Shaw v. Dutton Berry Farm

In this workers’ compensation appeal, we review the question of whether an employee’s injury caused by the unprovoked stabbing by another employee in the “bunkhouse” after work is compensable as “arising out of” employment. We decide that it is and reverse the Commissioner of Labor and Industry’s determination to the contrary.

Bradley Shaw, a migrant farm laborer from Jamaica, worked at Dutton Berry Farm in Newfane, Vermont, during the summer of 1990. On July 16, after work, he was stabbed by a fellow worker, Dennis Smith. The injury occurred at a workers’ “bunkhouse” residence, where…