Rescue or Emergency Activities of Employee
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| When an employee acts to aid a person in an emergency situation, his actions are generally considered to be within the course of employment. When the employee's rescue efforts are in the employer's interest, there is a strong likelihood that compensation for an injury incurred in such efforts will be allowed. Additionally, if the nature of his employment places him in a position where human decency requires action, an employee may recover benefits.
With regard to the rescue of strangers, some jurisdictions used to limit compensation to those situations where the employee helps an individual who is working on the same project. The justification appears to be that an employer should not be saddled with a compensation award when an employee is injured helping a stranger who has no connection to the employee's work project. Helping a stranger in this instance was not considered to be within the contemplation of the employer. Now, however, compensation generally turns on the conditions of the employment as creating the danger leading to the employee's injury. Basically, were it not for the employment conditions placing the employee at that particular locale at that particular time, there would be no occasion for him to participate in any rescue efforts and, concomitantly, there would be no injury. Though compensation could be recovered for rescue efforts to save an individual from danger or death, compensation will not be extended to those employees injured in the rescue of property. Copyright 2010 LexisNexis, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. |