The Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals upheld an award of disability benefits to Michael Ilaszczat, “who required hip surgery after crashing to the floor of a social club on [Johnson Atoll] after he bet soldiers $100 that one of them could not high-kick over his head without touching him. He won the bet but got kicked to the floor.” Ilaszczat was subsequently expelled from the atoll for his behavior in the incident, but filed a claim for disability.
“The appeals court agreed with the earlier ruling that the two-mile-long atoll is a ‘zone of special danger’ because of its isolation and limited recreational opportunities.” (Reuters, Jan. 16) (via Bashman). The concept of “zone of special danger” arose out of a 1951 Supreme Court case, where a Guam worker spending time in his employer’s recreation center drowned in an attempt to rescue swimmers calling for help; the Supreme Court, perhaps illustrating that hard cases make bad law, held that the limited recreational opportunities in Guam made the employee’s behavior reasonably related to his job under the circumstances. The Ninth Circuit has since extended it in cases such as Self v. Henson, a 1962 case where the employer was held responsible for a woman injured during a late-night rendezvous with her supervisor in a parked car that was struck by an army weapons carrier.
On the mainland, on the other hand, a California Court of Appeals denied workers compensation for a PG&E employee who argued that the stress of the company’s bankruptcy (and from the loss of his investment in the company stock) was a compensable psychiatric injury. (Roberto Ceniceros, “Stress from company setbacks not compensable”, Business Insurance Daily News, Jan. 13).
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