Opinion
CASE NO. 108-CRD-1-81
JULY 27, 1984
The claimant-appellee was represented by Leo Rosen, Esq.
The respondents-appellants were represented by Vincent M. DeAngelo, Esq.
This Petition for Review from the November 24, 1981 Finding and Award of the Commissioner for the First District was argued January 28, 1983 before a Compensation Review Division Panel consisting of the Commission Chairman, John Arcudi and Commissioners Gerald Kolinsky and Frank Verrilli.
FINDING AND AWARD
The Finding and Award of the district commissioner is affirmed and adopted as the Finding and Award of the Compensation Review Division.
OPINION
Claimant employee in the instant matter was a waitress who parked her car in employer owned premises, the parking lot adjacent to the restaurant in which she was employed. On the evening of October 1, 1980 she was on duty in the restaurant when she became involved in a verbal altercation with some patrons, one of whom threw money at her. She refused to serve these patrons any more alcoholic beverages. A fight broke out among the patrons. The patrons involved went outside to the parking lot. Some leaned against the claimant's car parked there. Claimant went out to the parking lot to look for the person who had been leaning on her car and to protect her property. The patron who had precipitated the altercation backed out of a parking space with his door open, hitting the claimant and dragging her some distance in the parking lot causing the injuries which are the subject of her claim.
The facts recited above were contained in a stipulation signed by both parties and incorporated into the commissioner's award of benefits. The award was based on the conclusion that the injuries occurred during the course of the employment and was incidental to it. The commissioner wrote a well reasoned Memorandum of Decision explaining his conclusions. Respondent Appellants have appealed and cite McNamara v. Hamden, 176 Conn. 547 (1979). They argue that under the tests laid down in that case claimant's activity in going out to her car in the employer owned parking lot could not be an activity incidental to the employment.
Their argument is that such activity could not be incidental because it was not regular. We think that such reasoning is based on an impermissibly narrow reading of McNamara. After all, the McNamara decision did not intend to narrow the spectrum of compensable injuries. It meant to broaden it, and this case would have been compensable under the law as it existed even before McNamara, Stakonis v. United Advertising, 110 Conn. 384 (1930); Tusman v. Spiegel Zemicnik, Inc., 38 Conn. Sup. 607 (1982) affirming our decision in 63-CRD-3-81, 1 Conn. Workers Comp. Rev. Op. 153 (August 3, 1982).
The Appeal is dismissed and the Finding and Award of the Commissioner is affirmed.
Commissioners Gerald Kolinsky and Frank Verrilli concur in this opinion.