Teaching assistant may be entitled to comp for fall

A teaching assistant may be entitled to workers compensation stemming from an injury she suffered after a fall in the school hallway.

In Re Appeal of Doody, a three-judge panel of the Supreme Court of New Hampshire unanimously reversed and remanded a New Hampshire Compensation Appeals Board ruling after finding that the board failed to consider whether the teaching assistant’s duties — which required her to walk children to and from a speech room multiple times over the course of the day — increased her risk of injury.

Elizabeth Doody worked for Laconia School District as an elementary school speech assistant and was required to accompany students to and from the speech services room to other areas of the school and to and from a locked side entrance door at the beginning and end of each school day.

On April 28, 2017, she fell twice while walking toward the side entrance – once around 8:30 a.m. as children were arriving, and again around 3 p.m. as children were leaving. The morning fall did not injure her, but she fractured her right arm in the afternoon fall and required surgery.

She sought workers compensation, but the district’s insurance carrier denied her claim after it determined that her injury was not causally related to her employment. A hearing officer upheld the denial of benefits and the state’s compensation appeals board affirmed that decision, holding that Ms. Doody failed to prove that a “defect in the floor surface or door mat posed an actual risk that caused (her) fall” and that the “unexplained fall was a neutral risk …” She appealed.

The New Hampshire Supreme Court vacated the appeals board’s decision and remanded the case. While the court found that the appeals board did not err in finding that Ms. Doody’s injury was not the result of a risk directly related to her employment, the court did find that the board erred in finding that she failed to meet her burden under the increased risk test.

Ms. Doody argued that her employment required her to traverse the hallway as often as 20 times per day to walk children back and forth. The court held that the board failed to make “express factual findings” of whether Ms. Doody was subjected to an increased risk of injury because her job required her to walk students to and from the speech room, and vacated and remanded the decision for further fact-finding.