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Hypl v. Industrial Commission of Arizona5/10/2005
In this statutory special action, petitioner/employee Jaroslav Hypl challenges the administrative law judge's (ALJ) decision concluding that Hypl had failed to show that his injury occurred in the course of and arose out of his employment with Corexpress. The ALJ made this determination based, in part, on his conclusion that Hypl was not entitled to the benefit of a presumption. Because we conclude that Hypl may be entitled to a presumption if he can show his injuries occurred during the time and space limitations of his employment, we set aside the award.
The facts relevant to this special action are undisputed. On May 2, 2002, Hypl accepted a job with Corexpress to transport several barrels of wire from Nogales, Arizona, to El Paso, Texas, a distance of approximately 350 miles. Hypl began the trip at approximately 6:00 p.m. that evening and was instructed to deliver the wire by 6:00 a.m. the next morning. At 6:30 a.m., a half hour past the required delivery time, Hypl was arrested on Interstate 10 near Deming, New Mexico, after a police officer witnessed him driving erratically. At the time of his arrest, Hypl was traveling westbound, i.e., away from El Paso, but had not yet delivered the wire to its destination.
Presuming Hypl was intoxicated, the officer took him to a police station for booking. After closer examination, the officer realized Hypl was injured and sought medical attention for him. Hypl was taken to a nearby hospital where physicians determined that he had a skull fracture on the top of his head, blood clots in the frontal and temporal lobes of his brain, and blood in the surface of his brain. He was transported by helicopter to University Medical Center in Tucson, Arizona, for emergency surgery and remained in a coma for over eight hours after the surgery.
Hypl filed a claim for workers' compensation benefits, which was denied. Hypl requested a hearing and testified at the hearing that he had no memory of the events that had caused his injury. Although he remembered loading the wire onto the truck in Nogales and driving toward Interstate 10, he recalled nothing else until he awoke from the coma after his surgery. The ALJ determined that Hypl had not met his burden of proving the injury had occurred within the course and scope of his employment. The ALJ further concluded that the "unexplained death presumption" had not been extended in Arizona to an applicant who was alive and declined to extend it in this case. Ultimately, the ALJ found the injury non-compensable. The award was affirmed upon administrative review, and this statutory special action followed.
Hypl argues on review that the ALJ's award is not reasonably supported by the evidence, claiming he was entitled to a presumption that the injury occurred within the course and scope of his employment. On review of an award, we deferentially review an ALJ's factual findings reasonably supported by the record but review the ALJ's legal conclusions de novo. PFS v. Indus. Comm'n, 191 Ariz. 274, 277, 955 P.2d 30, 33 (App. 1997).
A compensable injury must both arise out of and occur in the course of employment. A.R.S. ยง 23-1021(A). The "arising out of" requirement refers to the origin or cause of the injury and is met when the claimant shows a causal relationship between the employment and the injury. See Murphy v. Indus. Comm'n, 160 Ariz. 482, 485, 774 P.2d 221, 224 (1989). The "in the course of" requirement is satisfied if the claimant shows the injury occurred during the time, place, and circumstances of the claimant's employment. Montgomery v. Indus. Comm'n, 173 Ariz. 106, 108, 840 P.2d 282, 284 (App. 1992). As the claimant, Hypl had the burden of establishing bo
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