## Facts

- Randall F. Fetterman worked as a UPS parcel delivery driver whose duties included loading, unloading, and delivering packages averaging about 35 pounds.
- While unloading packages from his truck during his delivery route, Fetterman noticed his right shoe was untied.
- He stopped in the back of the truck, raised his foot, bent over to tie the shoe, and felt acute lower-back pain.
- He was diagnosed with a lumbosacral strain and sought workers’ compensation benefits.
- A deputy commissioner denied the claim, finding the injury did not “arise out of” employment because tying a shoe was a coincidental, non-employment risk.
- The full Industrial Commission unanimously reversed, reasoning the work environment affected how the shoe was tied and the act was necessary to continue working.
- UPS and its carrier appealed to the Supreme Court of Virginia.

## Issues

1. Whether a back injury sustained while bending to tie an untied shoe during work “arose out of” the employment under Virginia workers’ compensation law.

## Decision

- The Supreme Court of Virginia reversed the Industrial Commission’s award and denied compensation.
- The court held the injury did not “arise out of” employment because the hazard was a common, personal risk not created or increased by the work.
- The court treated the workplace setting and the employee’s need to continue working as insufficient to establish the required causal connection.

## Legal Principles

- An accident “arises out of” employment only if there is a causal connection between the injury and the conditions under which the employer requires the work to be performed.
- An injury arises out of employment when it is a natural incident of the work and results from exposure occasioned by the nature of the employment.
- Injuries are excluded when they result from a hazard to which the employee would have been equally exposed apart from the employment.
- “In the course of” employment (time, place, and activity) is distinct from “arising out of” employment (work-related risk); both must be satisfied for compensability.

## Conclusion

Because bending to tie an untied shoe presented an everyday hazard not peculiar to or increased by parcel-delivery work, the employee’s back strain, though occurring during work, did not arise out of the employment and was not compensable.


United Parcel Serv. of Am. v. Fetterman, 336 S.E.2d 892 (Va. 1985)