New York: Tort Suit Against Co-Employee Not Barred Where Accident Occurred Near, But Away from Employer's Premises

The defendant employee’s employment ended when he entered his car, drove away from an employer-controlled parking lot, and struck a co-employee who had entered a cross-walk on a street that circled the employer’s campus. Accordingly, it was error for a trial court to grant summary judgment in favor of the defendant employee in a civil action filed by the co-employee who was struck by the auto. The court reasoned that even accepting that the street was a private road, the submissions demonstrated that the employer encouraged the public to frequent the employer’s restaurants on campus and it opened up the street for general use by the public. There was nothing in the record indicating that the accident was precipitated by any special hazard or incident related to defendant's employment. The accident was a common risk shared by the general public traveling on the street.

Thomas A. Robinson, J.D., the Feature National Columnist for the LexisNexis Workers’ Compensation eNewsletter, is the co-author of Larson’s Workers’ Compensation Law (LexisNexis).

LexisNexis Online Subscribers: Citations below link to Lexis Advance.

See Siegel v Garibaldi, 2018 N.Y. App. Div. LEXIS 1258 (3rd Dept. Feb. 22, 2018)

See generally Larson’s Workers’ Compensation Law, § 13.01.

Source: Larson’s Workers’ Compensation Law, the nation’s leading authority on workers’ compensation law