## Facts

- Michael Prows worked as a truck driver responsible for loading boxed medical supplies onto his delivery truck and making deliveries.
- The supplies were bundled with elastic “rubber bands” that employees sometimes used for workplace “rubber band fights,” described by coworkers as frequent; a supervisor testified he occasionally observed and discouraged them.
- On March 3, 1978, while Prows was loading his truck, two coworkers flipped one or two rubber bands at him; Prows flipped a rubber band back.
- A coworker then tore an approximately eighteen-inch piece of wood from a pallet and approached Prows holding it like a sword.
- Prows took the wood, placed a rubber band between the handles of his hand truck, and attempted to propel the wood upward in a slingshot fashion.
- The wood instead struck Prows in the right eye, severely injuring him.

## Issues

1. Whether an eye injury sustained during brief workplace horseplay occurring alongside assigned duties “arose out of” and occurred “in the course of” employment for workers’ compensation coverage.
2. Whether Prows’s conduct constituted a substantial deviation or complete abandonment of employment, barring compensation.

## Decision

- The Utah Supreme Court reversed the Industrial Commission’s order denying benefits.
- The court held the injury arose in the course of employment and was compensable under Utah’s workers’ compensation statute.
- The court rejected the Commission’s conclusion that the incident was a complete abandonment of duties, characterizing it as a minor deviation commingled with work.

## Legal Principles

- A workplace injury may be compensable despite horseplay if the conduct is a minor, short-lived deviation occurring during performance of assigned work and on the employer’s premises.
- In evaluating horseplay, relevant considerations include the extent and seriousness of the deviation, whether duties were abandoned, whether similar conduct had become a recurring feature of the work environment, and the foreseeability of the risk in that setting.
- Employer discouragement of horseplay is not dispositive when the conduct is recurring and foreseeable in the actual workplace conditions.
- “Arising out of” and “in the course of” employment can be satisfied when the injury occurs during working hours, at the worksite, and in connection with risks incident to the employment environment.

## Conclusion

Because the incident occurred during truck-loading duties and reflected a brief, foreseeable departure within the workplace environment rather than a complete abandonment of work, the court held the eye injury compensable and reversed the denial of workers’ compensation benefits.


Prows v. Indus. Comm’n of Utah, 610 P.2d 1362 (Utah 1980)