## Facts

- Lucindo Carvalho worked in a textile/yarn factory as a “flock-boy,” handling yarn.
- It was customary at the end of shifts for employees to use a compressed air hose to help each other remove lint and yarn from their clothing.
- During this customary cleaning on February 25, 1974, a coworker placed the air hose near Carvalho’s rectum, causing Carvalho to feel pressure, fall to the floor, and later experience severe pain.
- Carvalho was diagnosed with a perforated rectum; medical testimony indicated the injury could occur from air flow without insertion of the hose.
- Carvalho was unable to work from February 26, 1974 until August 1974.
- An emergency room record included a statement that coworkers were “fooling with an airhose” and someone “stuck [an air] hose up his rectum.”

## Issues

1. Whether an injury occurring during workplace conduct labeled “horseplay” can still “arise out of and in the course of” employment under the Rhode Island Workmen’s Compensation Act.
2. Whether the commission erred by denying compensation based on the label of “horseplay” or “assault” without findings on the employee’s participation and the work-connection of the risk.

## Decision

- The Supreme Court of Rhode Island vacated the decree denying compensation and remanded for further findings.
- The court held that “horseplay” is not an automatic statutory bar to compensation.
- The commission was required to determine whether there was a sufficient causal connection between the injury and the employment, including whether the customary air-hose practice (and any associated roughness) was a risk incidental to the work.
- The commission also had to make findings on whether Carvalho was an innocent victim or an active participant in the horseplay.

## Legal Principles

- Workers’ compensation coverage turns on whether an injury “arose out of and in the course of” employment, requiring a causal connection or “necessary nexus” to work conditions.
- Under the Rhode Island Workmen’s Compensation Act, the express statutory bars are limited to intoxication and the employee’s wilful intention to injure himself or another; fault-based exclusions are not to be implied.
- Conduct characterized as “horseplay” may be compensable when it is a foreseeable incident of the work environment or has become a customary, tolerated workplace practice.
- A commission may not deny compensability solely by labeling the event as horseplay or assault without specific findings addressing work-relatedness and the claimant’s role.

## Conclusion

The court rejected a categorical denial of workers’ compensation for injuries occurring during horseplay and required the commission to make specific findings on the employee’s participation and on whether the injury resulted from a work-incidental risk created by customary workplace practices.


Carvalho v. Decorative Fabrics Co., 366 A.2d 157 (R.I. 1976)