Court Opinion

ID: 9701681
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-25 22:31:01.588184+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:21:27.447830
License: Public Domain

LONG and ZAZZALI, JJ.,
dissenting.
We agree with the majority that:
[0]n-premises employees are not within the scope of employment until they arrive at the employer’s place of business, and they shed that status when they depart. Because off-premises employees may not report to a single “premises,” the statute provides that they are to be compensated only for accidents occurring in the direct performance of their duties. Those are not different standards but only descriptors of the same standard in different contexts. Employees who are where they are supposed to be, doing what they are supposed to be doing, are within the course of employment whether on- or off-premises, except when they are commuting. Nothing in N.J.S.A. 34:15-36 suggests that the Legislature intended to create *485a higher bar for determining scope of employment for off-premises employees than for those whose regular work location is at the employer’s place of business.
[Ante at 483-84, 828 A.2d at 912-13 (citation omitted).]
We likewise agree that “[o]ff~premises employees enjoy the same ability to deal with certain basic needs enjoyed by on-premises employees such as phone calls to babysitters and physicians as well as coffee and lunch breaks.” Ante at 483, 828 A.2d at 912. We believe, however, that the majority misapplies the minor deviation rule and therefore distinguishes improperly between on- and off-premises employees.
Importantly, the majority concedes that it does not “suggest that the minor deviation rule was eliminated by the 1979 amendments [to the Workers’ Compensation Act].” Ante at 483, 828 A.2d at 912. Professor Larson has characterized minor deviations as
largely the kind of momentary diversions which, if undertaken by an inside employee working under fixed time and place limitations, would be compensable under the personal comfort doctrine. For, while crossing a street may seem to be a more conspicuous deviation than crossing a room, there is really no difference in principle between the trucker, whose work-place is the street, who crosses the street for a glass of beer, and an inside worker who goes an equal distance down the hall to get a cola drink from the cola machine or across the street for a quick cup of coffee.
[1 Arthur Larson, Larson’s Workers’ Compensation Law § 17.06[3] at 17-41 (2003) (footnotes omitted).]
No one, including the majority, would argue that an on-premises employee who walks across the room to the mail basket, retrieves a personal letter addressed to him at work, and is injured on the way back to his desk, should be denied coverage. That fact pattern is analogous to what occurred here. Jumpp had permission from his employer to routinely stop to retrieve his mail from a post office located on his route. On the day in question, he exited his employer’s vehicle, which he left running, and entered the post office to get his mail. As he returned to the vehicle, he slipped and fell on the ground, fracturing his pelvis. Ante at 474, 828 A.2d at 907.
In Secor v. Penn Service Garage, we formulated the minor deviation rule as follows:
*486Despite occasional suggestions to the contrary it is now well settled in our State and elsewhere that an employee is not deprived of the benefits of the Compensation Act simply because he was not actually working when the accident occurred. He may have stopped work to have a smoke, or to get some fresh air, or to use the telephone, or to satisiy other human needs incidental to his being at his place of employment; it is clear that injuries which occur during such minor deviations are generally sufficiently related to the employment to call for compensation. Similarly, employees may stop work to satisiy their interest in a passing parade or in a strange object or their curiosity generally; here Larson suggests that so long as the deviation is minor it should be disregarded.
[19 N.J. 315, 321, 117 A.2d 12, 15 (1955) (citations omitted).]
Applying that rule to the facts of this ease and in view of this Court’s liberal construction of the workers’ compensation statute, Brunell v. Wildwood Crest Police Dep’t, 176 N.J. 225, 235, 822 A.2d 576, 581-82 (2003), we conclude that Jumpp was within the course of employment at the time he sustained his injuries. In our view, Jumpp’s trip to the post office was “so small” or “insubstantial” a deviation that he remained within the course of his employment throughout the performance of that errand.
The only residual question is whether Jumpp’s injury “ar[ose] out of’ his employment. N.J.S.A. 34:15-7. Because the courts below did not address that issue, we would reverse and remand to the trial court for further proceedings.
For affirmance—Chief Justice PORITZ, and Justices COLEMAN, VERNIERO and LaVECCHIA-4.
For reversal and remandment—Justices LONG and ZAZZALI—2.