Judges: Charlie Crist Attorney General
Filed Date: 2/9/2005
Status: Precedential
Modified Date: 7/5/2016
Chief Brian Lock West Melbourne Police Department 2290 Minton Road West Melbourne, Florida 32904
Dear Chief Lock:
You ask the following question:
Is a police officer employed by the city who is working off-duty for a private employer covered by the city's workers' compensation insurance?
Initially I would note that resolution of your inquiry involves the application of various legal principles to particular factual circumstances present in any given situation, thus requiring resolution of mixed questions of law and fact that this office is not empowered to determine. This opinion is necessarily confined to a discussion of general principles of law and should not be construed as applicable to or determinative of any particular circumstance or employment.
Chapter
Section
"(1) If an employee: (a) Is elected, appointed, or employed full time by a municipality, the state, or any political subdivision and is vested with authority to bear arms and make arrests and the employee's primary responsibility is the prevention or detection of crime or the enforcement of the penal, criminal, traffic, or highway laws of the state; (b) Was discharging that primary responsibility within the state in a place and under circumstances reasonably consistent with that primary responsibility; and (c) Was not engaged in services for which he or she was paid by a private employer, and the employee and his or her public employer had no agreement providing for workers' compensation coverage for that private employment; the employee is considered to have been acting within the course of employment. The term "employee" as used in this subsection includes all certified supervisory and command personnel whose duties include, in whole or in part, responsibilities for the supervision, training, guidance, and management of full-time law enforcement officers, part-time law enforcement officers, or auxiliary law enforcement officers but does not include support personnel employed by the employing agency."3
Thus, an injured law enforcement officer is deemed to have been acting within the course of employment at the time of the injury if the officer was discharging his or her "primary responsibility" (prevention or detection of crime or enforcement of law) and was not engaged in services for which the officer was paid by a private employer, and the officer and the public employer had no agreement providing for workers' compensation coverage for that private employment.
In City of Hialeah v. Weber,4 the First District Court of Appeal held that an off-duty police officer who was working as a security guard for a lounge and was injured in the process of apprehending persons slashing car tires at a business across the street from the lounge was an employee of the city police department at the time of his injury. The court indicated in that opinion that there might be circumstances in which an off-duty police officer would be considered the employee of the off-duty employer.
Subsequently in Mount Sinai Hospital v. City of Miami Beach,5 the court held that a police officer working off-duty for a hospital as a security guard who was injured when he slipped while checking the hospital parking lot was not covered by the city's workers' compensation plan, but rather was an employee of the hospital. The court found that the off-duty officer was performing a service for which he was paid by the hospital and was not performing a police function at the time he was injured. Under these circumstances the court concluded that section
Accordingly, I am of the opinion that the provisions of section
Sincerely,
Charlie Crist Attorney General
CC/tjw