{
  "id": 6137612,
  "name": "PILGRIMS PRIDE CORPORATION v. JoAnn CALDARERA",
  "name_abbreviation": "Pilgrims Pride Corp. v. Caldarera",
  "decision_date": "1996-06-12",
  "docket_number": "CA 95-883",
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  "last_updated": "2023-07-14T17:04:29.533878+00:00",
  "provenance": {
    "date_added": "2019-08-29",
    "source": "Harvard",
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  "casebody": {
    "judges": [
      "Cooper and Mayfield, JJ., agree."
    ],
    "parties": [
      "PILGRIMS PRIDE CORPORATION v. JoAnn CALDARERA"
    ],
    "opinions": [
      {
        "text": "JOHN F. Stroud, Jr., Judge.\nOn June 23, 1992, JoAnn Caldarera suffered a knee injury in the poultry processing plant where she worked. She received initial medical treatment through the company physician, but eventually surgery was required. The employer, Pilgrims Pride, contested her claim for workers\u2019 compensation benefits. The administrative law judge found the claim compensable and found that she was entided to temporary total disability benefits from September 1 through November 9, 1992, as well as reasonably necessary medical expenses related to the injury. After conducting a de novo review, the Workers\u2019 Compensation Commission affirmed and adopted the decision of the law judge. Pilgrims Pride now appeals, contending that the Commission erred in finding that Ms. Caldarera was injured during the course of her employment. We affirm.\nA challenge to the Commission\u2019s findings constitutes a challenge to the sufficiency of the evidence to sustain the finding. City of El Dorado v. Sartor, 21 Ark. App. 143, 729 S.W.2d 430 (1987). In determining the sufficiency of the evidence to sustain the Commission\u2019s factual findings, we review the evidence in the light most favorable to those findings, and we must affirm if there is any substantial evidence to support them. Id. We may reverse the Commission\u2019s findings only when we are convinced that fair-minded people with the same facts before them could not have arrived at the conclusion reached by the Commission. Id. It is the function of the Commission to draw inferences when testimony is open to more than one interpretation, and when it does, its findings have the force and effect of a jury verdict. Clark v. Peabody Testing Serv., 265 Ark. 489, 579 S.W.2d 360 (1979). Determinations of the weight and credibility of the evidence are exclusively within the province of the Commission. George W. Jackson Mental Health Ctr. v. Lambie, 49 Ark. App. 139, 898 S.W.2d 479 (1995).\nBoth the claimant and her son testified at the hearing before the administrative law judge. Their testimony reveals that, immediately before the injury, the claimant was working at her station on the lower floor of the plant, and her son was working on a suspended catwalk above the floor. He was working alone on the chicken-wing machine, which usually was operated by more than one employee. When he could not keep up with the machine, chicken wings began \u201cflying everywhere,\u201d and he \u201chollered for help.\u201d The wings hit workers below, including a female co-worker who accused him of throwing them at her. The two exchanged heated words. He said, \u201cYou bitch, get up here and help me.\u201d She ran up onto the catwalk, swinging her arms, and began hitting him. He put a hand in front of his glasses as her blows approached his face. A crowd gathered to watch, but neither security nor supervisory personnel came, and no one tried to stop the altercation.\nThe claimant testified that she was doing her job at the chicken-thigh machine on the main floor when this action took place on the catwalk. She saw her son\u2019s face redden just before he \u201creared his fist back like he was going to get her.\u201d The claimant screamed, \u201cDon\u2019t hit her!\u201d She stated that she left her machine and hurried to the catwalk to see if she could separate them. Her knee injury occurred when she slipped in her wet shoes on a metal step of the catwalk.\nA claimant seeking benefits must prove by a preponderance of the evidence that the injury arose out of and in the course of the employment. Deffenbaugh Indus. v. Angus, 313 Ark. 100, 852 S.W.2d 804 (1993). \u201cArising out of the employment\u201d refers to the origin or cause of the accident while the phrase \u201cin the course of the employment\u201d refers to the time, place, and circumstances under which the injury occurred. Id. The test for the course of employment requires that the injury occur within the time and space boundaries of the employment, while the employee is carrying out the employer\u2019s purpose or advancing the employer\u2019s interests directly or indirectly. Id. (citations omitted) (emphasis added).\nAppellant challenges the -finding of compensability, relying upon San Antonio Shoes v. Beaty, 28 Ark. App. 201, 771 S.W.2d 802 (1989), for the proposition that injuries are not compensable when a workplace assault arises out of purely personal reasons. Appellant contends that appellee left her station to pursue an endeavor that was strictly personal and that appellee\u2019s actions were not in furtherance of her responsibilities to her employer.\nThe Commission found that the decision of the administrative law judge was supported by a preponderance of the credible evidence and correcdy applied the law. Its opinion included the following conclusions:\nWhile Ms. Caldarera\u2019s movement toward the fight area was not striedy \u201cin furtherance of her employer\u2019s business,\u201d she was certainly acting in the employer\u2019s best interest in trying to stop a fight in which far more grave injuries might have been incurred. . . .\nHere appellee testified that she was hurrying to the catwalk to see if she could separate her son and his co-worker, and she stated that she probably would have made efforts to stop the fight even if her son had not been involved. We believe that reasonable minds could reach the Commission\u2019s conclusion that appellee\u2019s actions were not personal and that she was acting in her employer\u2019s best interest when she approached the catwalk and hit her knee. We therefore hold that substantial evidence supports the Commission\u2019s finding that appellee sustained a compensable injury.\nAffirmed.\nCooper and Mayfield, JJ., agree.",
        "type": "majority",
        "author": "JOHN F. Stroud, Jr., Judge."
      }
    ],
    "attorneys": [
      "The Trammell Law Firm, by: Robert D. Trammell, for appellant.",
      "The Whetstone Law Firm, P.A., by: Gary Davis, for appellee."
    ],
    "corrections": "",
    "head_matter": "PILGRIMS PRIDE CORPORATION v. JoAnn CALDARERA\nCA 95-883\n923 S.W.2d 290\nCourt of Appeals of Arkansas Division II\nOpinion delivered June 12, 1996\nThe Trammell Law Firm, by: Robert D. Trammell, for appellant.\nThe Whetstone Law Firm, P.A., by: Gary Davis, for appellee."
  },
  "file_name": "0092-01",
  "first_page_order": 118,
  "last_page_order": 121
}