## Facts

- John Patrick Graybeal served as the elected Commonwealth’s Attorney for Montgomery County, Virginia.
- In 1968, Graybeal prosecuted Frank H. Dewease, Jr. for murder; Dewease was convicted and sentenced to imprisonment.
- Dewease made explicit threats to retaliate against those involved in the prosecution, focusing particularly on Graybeal, and claimed knowledge of bomb-making.
- On December 4, 1973, after Dewease’s release, he placed a homemade bomb in a container on top of Graybeal’s family automobile parked in Graybeal’s driveway.
- That evening Graybeal worked at the courthouse preparing for the next day’s criminal docket, then returned home around 11:30 p.m.
- Seeing the container on the family car, Graybeal picked it up; it exploded and caused severe, disabling injuries.
- Graybeal filed a workers’ compensation claim against the county’s Board of Supervisors as his employer for compensation purposes.
- The Industrial Commission found the injury “arose out of” employment but did not occur “in the course of” employment and denied benefits; one commissioner dissented.

## Issues

1. Whether a retaliatory assault motivated by a prosecutor’s official acts can occur “in the course of” employment when it happens at the prosecutor’s home and outside ordinary working hours.
2. Whether the “time, place, and circumstances” requirement for “in the course of” employment is satisfied when the employment creates a continuing risk of such retaliatory harm.

## Decision

- The Supreme Court of Virginia reversed the Industrial Commission’s denial of benefits.
- The Court held that Graybeal’s injuries both arose out of and occurred in the course of his employment.
- The Court ruled the bombing was a compensable accidental injury under the Virginia Workmen’s Compensation Act and remanded for further proceedings consistent with its holding.

## Legal Principles

- “Arising out of” and “in the course of” employment are conjunctive requirements; both must be proven for compensability.
- “In the course of” concerns the time, place, and circumstances of the injury and is not limited to fixed working hours or the employer’s premises when the job’s nature extends beyond them.
- When employment exposes an employee to an increased and continuing risk of retaliatory assault because of official acts, an off-premises and after-hours assault may still occur “in the course of” employment.
- For public officials with duties requiring availability across locations and times, the employment relationship may extend to circumstances where job-created risks follow the employee beyond the workplace.

## Conclusion

Because the assault was a targeted retaliation for Graybeal’s prosecutorial duties and the risk of such retaliation was a continuing hazard created by the nature of his office, the injury occurred in the course of employment despite happening at home late at night, making the injury compensable.


Graybeal v. Bd. of Supervisors, 216 Va. 77, 216 S.E.2d 52 (Va. 1975)