Health aide’s slip, fall outside home not compensable

An appeals court in Ohio ruled that an injury suffered in a slip and fall that occurred 15 minutes after a home health aide’s shift ended and outside of a client’s home is not compensable.

Debra McAlpine was providing care for a disabled woman that she considered an old friend, working several shifts seven days per week, and sometimes staying later to talk or watch television. “Once in a while,” Ms. McAlpine stayed at the home overnight and stated that “she did so out of friendship, not as part of her assigned duties,” according to documents in Debra S. McAlpine v. Stephanie B. McCloud, administrator, Bureau of Workers’ Compensation, filed in the Court of Appeals of Ohio, Second District in Montgomery County, Ohio.

In 2019, Ms. McAlpine fractured her back, 15 minutes after clocking out of her two-hour shift, when she slipped and fell while investigating a noise outside of the residence. She sought workers compensation benefits, which were denied.

The Ohio Industrial Commission staff twice disallowed her claim, finding that “as the Claimant departed from the client’s house, she removed herself from activity in the course of and arising out of her employment when she departed from the walkway in order to investigate a noise that she perceived to come from the side of her friend’s house. At that point, the Claimant was not in the course of her duties and her activity did not arise from her employment, but instead arose out of the relationship with her friend.”

The appeals court agreed, writing that “the evidence does not support a conclusion that McAlpine’s injury occurred within the course of her employment and arising out of her employment.”