CRYSTAL LYNN MATTS, Applicant

COUNTY OF DANE, Employer

COUNTY OF DANE, Insurer

An administrative law judge (ALJ) for the Worker's Compensation Division of the Department of Workforce Development issued a decision in this matter. A timely petition for review was filed.

The commission has considered the petition and the positions of the parties, and it has reviewed the evidence submitted to the ALJ. Based on its review, the commission agrees with the decision of the ALJ, and it adopts the findings and order in that decision as its own.

The findings and order of the administrative law judge are affirmed. Jurisdiction is reserved for such further findings and orders as may be warranted.

Dated and mailed July 25, 2001
mattscr . wsd : 185 : 8  ND § 3.33   § 3.34 

/s/ David B. Falstad, Chairman

/s/ James A. Rutkowski, Commissioner

Applying the positional risk doctrine to the facts of this case, it is clear that the applicant's injury was not the result of a force solely personal to her with no connection to her employment. The injury occurred when the applicant swung her right leg out from between the picnic tabletop and the attached bench, and attempted to stand up from her seated position. This maneuver, made necessary by the picnic table structure, resulted in a twisting force being applied against her left knee and was causative of her injury.

These circumstances differ from Witkowski v. ARPS Manufacturing, Inc. and Transportation Insurance Company, WC Claim No. 86-37831(LIRC May 6, 1988), where the applicant experienced back pain as he stood up from a seated position at a picnic table. In Witkowski, the picnic table did not cause the employee to place any particular stress on his back. Mr. Witkowski experienced back pain merely from the act of rising from a seated to a standing position, an idiopathic event.

The commission recognizes that the applicant had a preexisting knee condition and is obese, both factors which may have predisposed her knee to injury. However, employers take employees "as is," (1)  and such predisposition does not change the credible inference that the conditions of the employment in this case were substantially causative of the applicant's knee injury.

cc: 
Attorney Aaron Halstead
Attorney Kenneth R. Baumgart

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(1)( Back ) See Semons Department Store v. DILHR, 50 Wis. 2d 518, 527-28, 184 N.W.2d 871 (1971).

uploaded 2001/07/30