By John Lyon
Arkansas News Bureau

LITTLE ROCK — A woman who was injured while on a smoke break is not entitled to worker’s compensation benefits because taking a break to smoke did not advance her employer’s interests, a divided state Court of Appeals ruled Wednesday.

In a 5-4 decision, the court overturned a ruling by the state Workers’ Compensation Commission that awarded benefits to Ronna Woods, an employee of Jonesboro Care & Rehab Center who fell at work and broke her arm on Oct. 24, 2008.

On the day of the accident, Woods and other employees were required to attend a training seminar in the center’s dining hall. After the seminar, the employees were told to form a line to receive their paychecks and complete paperwork for flu shots, after which they were to clock out.

Woods testified that she went to a designated outdoor smoking area to smoke a cigarette while waiting for the line to shorten. She was returning from the smoke break when she fell onto the concrete pavement and broke her left arm.

Judge Rita Gruber wrote in the Court of Appeals’ majority opinion Wednesday that Woods was not entitled to benefits because she was not advancing the interest of her employer while taking an unscheduled, unauthorized smoke break.

Gruber said it is clear from past state Supreme Court rulings that injuries sustained by employees on bathroom breaks are compensable, but she drew a distinction between bathroom breaks and smoke breaks. There is no evidence that Woods “engaged in any activity from which her employer derived a benefit,” Gruber wrote.

Judges Robert Gladwin, David Glover, D.P. Marshall Jr. and Waymond Brown concurred in the majority opinion.

Judge Michael Kinard said in a dissenting opinion he would have upheld the Workers’ Compensation Commission’s decision to award benefits to Woods.

“Woods … was advancing her employer’s interest by remaining on the premises, still on the clock, unable to leave, waiting for the line to thin, to hand in the requisite forms to obtain a flu shot (certainly to the benefit of this elder-care facility) and receive a paycheck,” Kinard wrote.

The majority failed to follow its obligation to consider the evidence in the light most favorable to the Workers’ Compensation Commission before overturning the commission’s ruling, Kinard said in the opinion.
Judges Josephine Linker Hart, John Robbins and Karen Baker concurred in the dissent.