Limited accident protection when going for a walk during a call

LSG Essen: Accident at work must have official cause
Food (jur). If employees go on call with their dog Gassi, they are only under tight conditions under the protection of the statutory accident insurance. After that, the accident must have an official cause, decided the State Social Court (LSG) North Rhine-Westphalia in a judgment published on 12 July 2016 (Az .: L 15 U 547/14 ZVW). In this particular case, the Essen judges refused to recognize the recognition as an accident at work by a geriatric nurse. The court thus set a judgment of the Federal Social Court (BSG).

The geriatric nurse who worked for the Johanniter Unfallhilfe in the Rhineland suffered an accident during her call for help in January 2010 when she was walking with her dog Gassi. Crossing the snow-covered curb, she crashed as she crossed the street for a phone conversation with her emergency phone. She broke an ankle while doing so.

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The accident insurance North Rhine-Westphalia rejected the recognition as an accident at work and thus an accident compensation. The accident risk was caused primarily by the private wintry walk. By contrast, the telephone call was only a side job. The woman replied that it was more important if she had fallen without the call. In the first round, the LSG gave the geriatric nurse a fair opinion, but allowed the revision to the BSG.

The Kassel judges emphasized on June 26, 2014 (Ref .: B 2 U 4/13 R, JurAgentur notification of the sentencing date) that the woman had been contracted to accept the telephone conversation. There was a so-called mixed activity here. To the private activity - the Gassigehen - the official activity - the Telefonieren - added. In the case of such a mixed activity there is also a basic protection against accidents, but only if the official activity was the cause of the accident. This applies to every accident at work, including on call.

According to these legal requirements, the LSG Essen should re-examine the dispute. In the second round, it now rejected the recognition as an accident at work. The decisive factor is the question as to whether the insured act - in the specific case the service call - has realized a risk in which the insurance cover must be effective. However, the fall and the resulting damage to health did not occur as a result of the insured activity. The phone was not the cause of the fall, but rather the walk with the dog.

There is no evidence that the geriatric nurse was distracted by the call and therefore overlooked the snow-capped curb. "The fact that the telephone call influenced in another way the locomotion of the plaintiff and objectively contributed to the fall, can also not be determined," said the LSG in its final judgment of March 29, 2016.

Finally, there is no evidence that the geriatric nurse wanted to cross the street particularly fast because of the receipt of the official call. An official cause for the fall was therefore not given, so that the recognition as an accident at work was to be rejected. fle / mwo