NEWARK, N.J. (Legal Newsline) – Getting run over by a snowplow is not a work-related injury, a New Jersey appeals court has ruled.
The Superior Court Appellate Division reached that conclusion Jan. 29 in the case of Diane Lapsley, a public employee and librarian in Sparta who was hit by a snowplow in a parking lot owned by the town.
Though the trial judge said her injuries were compensable because the premises rule says employment ends when an employee leaves their place of employment, excluding areas not under the control of the employer.
But applying that to public employers, like Sparta, invites “an overbroad and unwarranted expansion of public-entity liability for Workers’ Compensation claims,” Judge Stephanie Ann Mitterhoff wrote.
Lapsley was employed by Sparta to work at its library, which is located within a municipal complex that includes three parking lots, a baseball field and Board of Education offices. The lots are free for all.
They do not designate spots for town employees. Lapsley’s husband parked in one of them to pick her up in February 2014 during a snowstorm.
“After stepping off the library curb and walking about 18 feet into the lot, the couple was hit by a snowplow driven by a Sparta Township Department of Public Works employee,” Mitterhoff wrote.
Injuries to her leg resulted in several surgeries and permanent disfigurement. Her lawsuit was stayed while her Workers’ Comp claim was sorted.
In 2016, a Workers’ Comp judge found her injuries were compensable, even though she had clocked out for the day. Sparta’s ownership of the parking lots was sufficient to find the injury occurred on its premises, the judge found.
The appeals court has disagreed, noting Sparta also owns multiple properties and roadways on which injuries could occur.
“Library employees, however, are neither encouraged nor discouraged from utilizing the subject common-use lot,” Mitterhoff wrote.
“(O)nce petitioner clocked out and exited the library premises, she embarked on her normal commute home.”