Legal Definitions - positional-risk doctrine

The positional-risk doctrine is a legal principle used in workers' compensation cases. It helps determine if an employee'sinjury is considered to have "arisen out of employment," which is a requirement for receiving benefits. Under this doctrine, an injury is deemed to have arisen out of employment if the employee's job duties specifically required them to be in the exact location where the injury occurred at the time it happened. Essentially, if the employee was injured simply because their job placed them in a particular spot, they may be eligible for workers' compensation, even if the direct cause of the injury wasn't a typical hazard of their specific tasks.

Here are a few examples illustrating the positional-risk doctrine:

• Scenario: A security guard is assigned to a specific post inside a large office building. While on duty, an unexpected, severe earthquake strikes, causing a ceiling tile to fall and injure the guard.

  Explanation: The security guard's job required them to be at that particular post within the building. The earthquake was an external, unforeseen event not directly related to security work, but the injury occurred because the guard was in the specific location mandated by their employment when the event happened. The positional-risk doctrine would likely apply, making the injury compensable.

• Scenario: A delivery driver is making a scheduled stop at a customer's home. As they are walking up the driveway, a neighbor's dog, which had escaped its yard, unexpectedly runs onto the property and bites the driver.

  Explanation: The delivery driver's job required them to be at that specific address and on that property to complete the delivery. The dog bite was an unpredictable event caused by a third party (the neighbor's dog), but it happened because the driver's employment placed them in that exact location at that moment. This situation would likely fall under the positional-risk doctrine for workers' compensation.

• Scenario: An office worker is at their desk, which is located near a large window on the tenth floor of a building. A sudden, powerful gust of wind dislodges a loose piece of debris from an adjacent construction site, which then crashes through the window and strikes the worker.

  Explanation: The office worker's employment required them to be at their designated workstation. The injury was caused by an external, random event (debris from a construction site propelled by wind) that was not a direct hazard of office work. However, because the worker's job required them to be in that specific spot next to the window, they were exposed to and injured by the unforeseen incident. The positional-risk doctrine would likely apply here.