## Facts

- George Clark worked the night shift (11 p.m.–7 a.m.) at a plywood plant and was paid for two 10-minute breaks and a 20-minute lunch period.
- The employer provided on-premises lunchrooms with tables and vending machines but no facilities to heat employee-brought food.
- Employees sometimes warmed food on a hot glue press; a press operator testified he placed food on the press for employees two or three times a week and had done so for Clark before.
- About two hours before his scheduled lunch break, Clark asked an assistant press operator to place his lunch container on top of the hot glue press to warm.
- The hot glue press was about 100 feet from Clark’s workstation and included a chained-off gap with a warning sign; the chains were connected to a fail-safe device intended to disable operation if unhooked.
- Clark entered the restricted area to retrieve his lunch and was killed by the press.
- Clark’s widow sought workers’ compensation death benefits, asserting the fatal injury arose out of and in the course of employment.

## Issues

1. Whether a fatal injury incurred while retrieving a warmed lunch from employer machinery on the premises qualifies as an injury “arising out of and in the course of employment” under ORS 656.005(8)(a).
2. Whether entering a clearly marked, restricted area to retrieve lunch constituted a substantial deviation from employment that bars compensation.

## Decision

- The Oregon Supreme Court reversed the Court of Appeals and reinstated the Workers’ Compensation Board’s award of death benefits.
- The court held Clark’s death arose out of and in the course of employment.
- The court treated obtaining and consuming lunch on the premises during paid break time as a compensable “personal comfort” activity.
- The court concluded that Clark’s dangerous method of retrieving his lunch did not, by itself, constitute a disqualifying departure from employment.

## Legal Principles

- “Arising out of” and “in the course of” employment are distinct requirements; both must be satisfied for compensability.
- Personal comfort activities (including eating and related acts incidental to eating) generally remain within the course of employment when performed on the employer’s premises during authorized break time, absent a substantial departure.
- An employee’s negligent or risk-taking manner of performing an otherwise covered activity typically does not sever compensability; the focus is whether the activity is sufficiently connected to employment rather than whether it was performed safely.
- Workplace conditions and customary, tolerated practices can make a risk employment-related for “arising out of” purposes, even when the employee confronts a known hazard.

## Conclusion

Because Clark was on the employer’s premises during paid work time, engaged in an accepted lunch-related practice connected to the employer’s workplace conditions, his fatal injury was sufficiently work-related to be compensable despite his entry into a restricted area to retrieve the lunch.


Clark v. U.S. Plywood, 605 P.2d 265 (Or. 1980)