Substitute Teacher Believes Her Contract Status Resulted in Denial of Benefits

Bend, OR (WorkersCompensation.com) - An elementary school teacher injured in the school’s parking lot has been denied worker's compensation by the Oregon Court of Appeals. Christina King was working for a long-term substitute teaching position when the incident occurred.

The Court's opinion, obtained by WorkersCompensation.com, showed King's regular shift at the elementary school ended every day at 4:00 pm. On the particular day of her accident, the principle of the school told all the teachers that because of inclement weather, they should leave the school as soon as the students were dismissed at 3:30.

Shortly after King's students left, which was around 4:00 pm, she left her classroom for the day. As she made her way out of the building, she came across a student that she assisted. As she was subsequently walking to her car across the school's parking lot, she slipped and fell onto the ice and injured her ankle.

King filed a claim with her employer, High Desert Education Service District. It was denied on the basis that she was not in the course of her employment during the time of her slip and fall.

An administrative law judge (ALJ) concurred, and that decision was affirmed by the Workers’ Compensation Board. The order cited the ‘going and coming rule,’ under which injuries sustained while an employee is traveling to or from work are not considered to have occurred in the course of employment.

The board had concluded that because Christina "had been released from work for the day and was no longer subject to the employer's direction and control," the going and coming rule applied to her case, and her injury in the parking lot did not happen during employed hours. 

"It's kind of an unusual situation,” said Aron Yarmo, King’s attorney, in a media release. “If she were a regular teacher, she would have been covered." Yarmo claims that King’s status as a contractor working at this school was the reason that her claim was not covered. 

The appeals court ruling states that King did not challenge the board's decision that the parking lot exception did not apply to her case at all. In Court, however, she argued: "that had she encountered a child in the parking lot in need of assistance, it would have been within her responsibility as a teacher to assist." King’s lawyer further argued that his client technically was still on her shift at the time when she left the school and if she had been asked by the principle to return back to the school she would have.

But the appeals court disagreed. "The fact that claimant's job ordinarily required her to tend to students outside of the school building did not mean that on the particular day and time of the injury she was still working as she walked to her car (at a time when she was not attending to students). And here, even though the claimant was technically within the hours of her regular shift and could have assisted a student in the parking lot, had the opportunity arisen, the board found that she had been released from work and was no longer under employer's direction and control as she left the school."

WorkersCompensation.com reached out to King's Attorney and High Desert Education Service District, but did not hear back by press time. In a media release, her attorney said that there was no plan to appeal this decision to the state Supreme Court.

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