Appellate Division affirms dismissal with prejudice of the petitioner’s claim, finding the workplace assault that caused the injuries did not arise out of employment but, rather, resulted from personal circumstances.

While resting in the employer’s break room, the petitioner was assaulted with a hammer by his assistant after confronting her about the legitimacy of her pyramid scheme, which the petitioner had become involved in. The respondent denied the petitioner’s claim, asserting that the petitioner’s assault lacked any nexus to his employment. In ruling on the respondent’s motion, the Judge of Compensation referred to N.J.S.A. 34:15-7, which requires that compensation be made only for an “accident arising out of and in the course of employment.” The judge dismissed the claim, reasoning that the assault did not arise out of his employment but, rather, resulted solely from his involvement in his assistant’s non-work-related pyramid scheme. The petitioner appealed. In affirming the judge’s ruling, the Appellate Division relied on Coleman v. Cycle Transformer Corp., 105 N.J. 285 (1986), in which the Supreme Court set forth the “but for test,” also known as the “positional risk test,” for use in determining whether an accident arises out of employment as required under the Act. The test asks whether it is more probably true than not that the injury would have occurred during the time and place of employment rather than elsewhere. Unless it is more probable that the injury would not have occurred under the normal circumstances of everyday life outside the employment, the necessary causal connection has not been established.

_{Case Law Alerts, 2^nd Quarter, April 1, 2016}

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