AR: nurse injured while attending mandatory CE: comp. benefits denied on basis of 'inconsistencies'.

CASE FACTS: Lorie Davis was employed as a charge nurse for Fresenius Medical Care. On February 11, 2001, she rode from Forrest City, Arkansas, to Memphis, Tennessee, with her supervisor, Gwen Palmer, to attend a mandatory continuing education conference. The meeting was held at a Holiday Inn. The exact circumstances surrounding the nurse's injury were not clear. At a hearing on her application for workers's compensation benefits, the nurse alleged that she left the conference room during the middle of a presentation to go to the ladies' room. However, the record was replete with inconsistencies in terms of whether or not the nurse fell on carpeted concrete or in the parking tot outside the building. Nurse Palmer maintained that she did not remember Nurse Davis telling her about receiving an injury at any time on that date, including during the ride home from Memphis to Forrest City. According to Nurse Palmer, she did not learn that Nurse Davis was alleging that she was injured until February 17, and even then, Nurse Davis did not tell her where she fell. Nurse Palmer maintained that Nurse Davis did not want to tell her how she hurt her back because "she was apparently embarrassed about being clumsy." An Administrative Law Judge (ALJ) found that Nurse Davis was not a credible witness because her testimony contradicted that of her co-workers. The ALJ noted that the nurse could not remember various portions of her deposition testimony and that her testimony contradicted medical histories that she related to various health care providers. Davis appealed the denial of her application for workers' compensation.

COURT'S OPINION: The Court of Appeals of Arkansas affirmed the denial of benefits for Nurse Davis. The court found, inter alia, that there was evidence that the nurse fell in three different places: in the hallway of the hotel, near an outside vending machine close to the hotel's pool, and in the hotel's parking lot. The court noted that claimant attempted to gloss over the different versions of how the injury occurred. The court commented that the claimant would have the court hold that as long as there was a conflict of versions as to how her injury occurred, any one of which would render the injury compensable, the claimant met her burden of proof. However, the court concluded that she was obliged to prove, by a preponderance of the evidence, that she sustained a compensable injury, identifiable by time and place, that arose out of and during the course of her employment. The court concluded that she failed to meet her burden of proof. Davis v. Fresenius Medical Care, 2004 WL 2181799 S.W.3d -AR