Limited accident protection in the home office

(Jur). Home work is not under the same accident protection as work in the workplace. There are no insurances in the house, for example, to get something to drink, judged on Tuesday, July 5, 2016, the Federal Social Court (BSG) in Kassel (Az .: B 2 U 5/15 R). For the design and safety of stairs, for example, are solely in the hands of the employee himself.

The plaintiff works at the Land Mobility Rhineland-Palatinate, which plans, builds and maintains roads. In the attic of her house, she has set up a study as a "home office". Computer and other work equipment makes the land available.

Less accident protection at home office. Image: Rawpixel.com - fotolia

For health reasons, the woman has to drink a lot. On the day of the accident, when her supplies had been taken away in the morning, she wanted to fetch fresh water from the kitchen on the ground floor. She slipped on the stairs, kinked and broke her left metatarsal.

The Unfallkasse Rheinland-Pfalz did not recognize this as an accident at work. On the other hand, the woman complained that there were similar routes in a business, for example to the toilet or the canteen. This should also apply to work in the home office.

The BSG nevertheless dismissed the action. In the end, there is no sufficient connection to work.

Because unlike regular employees, the employee in the home office with respect to their breaks and breaks in work "no operational requirements or constraints" inferior. In addition, the accident between the study and kitchen and thus in their "personal life" happened. The design and risks in this way are not the responsibility of the employer, but of the employee herself. Also, the accident fund could order here no measures for accident protection, such as the sticking of black and yellow signal strip on the stairs.

The operational interest in working at home does not deprive an apartment of "the character of the private, uninsured sphere of life", emphasized the Kassel judges. "It is therefore appropriate to attribute the risk of accidents emanating from the domestic and thus personal sphere of life to the insured and not to the statutory accident insurance with which the entrepreneurial liability is to be redeemed."

So far, the BSG had decided that, however, the first-time way to start work in the home office can be insured. In his new judgment, the BSG Accident Council expressly left open whether he adheres to it. mwo / fle