Baldwin v. I.S.D. #877

Baldwin v. I.S.D. #877, No. WC11-5348 (W.C.C.A. April 10, 2012). Affirmed.

The employer and insurer argued that the employee’s knee injury, which occurred when her knee buckled while she was walking down a hallway, was caused by her preexisting condition and her obesity, and did not arise out of her employment.  The compensation judge found that despite her history of knee problems and the fact that she was just walking along when her knee buckled, her injury was not idiopathic, and it did arise out of her employment. The W.C.C.A. affirmed this decision and referenced an early case, Caizzo v. McDonald’s, in which mere standing was found to put the employee at an increased risk.  This case is one example of how difficult it is to win a reversal in an “arising out of and in the course of” case on appeal.