TRENTON, N.J. (Legal Newsline) - A school nurse isn’t entitled to disability benefits over a fall she suffered pulling a tire during a morning “Cardio Care” workout program even though it didn’t entirely fit New Jersey’s exclusion for “recreational or social activities.”
Meghan Ryan-Wirth was working as a nurse at a Hoboken elementary school in 2019 when she asked to work in the school’s A.M. Care program watching children from 7:30 to 8:15 a.m. to earn an extra $30 a day. Principal Harold Abraham said she could participate, and she showed up for work on Sept. 10, later testifying she understand her job duties.
The following day she showed up early and said Abraham invited her to participate in Cardio Care, where students, parents and staff exercise in the gym. Abraham had designed the program to include math skills training “to create an optimal condition for learning.”
Ryan-Wirth later testified she felt Abraham was requiring her to participate and went to her car to retrieve her workout clothes. Already actively exercising to lose weight, she said the Cardio Care program wasn’t what she was used to and fell while pulling a tire during a relay race, landing on her bottom.
Abraham pulled her to her feet, but she couldn’t stand so he called an ambulance. She was admitted to the hospital for two nights and diagnosed with a compression fracture of her fifth lumbar vertebrae. Her orthopedic surgeon recommended she use a wheelchair and gave her a disability certificate to stay out of work from three months until December 2019.
On Oct. 3, Ryan-Wirth filed a claim for temporary disability and medical benefits. The Hoboken school district said that while she was an employee at the time, her injury didn’t arise from her job. After a three-day trial in January 2020, the judge rejected benefits, saying her injuries didn’t meet the requirements under New Jersey’s workers’ compensation law.
A New Jersey appeals court agreed, ruling in a Dec. 8 decision that Ryan-Wirth participated in the exercise program for her own reasons and wasn’t entitled to benefits.
At the trial, the plaintiff said she had no idea she wouldn’t be paid for Cardio Care and felt her superior ordered her to participate. Abraham said the day of her fall he was greeting students outside the school when Ryan-Wirth appeared in workout gear and asked if she could participate in Cardio Care. He said he told her she could, but she wouldn’t be paid if she did the exercise program instead of going to A.M. Care.
Another witness said she spoke with the nurse that morning and when the witness said she was doing Cardio Club, the plaintiff said “oh, that looks fun. Should I do it?”
The appeals court noted that New Jersey’s workers’ compensation law is written to provide benefits liberally and regardless of an employee’s fault, as long they are injured in an “accident arising out of and in the course of employment.” Recreational and social activities aren’t compensable unless they are “a regular incident of employment” and provide benefits to the employer “beyond improvement in employee health and morale.”
The appeals court disagreed with the hearing judge on whether the exception for recreational and social activities applied, because Abraham had added math skills to the Cardio Club. That meant the exercise program wasn’t strictly limited to promoting “health and morale,” the appeals court ruled.
The appeals court upheld the denial of benefits anyway, finding that Ryan-Worth was a school nurse, not a teacher, and so her injury did not “arise out of” her job.
“Her job duties were to perform health screenings, treat illnesses, make referrals to primary care providers, and monitor immunizations,” the appeals court concluded. “She acknowledged she was not performing any of her duties as a school nurse at the Cardio Club.”