Opinion ID: 2160512
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: Kane v. Board of Trustees, Police and Firemen's Retirement System

Text: Daniel J. Kane joined the police force in Gloucester Township in 1972 and enrolled in the Police and Firemen's Retirement System in that same year. Kane's police duties included inspecting the homes of residents who were away on vacation to determine whether any burglaries had occurred and to ensure generally that the homes were secure. These vacation checks were performed once every 24 hours at the request of the vacationing homeowner. On November 23, 1980, Kane reported to work and, in uniform, began a one-man patrol. Part of his assigned duties for that day was to perform a vacation check on a home within his patrol area. Kane arrived at the house at approximately 7:30 a.m. and cleared the departure from his patrol car with the radio-dispatcher at police headquarters. Kane walked around the house, checking the doors and windows, until he reached the garage area. There was a raised lip of concrete, approximately three inches in height, that ran around the front of the door to the second garage. This second garage was a later addition  hence, the lack of an even match in the concrete. When the police officer stepped on this uneven piece of concrete, he felt his left ankle give way. In his words, [a]s I stepped and watched the window in the garage   , I stepped on this concrete and felt my ankle go. In an attempt to save myself from falling, I shifted my weight at that point    [and] I knew I did something to my ankle and my knee. Basically, to save himself from falling, Kane shifted his body weight from his ankle to his knee, but at no time did he either fall to the ground or come into contact with the door. Feeling a lot of pain in the ankle and knee, Kane limped back to the patrol car to use the radio to notify the sergeant about the mishap. The sergeant instructed Kane to undergo an examination in the Emergency Room of West Jersey Hospital, which he did that same morning. The record is unclear as to the precise condition from which Kane suffered, but two years after the incident he still wore an orthopedic brace, never having returned to active duty. Kane timely filed for an accidental disability retirement allowance on March 16, 1982. The Board of Trustees of the Police and Firemen's Retirement System (Board) denied the officer's application on the basis of its conclusion that the incident in question was not a traumatic event. A hearing was held before an Administrative Law Judge (ALJ), who concluded that the officer's mishap outside of the garage door constituted a traumatic event within the meaning of N.J.S.A. 43:16A-7 and that the application should be approved. The Board rejected the ALJ's conclusion, and issued its final determination denying Kane the requested relief. Kane appealed the Board's final determination to the Appellate Division, which reversed the Board's decision and remanded with directions that Kane be granted an accidental disability retirement allowance. We granted certification, 99 N.J. 160 (1984).