## Facts

- Wilma Pacheco worked for Orchids of Hawaii (Orchids) on a production team.
- Orchids provided employees with two 15-minute coffee breaks each workday (one in the morning and one in the afternoon).
- Employees usually stayed on Orchids’ premises during coffee breaks, but Orchids permitted employees to leave the premises during those breaks.
- On July 7, 1967, during the afternoon coffee break, Pacheco left Orchids’ premises with three co-employees in a co-worker’s car to go to a nearby bank so Pacheco could cash her paycheck.
- Pacheco expected to work late that day, past the time the bank would close, which made it necessary for her to cash the check during the workday.
- Pacheco had cashed a paycheck during a coffee break on a prior occasion without being reprimanded.
- A supervisor saw Pacheco and the others leaving and told them to hurry back.
- On the way to the bank, the car was involved in an accident, and Pacheco was killed.
- Pacheco’s dependents sought workers’ compensation death benefits.
- The Department of Labor and Industrial Relations denied the claim; the Labor and Industrial Relations Appeals Board reversed and awarded benefits.
- Orchids appealed the award to the Supreme Court of Hawaii.

## Issues

1. Whether Pacheco’s fatal injuries, suffered off-premises during an authorized coffee break while traveling to a nearby bank to cash her paycheck with the employer’s knowledge and permission, arose out of and in the course of employment under Hawaii workers’ compensation law.

## Decision

- The Supreme Court of Hawaii affirmed the Labor and Industrial Relations Appeals Board’s award of benefits.
- The court held that Pacheco’s death arose out of and in the course of her employment and was compensable.

## Legal Principles

- Workers’ compensation coverage requires an injury by accident “arising out of and in the course of employment” under Hawaii law.
- Hawaii applies a remedial approach to workers’ compensation, reading coverage broadly where the employment connection is reasonably shown.
- Scheduled rest/coffee breaks are treated as part of the workday; injuries during such breaks may be within the course of employment even when they occur off the employer’s premises.
- The court adopted a general rule that an employee who is allowed to go off-premises during an authorized work break, and who is injured while engaged in reasonable and necessary activity incidental to that break, should be compensated.
- A key consideration is whether the employer can be deemed to have retained authority over the employee during the break; factors bearing on that include the short duration of the break and the limited distance traveled from the work site.
- Employer knowledge and acquiescence matter: where the employer permits off-premises break travel and supervisors observe it (and, here, instruct employees to return promptly), the off-premises activity is more likely to remain within the employment relationship.
- Compensation may be denied when the employee’s conduct is a substantial personal deviation outside the employer-allowed scope for the break; the court distinguished cases involving a “purely personal mission” that departed from employer-imposed limits.

## Conclusion

The Hawaii Supreme Court affirmed an award of workers’ compensation death benefits to Pacheco’s dependents because Pacheco was on a short, authorized coffee break, Orchids permitted employees to leave the premises during that break, the trip to a nearby bank to cash her paycheck was a reasonable and necessary break-time errand given her expected late work hours, and the employer’s observed permission supported treating the fatal off-premises accident as arising out of and in the course of employment.


Pacheco's Dependents v. Orchids of Hawaii, 502 P.2d 1399 (1972)