## Facts

- Gulf American Land Corporation employed Jocquelyn H. Shunk as a real estate “solicitor” to locate prospects and secure their participation in all-expense-paid promotional flights to a development near Naples, Florida.
- Shunk’s duties included ensuring that prospects actually boarded scheduled early-morning flights, which sometimes required contact at late or unusual hours.
- A prospect, Luther Tanly, was scheduled for a 7:00 a.m. flight from Daytona Beach to Naples.
- After a late dinner connected to the promotional effort, Shunk went with Tanly to his apartment around 2:30 a.m. to learn his exact location and room number so she could wake him and ensure he made the flight.
- A co-employee testified Shunk said she was going to get Tanly’s room number and would return promptly.
- In Tanly’s apartment, Tanly made an improper sexual advance toward Shunk.
- While attempting to escape or avoid the advance, Shunk fell from a window and suffered serious injuries.
- The deputy commissioner found the injury arose out of and in the course of employment and awarded workers’ compensation benefits.
- The Florida Industrial Commission reversed, concluding Shunk had deviated from employment for personal reasons.
- The Supreme Court of Florida reviewed whether the Commission properly overturned the deputy’s supported findings.

## Issues

1. Whether Shunk’s injuries arose out of and in the course of her employment, or whether her conduct constituted a personal deviation barring workers’ compensation.
2. Whether the Florida Industrial Commission could reverse the deputy commissioner’s compensability finding where competent, substantial evidence supported it.

## Decision

- The Supreme Court of Florida quashed the Florida Industrial Commission’s order and reinstated the deputy commissioner’s award of benefits.
- The Court held competent, substantial evidence supported the deputy’s finding that Shunk was acting within the course and scope of employment when she went to the prospect’s apartment and when the injury occurred.
- The Court concluded the Commission erred by substituting its judgment for the deputy’s fact findings and treating the incident as a noncompensable personal deviation.

## Legal Principles

- An injury is compensable when it arises out of and in the course of employment, including acts reasonably incidental to furthering the employer’s business where the job contemplates irregular hours and unusual methods.
- A reviewing commission may not overturn a deputy commissioner’s factual determinations if supported by competent, substantial evidence; it may not reweigh evidence or replace the deputy’s permissible inferences.
- A personal deviation breaks compensability only when the departure from work purposes is sufficiently substantial; work-related presence and purpose may sustain compensability despite intervening misconduct by a third party.

## Conclusion

The court reinstated workers’ compensation benefits because Shunk’s late-night effort to locate and ensure a prospect’s attendance at a scheduled promotional flight was supported as a work-related duty, and the reviewing commission lacked authority to overturn the deputy commissioner’s supported findings by recharacterizing the event as a personal deviation.


Shunk v. Gulf Am. Land Corp., 224 So. 2d 269 (Fla. 1969)