Equine Law Blog
A summer camp’s Business Manager comes to work over the weekend to “test out” the camp’s newly donated horses, allegedly to determine their suitability, but he is thrown and sustains serious injuries. Is he entitled to recover workers' compensation insurance? No, says a worker’s compensation appeals panel of the Tennessee Supreme Court in Parish v. Highland Park Baptist Church, No. E2010-01977-WC-R3-WC (Tenn. 10/18/11)(unpublished).
Why?
Although the employee argued that the test ride was within his job duties and the camp derived benefit from his efforts, the court found that his test ride was, instead, a personal mission that fell outside of his employment relationship with the camp. In particular, the court noted that his weekend horseback ride bore no “rational relationship” to the scope of his employment as the camp’s business manager, his job description (that the plaintiff wrote himself) did not include maintaining safety or evaluating horses, the camp had no expectation that he would test them out or ride them, and the camp never intended for campers to ride the horses, anyway.
ShareholderJulie Fershtman is considered to be one of the nation's leading attorneys in the field of equine law. She has successfully tried equine cases before juries in four states. A frequent author and speaker on legal issues, she has written ...
