Kansas: Unexplained Falls by Hospital’s Housekeeping Employee Found Compensable

A Kansas appellate court affirmed an award of workers’ compensation benefits to a Topeka hospital housekeeping employee who sustained injuries in two separate unexplained falls. The court was not persuaded by the employer’s argument that following a 2011 amendment to Kan. Stat. Ann. § 44-508(f)(3)(A), injuries that arise from all neutral risks, such as unexplained accidents, are no longer compensable. Finding the facts similar to those in Estate of Graber v. Dillon Cos., 2019 Kan. LEXIS 67 (Apr. 12, 2019), a decision by the state’s Supreme Court, the appellate court sustained the worker’s argument that walking was an important component of her job and her injuries, therefore, had an “employment character.”

Thomas A. Robinson, J.D., the Feature National Columnist for the LexisNexis Workers’ Compensation eNewsletter, is co-author of Larson’s Workers’ Compensation Law (LexisNexis).

LexisNexis Online Subscribers: Citations below link to Lexis Advance.

See Johnson v. Stormont Vail Healthcare Inc., 2019 Kan. App. LEXIS 47 (July 12, 2019)

See generally Larson’s Workers’ Compensation Law, § 7.04.

Source: Larson’s Workers’ Compensation Law, the nation’s leading authority on workers’ compensation law

For a more detailed discussion of the case, see