Elgin Police Officer fails to secure Workers' Compensation benefits for assault by a family member
The Illinois Workers' Compensation Commission held that the police officer's injuries, sustained after being assualted by a family member, were the result of a personal, domestic situation and did not arise out of his employment as a police officer.
Officer Young was working as a resident officer in the Elgin police department's "ROPE" program. Through this pogram, police officers live in houses in designated trouble neighborhoods and become involved in community policing. A ROPE officer has not standard hours, but is paid based ona a 40-hour wee. If the officer needs to work more than 40 hours a week, he is paid overtime.
On the day of the accident, Officer Young was moving from one ROPE house to another ROPE house. Officers receive three paid days to move into a new house. During this move, he was returning a table he had borrowed to his mother's home in a non-ROPE neighborhood. After returning the table, Officer Young confronted his brother, who had just returned to his mother's home after running away. He testified that his questions to his brother, regarding where he had been and where he obtained a new set of headphones, were in his official capacity as an officer. Without warning, the brother stabbed him several times. The brother was convicted of aggravated domestic battery. The arbitrator awarded benefits. However, the Commission reversed, finding that the officer's injuries did not arise out of his employment.
In so holding, the Commission rejected the arbitrator's argument that the claimant was carrying out his duties toward his brother as he would if he suspected a stranger of criminal activities. The Commission expressed doubt that Officer Young would have confornted a stranger on suspicion of theft for possessing headphones simply because he did not know how the suspect obtained the headphones. The record clearly suggested that Young was enforcing punishment or discipline on the brother as a familial authority figure and not as a police officer.
Also, the Commission found interesting that the police and prosecutors interpreted the event as a domestic dispute, as they charged the brother with aggravated domestic battery and aggravated battery. There was no attempt to even charge the brother with aggravated battery or attempted murder of a police officer. Apparently, even Officer Young did not consider the incident work-related because he never filed a workers' compensation accident report until after the Application for Adustment of Claim was filed.
