Printed from BusinessInsurance.com

Bills to make parking lot injuries compensable

Posted On: Dec. 13, 2021 12:44 PM CST

parking

New Jersey lawmakers are considering two workers compensation-related bills that would define the workday as that which begins in an employee parking lot and would permit injured workers under some conditions to be examined by their own physician.

A. 6198, introduced Thursday and sent to the Assembly Labor Committee, would amend state workers comp law to state that “whenever it shall appear that an employer is being prejudiced by virtue of the refusal of an injured employee to accept proffered medical and surgical treatment deemed necessary by the physician selected by the employer or by the employee's own physician, or… the employee's failure or neglect to comply with the instructions of the physician in charge of the case,” the employee is hereby authorized to file a petition with the Division of Workers' Compensation, “which would be empowered to order proper medical and surgical treatment at the expense of the employer.”

A separate bill also filed Thursday and sent to the same committee, A. 6195 states that employment “shall also be deemed to commence, if an employer provides or designates a parking area for use by an employee, when an employee arrives at the parking area prior to reporting for work and shall terminate when an employee leaves the parking area at the end of a work period; provided that, if the site of the parking area is separate from the place of employment, an employee shall be deemed to be in the course of employment while the employee travels directly from the parking area to the place of employment prior to reporting for work and while the employee travels directly from the place of employment to the parking area at the end of a work period.”