FRETT v. STATE FARM EMPLOYEE WORKERS' COMPENSATION

Rochelle Frett worked answering insurance calls for State Farm and took a mandatory, unpaid 45-minute lunch break each day. One day, after microwaving her food in the employee breakroom, she slipped on water and fell as she was leaving the room. She sought workers' compensation benefits, but the State Board of Workers' Compensation, a DeKalb County superior court, and the Court of Appeals of Georgia all denied her claim, relying on a 1935 Supreme Court of Georgia case holding that injuries during scheduled breaks do not count because the employee is on her own time. The Supreme Court of Georgia took up the case to reconsider that old precedent. The court concluded that the 1935 decision had confused two separate legal requirements and had produced decades of inconsistent, confusing rules. It overruled that precedent, held that Frett's injury both happened during her job duties and was caused by her work conditions, and sent the case back so she can pursue her claim.

The court held that eating lunch on an employer's premises is generally an activity incidental to employment, so an injury occurring during a scheduled but unpaid lunch break can satisfy both the 'in the course of' and 'arising out of' employment requirements, overruling a 1935 precedent that treated scheduled break injuries as purely personal and not employment-related.

The ruling changes how workers' compensation claims are evaluated for injuries during scheduled breaks statewide, likely making more break-time injuries, like slips in breakrooms or parking lots, compensable for Georgia workers and affecting how employers and insurers handle such claims going forward.

Reversed and remanded

1. The court explained that Georgia's workers' compensation law requires an injury to satisfy two separate tests: it must occur 'in the course of' employment (the time, place, and circumstances of the work) and 'arise out of' employment (a causal link between work conditions and the injury), and both must be met independently.
2. Applying the 'in the course of' test, the court found that preparing to eat lunch on the employer's premises during the workday is an activity incidental to employment, similar to using the restroom or quenching thirst, so Frett's injury met this requirement even though her break was unpaid and unsupervised.
3. Applying the 'arising out of' test, the court found a direct causal link because Frett slipped on a wet floor inside her employer's breakroom, meaning the hazard was tied to her work conditions rather than some outside personal risk.
4. The court then examined the 1935 precedent, Ocean Acc. & Guar. Corp. v. Farr, and concluded it wrongly blended the two separate tests by treating an employee's freedom to do as she pleased on break as proof the injury did not arise out of employment, when that freedom actually belongs to the 'in the course of' analysis.
5. Weighing the factors used to decide whether to abandon a prior ruling (the soundness of its reasoning, its age, reliance interests, and how workable it has been), the court found the reasoning unsound, the rule unworkable because it produced inconsistent results between similar cases, and no meaningful reliance interests that would be harmed by overturning it.
6. Because the old rule's reasoning was flawed and had caused decades of confusing exceptions, the court overruled it and held that Frett's injury satisfied both prerequisites for compensation under the Act.

• workers' compensation
• lunch break injury
• stare decisis
• overruled precedent
• State Farm