The Iowa Court of Appeals has once more attempted to address the issue of positional risk, but has come out with an outcome which contradicts their decision from ten months ago, in April of 2008.

The "positional risk" doctrine says that an injury at work is covered, even if the injury was not actually caused by something at the work site. For instance, if a worker falls at work and it is determined that the person simply fell over, then the employer might defend itself by arguing that the injury was not related to the workplace; under the "positional risk" doctrine, it the person is on a step or walking on a floor and falls, the agency considers that a covered injury, since the person was at work, and was thus in a position to get hurt. (See generally Larson's Workers' Compensation Law, § 3.05.)

In the current case, Rebecca Albertsen fell back against a restroom wall at work, and could not say how it happened. The injury was found to be covered, under the "idiopathic fall" doctrine.

That same situation was faced earlier this year by the same Iowa Court of Appeals with a contrary result, and I questioned the outcome then. See my blog about the Mitchell case. In that case, filed in April of 2008, the Iowa Court of Appeals found that a hospital worker who slipped on the floor would not have a compensable work injury, unless he or she could recall that there was a crack in the floor, a cord to trip over, liquid on the floor, or some other cause attributable to the work setting. In that case, unless she could say how it happened, the injury was not compensable.

Now, the Iowa Court of Appeals has reached a contrary result, in Benco Manufacturing v. Albertsen, filed February 4, 2009, by applying a principle that seems to be so similar to "positional risk" that there is little significant difference. In both cases, an employee had an unexplained fall. In both cases, the Commissioner found the injury was a compensable work injury. In Mitchell, the Court found that it was not compensable, and in Albertsen, they found that it was compensable, with almost identical facts.

In 2000, the Iowa Supreme Court, one step above the Iowa Court of Appeals, decided Koehler Elec. v. Wills, 608 N.W.2d 1 (Iowa 2000). In that case, Carlton Wills fell from a ladder, and was found to have sustained a compensable injury, because it was an "idiopathic fall." The Commissioner in  the current case found that the injury was compensable under the "positional risk" doctrine, or alternatively, under the "idiopathic fall" doctrine articulated in Koehler v. Wills, above. The Iowa Court of Appeals again said that the positional risk doctrine has not been accepted in Iowa , but that the Commissioner was correct in applying the "idiopathic fall" doctrine. Both result in the same outcome in this, and in almost any other imaginable fact situation.

Perhaps the Albertsen decision will put the whole argument to rest.