JAMES FREDERICKSON, Applicant
CITY OF APPLETON, Employer
CITY OF APPLETON, Insurer
An administrative law judge (ALJ) for the Worker's Compensation Division of the Department of Workforce Development issued a decision in this matter. A timely petition for review was filed.
The commission has considered the petition and the positions of the parties, and it has reviewed the evidence submitted to the ALJ. Based on its review, the commission agrees with the decision of the ALJ, and it adopts the findings and order in that decision as its own.
The findings and order of the administrative law judge are affirmed. Jurisdiction is reserved for such further findings and orders as may be warranted.
Dated and mailed February 18, 2009
fredeja . wsd : 185 : 6 ND § 3.19
/s/ James T. Flynn, Chairperson
/s/ Robert Glaser, Commissioner
/s/ Ann L. Crump, Commissioner
In its petition, the respondent employer attempts to invent a new worker's compensation coverage exclusion. The argument presented is that an individual on his way to work who reaches the employer's designated parking lot is not covered for worker's compensation purposes until he has parked and exited his personal vehicle. The argument continues that until this parking and exiting occurs, the individual is "in the prosecution of his own business." The argument has no basis in the law.
One of the coverage provisions disjunctively set forth in Wis. Stat. §
102.03(1)(c)2., addresses the circumstance of the employee who is going to and
from his employment in the ordinary and usual way, and is injured while on the
premises of the employer. That was precisely the applicant's circumstance when
he was injured in the employer's parking lot on July 24, 2007. He was on his way
to work and had reached the employer's premises (parking lot).(1) He was still in the process of going to work in the ordinary and usual way as he parked his motorcycle. There was no deviation from this ordinary and usual way as there had been, for example, in the
Dardanell case cited in the footnote below. Respondent's argument that any injury sustained prior to an employee having parked and exited his vehicle should not be covered, because dealing with the vehicle is that employee's "own business," appears to be what respondent would prefer the law to provide. However, it does not.
cc:
Attorney Christopher Behrens
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