or Hartford/Twin City Fire Insurance,

Petitioners,

v.

Labor Commission and Robert B. Higgins,

Respondents.

MEMORANDUM DECISION
(Not For Official Publication)
 

Case No. 20030965-CA
 

F I L E D
(March 24, 2005)
 

2005 UT App 143

 

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Original Proceeding in this Court

Attorneys: Joseph C. Alamilla and Theodore E. Kanell, Salt Lake City, for Petitioners

Alan Hennebold, Gary E. Atkin, and K. Dawn Atkin, Salt Lake City, for Respondents

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Before Judges Davis, Jackson, and Greenwood.

GREENWOOD, Judge:

    Petitioners Aqua Massage, LLC (Aqua) and Hartford/Twin City Fire Insurance(1) appeal the Utah Labor Commission's (the Commission) award of workers' compensation benefits to Respondent Robert B. Higgins (Higgins) for an injury sustained during the course of employment.

    "[W]e will not disturb [an agency's] application of law to its factual findings unless its determination exceeds the bounds of reasonableness and rationality." Johnson v. Department of Employment Sec., 782 P.2d 965, 968 (Utah Ct. App. 1989); see also AE Clevite, Inc. v. Labor Comm'n, 2000 UT App 35,¶¶6-7, 996 P.2d 1072 (equating this standard to a review for abuse of discretion). However, "we resolve [a]ny doubt respecting the right of compensation in favor of the injured employee." AE Clevite, 2000 UT App 35 at ¶7 (alteration in original) (quotations and citations omitted).

    Petitioners assert that Higgins was injured while traveling to work at Aqua, and thus, that the Commission abused its discretion by ruling that the "coming and going" rule was inapplicable to bar Higgins's claim. We disagree.

    Utah Code section 34A-2-401(1) provides that "[a]n employee . . . who is injured . . . by accident arising out of and in the course of the employee's employment, wherever such injury occurred . . . shall be paid . . . compensation." Utah Code Ann. § 34A-2-401(1)(a) (2001). "As a general rule, injuries sustained by an employee while traveling to and from the place of employment do not arise out of and in the course of employment and are, therefore, not covered by workers' compensation." VanLeeuwen v. Industrial Comm'n, 901 P.2d 281, 284 (Utah Ct. App. 1995). However, as the Commission concluded, this rule does not apply when the employee is already at work, and "the travel which gives rise to the accident is an integral part of the work itself."

    In State Insurance Fund v. Industrial Commission, 15 Utah 2d 363, 393 P.2d 397 (Utah 1964), an employee was killed in a car crash en route from one office, #14, he maintained in the same building as his apartment, to another office in downtown Salt Lake City. See id. at 398. The morning of the accident, the employee walked to #14 at 7:00 a.m., where he worked until 7:30 a.m., when he returned to his apartment for breakfast. See id. After breakfast, he left his apartment, and nothing further was heard from him until the time of the accident, 9:40 a.m. See id. The supreme court held that the "coming and going" rule was inapplicable to bar recovery because the employee customarily used #14 as an office and "[i]f he were actually going from one office to another, the mere fact that he made a stop to have breakfast would not necessarily take him out of the course of his employment." Id.

    Similarly, Arthur Larson, in his authoritative and often cited(2) treatise on workers' compensation, states:

One category in which compensation is almost always awarded is that in which the employee travels along or across a public road between two portions of the employer's premises, whether going and coming, or pursuing active duties.

. . . .

. . . [T]he same principle reappears in the kind of case in which the employee performs a regular part of work at home, thus transforming the home into a sort of island identified as part of the employment premises, so that the trip between the home and the main plant may be analogized to a trip between two portions of the employer's premises.

1 A. Larson, Workers Compensation Law § 13.01(4)(a)-(c) (2004) (footnotes omitted).

    In the instant case, the Commission found that Higgins customarily began work at his home around 8:00 a.m. by working on a computer provided by Aqua, after which he would travel to and between Aqua's various sales locations to deliver merchandise or for some other business purpose. Further, on the day in question, Higgins followed his normal work routine by logging on to his computer at 7:30 a.m. and making a business entry before traveling to Fashion Place Mall to work at a sales kiosk. Also, the Administrative Law Judge's (ALJ) findings, expressly adopted by the Commission, establish that the night before the accident, Higgins excitedly showed his parents new product that he planned to set up the next day at the mall, and that Higgins was delivering this product when the accident occurred.(3)

    Based upon the foregoing, we find that the Commission's conclusion that the "coming and going" rule was inapplicable because Higgins was already at work when he was injured, rather than merely traveling to work, is a reasonable application of the law to the facts. Petitioners fail to overcome their burden of demonstrating that the Commission's determination "exceeds the bounds of reasonableness and rationality." Johnson v. Department of Employment Sec., 782 P.2d 965, 968 (Utah Ct. App. 1989). Therefore, we affirm.

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Pamela T. Greenwood, Judge

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WE CONCUR:

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James Z. Davis, Judge

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Norman H. Jackson, Judge

1. In their briefs, including the captions, the parties mislabeled Aqua and Hartford/Twin City Fire Insurance as "Respondents" and the Commission and Higgins as "Petitioners." Under Rule 14 of the Utah Rules of Appellate Procedure, "[i]n each case, the [administrative] agency shall be named respondent." Utah R. App. P. 14. Accordingly, we have corrected the party designations to comply with Rule 14.

2. See generally Ahlstrom v. Salt Lake City Corp., 2003 UT 4,¶16, 73 P.3d 315; Whitehead v. Variable Annuity Life Ins. Co., 801 P.2d 934, 937 (Utah 1989); State Tax Comm'n v. Industrial Comm'n, 685 P.2d 1051, 1054 (Utah 1984); Buczynski v. Industrial Comm'n, 934 P.2d 1169, 1172-73 (Utah Ct. App. 1997); Commercial Carriers v. Industrial Comm'n, 888 P.2d 707, 711, 712 (Utah Ct. App. 1994).

3. Petitioners argue that we should not consider the ALJ's conclusion that Higgins's travel "was required in order to deliver product," because this was a conclusion of law, and the Commission only adopted the ALJ's findings of fact. We disagree. "In assessing the sufficiency of the findings [of fact] . . . we are not confined to the contents of a particular document entitled 'Findings'; rather, the findings may be expressed orally from the bench or contained in other documents." Erwin v. Erwin, 773 P.2d 847, 849 (Utah Ct. App. 1989) (footnote omitted). Moreover, whether or not Higgins was delivering product is a factual finding and Petitioners claim that they "are not challenging a factual finding of the Commission."