LANSING, Mich. (Legal Newsline) - A young man who drowned in thick weeds while swimming out to retrieve an errant paddleboat was performing a job for his employer and covered by worker’s compensation, a Michigan appeals court ruled, reversing a trial court that allowed his family to sue over his death.
Allyn Taylor, 20, had clocked out of work at Outdoor Adventures of Davison in June 2016 and was fishing in Lake Linda when he noticed one of its paddleboats had drifted away. As was his usual practice, Taylor swam out to retrieve the boat. Only this time he became entangled in thick weeds, panicked and inhaled water “like crazy,” according to a plaintiff expert, and drowned.
Taylor’s family sued Outdoor Adventures for negligence, claiming the adventure park was aware of the thick weeds in Lake Linda and did nothing to control them or warn swimmers of the risk. Outdoor Adventures argued the Worker’s Disability Compensation Act, which bars most civil lawsuits over workplace injuries, applied to the action.
The trial court rejected that argument and allowed the case to proceed. But the Michigan Court of Appeals, in an unpublished Jan. 13 decision, reversed the trial court.
While Taylor had clocked out when he swam to retrieve the paddleboat, the appeals court ruled, he was still on his employer’s premises and performing a task for the benefit of Outdoor Adventures. The appeals court distinguished a 1994 decision in which it rejected a workers’ compensation claim by a truck driver who drove to a bar in his employer’s truck and was attacked there by a patron wielding a pool cue, losing an eye. In that case the truck driver’s claim was barred by a “social and recreational” exclusion.
“In contrast, Taylor was on defendant’s grounds a short time after his work hours with defendant had ended and, although he was engaged in the social activity of fishing in Lake Linda while waiting for his parents to pick him up, he stopped that activity and was engaged in an effort to secure a wayward paddleboat for defendant at the time he drowned,” the court concluded.
Since the worker’s comp system is the exclusive remedy for this claim, the court said, the trial court had no jurisdiction.