Employee Whiffs on Workers’ Compensation Claim for TopGolf Injury

An employee who claims he injured his knee while swinging a club during an employer-sponsored TopGolf event has failed to qualify for workers’ compensation benefits.

The Virginia Workers’ Compensation Commission recently upheld the denial of benefits for the injured employee by a deputy commissioner. The panel found that the employee failed to carry his burden of proof that he sustained an injury by accident arising out of and in the course of his employment.

While the employee claimed to have mentioned the injury to his supervisor the day of the event and two more times after that, his supervisor, who the deputy commissioner found credible, testified that he did not mention the injury to her at the times he claimed and that he only reported it to the human resource (HR) department weeks later on the same day he was terminated.

The claimant worked for S&P Global as a customer service specialist. On June 10, 2024, he attended a company-sponsored event at Topgolf, an entertainment venue with a hi-tech driving range. He testified that on the first swing of the day, his right knee buckled, making a “kind of popping sound” with pain radiating down his leg. He fell on his knee and then sat down for 15 to 20 minutes. Thereafter, he continued to participate in the event, attending lunch, and then playing for about another hour after lunch.

More than six weeks later, and a week after he was terminated, he sought an award of medical benefits and temporary total disability. S&P and its insurer denied the claims, asserting that he did not experience a compensable injury by accident arising out of and in the course of his employment and that he failed to give timely notice of an accident and delayed getting medical treatment.

A VWCC deputy commissioner upheld the employer’s decision. The employee then appealed to the full VWCC.

The employee had testified that he mentioned to his supervisor at the TopGolf event that he had injured his knee. He said she expressed sympathy but did not discuss filing a workers’ compensation claim or completing an incident report.

The next day at a team meeting, he said he again brought up that he injured his knee during the event. But he said he was “basically ignored.” A week or two later, he attended a one-on-one meeting with his supervisor where he said he again reported having injured his knee. He said she expressed sympathy but did not provide instructions regarding filing a workers’ compensation claim or seeking medical attention.

The claimant denied any history of right knee problems or treatment. After the incident, his knee and hip were painful and he walked with a noticeable limp. He treated his symptoms with ice and Advil. He did not take any time off for work because he was in training.

On July 16, 2024, the claimant’s employment was terminated by the employer’s human resources department. At that meeting, the claimant reported his injury. He did not seek medical treatment until July 23, 2024.

His supervisor said he was terminated because he “was unable to complete his training due to just insufficient ability to perform work tasks.” She testified that she saw the claimant at the event but denied that he reported he had sustained a work injury then . the next day or at their one-on-one meeting.

The supervisor testified that had the claimant reported a work injury on the day of the event or soon thereafter, the company’s HR department would have investigated the claim and made provisions for medical treatment.

The deputy commissioner found the claimant failed to carry his burden of proof, stressing that his direct supervisor contradicted this testimony. In appealing to the full VWCC, the claimant argued that the deputy commissioner erred in relying on his supervisor’s contradictory testimony, asserting that her testimony was relevant to notice but not necessarily to whether an injury by accident occurred.

But the VWCC decided there was no error by the deputy and there was no reason to deviate from its usual practice of deferring to a deputy commissioner. The VWCC concluded:

“The Deputy Commissioner considered all of the evidence including the claimant’s failure to report the incident after it happened, his failure to seek medical treatment until weeks after the accident and after his termination, and his failure to complete an incident report after the incident until he had been terminated from employment. All of these factors were determinative in the Deputy Commissioner’s decision.”