Wis. Stat. § 102.03 — WI Code / Chapter 102 / Section 102.03
Conditions of liability.
Status: in_force

(1) Liability under this chapter shall exist against an employer only where the following conditions concur:

(a) Where the employee sustains an injury.

(b) Where, at the time of the injury, both the employer and employee are subject to the provisions of this chapter.

(c)

1. Where, at the time of the injury, the employee is performing service growing out of and incidental to his or her employment.

2. Any employee going to and from his or her employment in the ordinary and usual way, while on the premises of the employer, or while in the immediate vicinity of those premises if the injury results from an occurrence on the premises; any employee going between an employer’s designated parking lot and the employer’s work premises while on a direct route and in the ordinary and usual way; any volunteer fire fighter, emergency medical responder, emergency medical services practitioner, rescue squad member, or diving team member while responding to a call for assistance, from the time of the call for assistance to the time of his or her return from responding to that call, including traveling to and from any place to respond to and return from that call, but excluding any deviations for private or personal purposes; or any fire fighter or municipal utility employee responding to a call for assistance outside the limits of his or her city or village, unless that response is in violation of law, is performing service growing out of and incidental to employment.

3. An employee is not performing service growing out of and incidental to his or her employment while going to or from employment in a private or group or employer-sponsored car pool, van pool, commuter bus service, or other ride-sharing program in which the employee participates voluntarily and the sole purpose of which is the mass transportation of employees to and from employment. An employee is not performing service growing out of and incidental to employment while engaging in a program, event, or activity designed to improve the physical well-being of the employee, whether or not the program, event, or activity is located on the employer’s premises, if participation in the program, event, or activity is voluntary and the employee receives no compensation for participation.

4. The premises of the employer include the premises of any other person on whose premises the employee performs service.

5. To enhance the morale and efficiency of public employees in this state and attract qualified personnel to the public service, it is the policy of the state that the benefits of this chapter shall extend and be granted to employees in the service of the state or of any municipality therein on the same basis, in the same manner, under the same conditions, and with like right of recovery as in the case of employees of persons, firms or private corporations. Accordingly, the same considerations, standards, and rules of decision shall apply in all cases in determining whether any employee under this chapter, at the time of the injury, was performing service growing out of and incidental to the employee’s employment. For the purposes of this subsection no differentiation shall be made among any of the classes of employers enumerated in s. 102.04 or of employees enumerated in s. 102.07 ; and no statutes, ordinances, or administrative regulations otherwise applicable to any employees enumerated in s. 102.07 shall be controlling.

(d) Where the injury is not intentionally self-inflicted.

(e) Where the accident or disease causing injury arises out of the employee’s employment.

(f) Every employee whose employment requires the employee to travel shall be deemed to be performing service growing out of and incidental to the employee’s employment at all times while on a trip, except when engaged in a deviation for a private or personal purpose. Acts reasonably necessary for living or incidental thereto shall not be regarded as such a deviation. Any accident or disease arising out of a hazard of such service shall be deemed to arise out of the employee’s employment.

(g) Members of the state legislature are covered by this chapter when they are engaged in performing their duties as state legislators including:

1. While performing services growing out of and incidental to their function as legislators;

2. While performing their official duties as members of committees or other official bodies created by the legislature;

3. While traveling to and from the state capital to perform their duties as legislators; and

4. While traveling to and from any place to perform services growing out of and incidental to their function as legislators, regardless of where the trip originated, and including acts reasonably necessary for living but excluding any deviations for private or personal purposes except that acts reasonably necessary for living are not deviations.

(2) Where such conditions exist the right to the recovery of compensation under this chapter shall be the exclusive remedy against the employer, any other employee of the same employer and the worker’s compensation insurance carrier. This section does not limit the right of an employee to bring action against any coemployee for an assault intended to cause bodily harm, or against a coemployee for negligent operation of a motor vehicle not owned or leased by the employer, or against a coemployee of the same employer to the extent that there would be liability of a governmental unit to pay judgments against employees under a collective bargaining agreement or a local ordinance.

(3) Providing or failing to provide any safety inspection or safety advisory service incident to a contract for worker’s compensation insurance or to a contract for safety inspections or safety advisory services does not by itself subject an insurer, an employer, an insurance service organization, a union, a union member or any agent or employee of the insurer, employer, insurance service organization or union to liability for damages for an injury resulting from providing or failing to provide the inspection or services.

(4) The right to compensation and the amount of the compensation shall in all cases be determined in accordance with the provisions of law in effect as of the date of the injury except as to employees whose rate of compensation is changed as provided in s. 102.43 (5) (c) or (7) or 102.44 (1) , (2) (a) 2. , or (5) and employees who are eligible to receive private rehabilitative counseling and rehabilitative training under s. 102.61 (1m) and except as provided in s. 102.555 (12) (b) .

(5) If an employee, while working outside the territorial limits of this state, suffers an injury on account of which the employee, or in the event of the employee’s death, his or her dependents, would have been entitled to the benefits provided by this chapter had such injury occurred within this state, such employee, or in the event of the employee’s death resulting from such injury, the dependents of the employee, shall be entitled to the benefits provided by this chapter, if at the time of such injury any of the following applies:

(a) His or her employment is principally localized in this state.

(b) He or she is working under a contract of hire made in this state in employment not principally localized in any state.

(c) He or she is working under a contract made in this state in employment principally localized in another state whose worker’s compensation law is not applicable to that person’s employer.

(d) He or she is working under a contract of hire made in this state for employment outside the United States.

(e) He or she is a Wisconsin law enforcement officer acting under an agreement authorized under s. 175.46 .

(6)

(a) In this subsection, “first responder” means an employee of or volunteer for an employer that provides fire fighting, law enforcement, or medical treatment of COVID-19, and who has regular, direct contact with, or is regularly in close proximity to, patients or other members of the public requiring emergency services, within the scope of the individual’s work for the employer.

(b) For the purposes of benefits under this chapter, where an injury to a first responder is found to be caused by COVID-19 during the public health emergency declared by the governor under s. 323.10 on March 12, 2020, by executive order 72, and ending 30 days after the termination of the order, and where the employee has been exposed to persons with confirmed cases of COVID-19 in the course of employment, the injury is presumed to be caused by the individual’s employment.

(c) An injury claimed under par. (b) must be accompanied by a specific diagnosis by a physician or by a positive COVID-19 test.

(d) An injury claimed under par. (b) may be rebutted by specific evidence that the injury was caused by exposure to COVID-19 outside of the first responder’s work for the employer.

History: 1971 c. 148 , 307 , 324 ; 1975 c. 147 ss. 15 , 54 ; 1977 c. 195 , 272 , 418 ; 1979 c. 278 ; 1981 c. 92 ; 1983 a. 98 ; 1985 a. 83 ; 1993 a. 49 , 370 , 490 , 492 ; 2005 a. 172 ; 2007 a. 185 ; 2009 a. 206 ; 2011 a. 183 ; 2015 a. 180 ; 2017 a. 12 ; 2019 a. 185 ; 2025 a. 15 .