Source: https://wcc.state.ct.us/crb/1996/2246crb.htm
Timestamp: 2019-04-22 16:18:10+00:00

Document:
The claimant was represented by David Esposito, Esq., 1240 Whitney Ave., Hamden CT 06517.
The employer was represented by John Walsh, Jr. Esq., Lynch, Traub, Keefe & Errante, P.C., P.O. Box 1612, 52 Trumbull Street, New Haven, CT 06506.
JESSE M. FRANKL, CHAIRMAN. The claimant has petitioned for review from the December 1, 1994 Finding and Dismissal of the Commissioner for the Third District. In that decision, the commissioner concluded that the claimant’s injury of February 18, 1992 did not arise out of and in the course of his employment, but rather occurred during an unpaid lunch break. The trial commissioner found that the claimant’s injury occurred when he fell from a bus where he was eating his lunch; that the employer provided a lunch room in the building for employees to eat lunch; and that the employer was “aware” that some employees ate their lunches on busses parked in the yard. In support of his appeal, the claimant contends that the injury arose out of and in the course of his employment because the employer acquiesced to the employees’ practice of eating their lunches on off-duty busses parked in the employer’s back yard, where the injury occurred.1 We affirm the trial commissioner.
Kaplan v. State of Connecticut/Department of Health Services, Case No. 2012 CRB-1-94-4 (Sept. 11, 1995).
In support of his appeal, the claimant relies upon McNamara v. Hamden, 176 Conn. 547 (1979). The court in that case stated that an injury occurs in the course of employment where “the activity is regularly engaged in on the employer’s premises within the period of the employment, with the employer’s approval or acquiescence....” Id. at 556. In the instant case, the trial commissioner did not find that the claimant was within the period of the employment at the time of the injury, but rather was on an unpaid lunch break. In addition, the trial commissioner did not find that the practice of eating lunch on parked busses received the employer’s approval or acquiescence. Moreover, the McNamara decision is factually distinguishable as it involved an injury which occurred during a ping-pong game2 in the employer’s facility where the employer “sanctioned the games by regulating the permitted playing times, by allowing the equipment on the premises, and by setting aside actual work hours in the afternoon for the activity.” Id. at 555.
In the instant case, the commissioner concluded that the claimant “was not doing anything while on his lunch break in furtherance of the employer’s business or incidental to it.” The conclusion that the claimant’s injury did not arise out of and in the course of his employment is amply supported by the record, and is not contrary to law or based on unreasonable or impermissible factual inferences. See Spatafore v. Yale University, 14 Conn. Workers’ Comp. Rev. Op. 310, 2011 CRB-3-94-4 (Sept. 14, 1995) (injury which occurred while walking back from a union meeting on lunch break held not compensable); Kaplan v. State of Connecticut/ Dept. of Health Services, 14 Conn. Workers’ Comp. Rev. Op. 296, 2012 CRB-1-94-4 (Sept. 11, 1995) (injury which occurred during unpaid break on sidewalk not compensable); Moffett v. Tighe Williams Salon, 12 Conn. Workers’ Comp. Rev. Op. 83, 1489 CRB-4-92-8 (Feb. 9, 1994) (injury which occurred in an area in front of employer’s facility which was not controlled by employer held not compensable); Renckowski v. Yale University, 11 Conn. Workers’ Comp. Rev. Op. 48, 1292 CRD-3-91-9 (March 18, 1993) (injury held not compensable which occurred during paid coffee break at adjacent restaurant, even though activity regularly practiced by employees and acquiesced to by employer).

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