## Facts

- Dora Kaplan was employed by Alpha Epsilon Phi Sorority as a live-in “house mother” at a sorority house near the University of Minnesota.
- She was subject to call 24 hours a day and performed broad caretaking and supervisory duties, including maintaining first-aid supplies for the house.
- On October 31, 1947, Kaplan left the sorority house to go to a drugstore about four blocks away to buy bandages to replenish the sorority’s first-aid kit.
- After the drugstore errand, she intended to take a streetcar to attend religious services at her temple.
- While crossing a public street, she slipped on a curb that had been greased as a Halloween prank and fractured her hip.
- Kaplan sought workers’ compensation, claiming the injury arose out of and in the course of her employment; the sorority and its insurer opposed the claim.

## Issues

1. Whether an off-premises injury during a trip with both employer-related and personal objectives can arise out of and in the course of employment under the controlling mixed-purpose (dual-purpose/dominant-purpose) standard.
2. Whether the Industrial Commission misapplied the governing legal standard in denying compensation based on Kaplan’s combined business errand (first-aid supplies) and personal plan (religious services).

## Decision

- The Minnesota Supreme Court reversed the Industrial Commission’s denial of compensation and remanded for a rehearing.
- The court held that, considering the findings as a whole, the commission decided the claim under an erroneous application of controlling law.
- The court did not decide compensability on the merits; it required reconsideration under the correct mixed-purpose trip analysis, including Kaplan’s resident, on-call employment status.

## Legal Principles

- For travel serving both business and personal purposes, an injury may be compensable if the trip would have been made for the business purpose alone, even if a personal motive also existed.
- If the trip would not have been made but for the personal purpose, the injury is not compensable as arising out of and in the course of employment.
- When compensation is denied or awarded due to misapprehension or misapplication of a controlling legal principle, an appellate court may reverse and remand for rehearing.

## Conclusion

The court required a rehearing because the commission’s denial rested on a mistaken approach to mixed-purpose travel, and it directed the commission to reassess whether the bandage-purchase errand, viewed in light of Kaplan’s live-in, on-call job, made the trip employment-related even though she also intended to attend religious services.


Kaplan v. Alpha Epsilon Phi Sorority, 42 N.W.2d 342 (Minn. 1950)