Anthony Hall practices primarily in the areas of labor and employment law. He provides litigation defense and extensive preventative counseling to clients in all areas of labor and employment law.
Dora Lane practices primarily in the field of employment and labor law. Her experience includes counseling clients on wage and hour, retaliation, and other employment related issues.
Under the Nevada workers’ compensation scheme, an employee bears the burden to show that an injury suffered on the job arose out of the course and scope of employment. Until recently, under the holdings of Rio Suite Hotel & Casino v. Gorsky, 113 Nev. 600, 939 P.2d 1043 (1997), and Mitchell v. Clark County School District, 121 Nev. 179, 111 P.3d 1104 (2005), an employee who was unable to demonstrate a causal connection between the workplace environment and her on-the-job injury, would likely be denied workers’ compensation benefits. For example, an employee who tripped on a piece of torn carpet in the hallway in front of her office would likely be able to show sufficient connection between her workplace and her resulting injury. By contrast, if the employee suffered a fall because of an epileptic condition or if the employee could not explain how she injured herself, no such causal connection would likely exist. This is because the Nevada Supreme Court has stated that employers are not absolutely liable for all injuries, simply because these injuries might occur on the job.
In the end of September 2010, however, the Nevada Supreme Court issued an opinion titled Rio All Suite Hotel and Casino v. Phillips, 240 P.3d 2 (Sept. 30, 2010). In Rio, the Nevada Supreme Court adopted a new test for determining whether, in certain circumstances, an employee’s injuries arose out of her employment. The Rio holding indicates that, where an employee’s injuries result from a neutral risk (e.g., walking on a flat non-slippery surface or going down a flight of stairs that are not defective), an employee may be able to recover workers’ compensation benefits where “the employment exposed the [employee] to a risk greater than that to which the general public was exposed.” The risk need not be “qualitatively peculiar to employment”; the employee’s injury may still be compensable where she is subjected to an “increased quantity of a risk.” The Supreme Court clarified that this new test applies in situations involving “neutral risk,” and not situations involving employment-related risks (e.g., tripping on a defect or falling on an uneven or slippery surface) or personal risks (e.g., epilepsy, bad knee, or multiple sclerosis).
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