Hospital worker’s injuries from hit by car compensable

The injuries a hospital food service worker sustained after he was hit by a car near a loading dock entrance to the hospital are compensable, an appellate court held Thursday.

In the case In the Matter of Cadme v. FOJP Service Corp., the Supreme Court of New York, Appellate Division, Third Department affirmed the decision of the New York State Workers Compensation Board, ruling that the worker’s injuries did arise out of and in the course of his employment.

Daniel Cadme was walking to Montefiore-Nyack Hospital in March 2019 to begin his food-service shift when he was struck by a car and suffered injuries. He filed a claim for workers compensation benefits for a head injury and a workers compensation law judge, as well as the workers compensation board, accepted the claim as compensable. The hospital’s workers compensation insurer appealed the decision.

The appellate court affirmed the board’s decision, holding that the hospital entrance within a loading dock that Mr. Cadme and other food workers used to enter the workplace created a “special hazard” at the hospital and that as a result, the worker’s injuries were work-related.

The court declined to rule on a claim for workers compensation death benefits filed by his survivors, above holding that a determination of whether Mr. Cadme’s death in June 2019 was due to the underlying compensable injury was a “separate and distinct claim.”