“The work-connection test may be satisfied if the factors supporting one prong of the statutory test are minimal while the factors supporting the other prong are many.”
How later courts described this case
- “The work-connection test may be satisfied if the factors supporting one prong of the statutory test are minimal while the factors supporting the other prong are many.”
- “Both prongs of the work-connection test must be satisfied to some degree; neither is dispositive.”
- the claimant’s work environment — where employer forced her to park in a dimly lit portion of employer’s parking lot — exposed her to the risk of assault
- An injury occurs “in the course of’ employment if it takes place “while the worker reasonably is fulfilling the duties of the employment or is doing something reasonably incidental to it.”
Written by the judges who cited it.
The opinion
GILLETTE, J.,
concurring.
I agree with the majority that there was a sufficient connection between claimant’s work and the circumstances of her injury to require an award of workers’ compensation benefits. I agree with the dissent that this is a very close case. I write this brief separate opinion to speak only to a concern that arises out of this court’s involvement in cases like the present one.
Regrettably, it turns out that this case was not review-worthy. As we finally decide it by a divided court, we turn out to be disagreeing only over the sufficiency of the agreed facts to meet a legal test which is not new and on *603 which all agree. That is not an appropriate expenditure of this court’s judicial time.
This case was affirmed without opinion by a panel of the Court of Appeals. Fred Meyer, Inc. v. Hayes, 141 Or App 439 , 917 P2d 1077 (1996). In that posture, the case had no precedential significance or, indeed, any other kind of significance to anyone other than the parties. A review of the extensive (but nonexclusive) list of criteria for granting discretionary review found at Oregon Rule of Appellate Procedure 9.07 fails to produce a single substantive example from that list that the present case fairly can be said to meet. With respect, I submit that we erred in allowing review.
The foregoing error would be of no moment, were it not for the collateral consequences that seem to flow from decisions like the one that we announce today: A number of parties, disappointed with the outcome of their intensely fact-bound disputes in the Court of Appeals, will feel that it is worthwhile to take a flyer on petitioning for review to this court. “After all,” they fairly may say, “the court took review in the Hayes case.”
I wish we hadn’t.