The New Mexico Court of Appeals ruled a few weeks ago that a certain state employee is entitled to sue the state in district court instead of being restricted to workers’ compensation.<\/p>\n
A friend e-mailed:\u00a0 \u201cSeems like it unravels the whole reform.\u201d<\/p>\n
No, it doesn\u2019t.\u00a0 For those who may be alarmed, some explanation:<\/p>\n
First, this case is not that big a deal, except to the parties directly involved.<\/p>\n
Second, the plaintiff attorneys who are dancing around the maypole, hailing this as a victory, should pipe down.\u00a0 It\u2019s not that big a victory either, and they will embarrass themselves if they keep it up.<\/p>\n
Third, the issues raised in this case are not related to the famous New Mexico workers’ compensation reform.\u00a0 The reform is in many ways unraveling, and that is a serious matter, but this case is about issues much more basic than the reform.<\/p>\n
The story is this:\u00a0 a state employee, commuting to work from Albuquerque to Santa Fe via the Park and Ride system, fell into an unmarked hole in a state-owned parking lot and broke her leg.\u00a0 Did she have the right to sue the state under personal injury law because the hole was negligently left unmarked, or was she restricted to workers’ compensation?\u00a0 Two Court of Appeals judges said she gets a personal injury claim.\u00a0 The third judge on the panel disagreed.<\/p>\n
If the parking lot had been owned by any entity other than her employer, this would have been clear.\u00a0 The owner left an unmarked hole. It\u2019s a personal injury claim.<\/p>\n
Workers’ compensation has a very complicated rule — not actually a rule but a pile of court decisions —\u00a0 called the Going and Coming rule, which attempts to set guidelines for when a worker is covered by workers’ compensation during commuting to work and when not.\u00a0 Most commuting is not covered.<\/p>\n
In this case, the parking lot was owned by the same entity that employed the plaintiff — the State of New Mexico (though it\u2019s arguable whether the state or her specific agency should be considered her employer).\u00a0 Imagine that it\u2019s Saturday and a public school teacher gets hurt while playing tennis, purely for her own recreation, on a school tennis court that is open to the public.\u00a0 Should that injury be covered by work comp? No.\u00a0 She\u2019s not working.\u00a0 The fact that her employer owns the tennis court doesn\u2019t change that status.<\/p>\n
There is another side of this story to consider.\u00a0 For a claim to succeed in civil court, the plaintiff must show that the defendant was at fault — for example, by negligently failing to cordon off a pothole.\u00a0 But workers’ compensation is a no-fault system.\u00a0 If commuting accidents were within the boundaries of workers’ compensation, commuters would be covered for tripping over their own shoelaces.\u00a0 Indeed, if workers get hurt tripping over their own shoelaces at work, they are covered — unless they did it on purpose, that is.<\/p>\n
The no-fault principle — which some people find deeply unjust — is the tradeoff for the \u201cexclusive remedy\u201d doctrine that controls employers\u2019 cost by limiting the amount of recovery — which other people find deeply unjust.<\/p>\n
The biggest lesson to be learned from this case is that this scenario is so improbable that it took until 2010 for a case to reach the Court of Appeals.\u00a0 This case should not be the excuse for the next reform of the workers’ compensation law.<\/p>\n
On the other hand, the law is so badly in need of a new round of reform that any excuse should suffice.<\/p>\n
Triple Spaced Again, \u00a9 New Mexico News Services 2010; posted in 2011<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
The New Mexico Court of Appeals ruled a few weeks ago that a certain state employee is entitled to sue the state in district court instead of being restricted to workers’ compensation. A friend e-mailed:\u00a0 \u201cSeems like it unravels the … Continue reading