Geaney: Court Affirms Finding of Police Officer's Joint Employment

Friday, June 27, 2025 | 0

Joint employment for workers’ compensation purposes is quite common in New Jersey.  Examples are employees who work for staffing agencies and professional employer organizations.  

John H. Geaney

Another fairly common example is a police officer who does an extra duty job assignment for a private company as approved by his or her employer. The recent case of Vola v. City of Northfield provides insight into this type of joint employment.

Officer Joseph Vola was approved by his department to perform an extra traffic duty assignment in response to a request made by Asplundh Tree Experts. Vola reported to the police station on March 31, 2021, checked out a police car and then proceeded to drive to an intersection to meet the Asplundh trucks and other police detail cars. When Vola was making a turn to follow the Asplundh trucks, his vehicle was struck by another car, causing him serious injuries.

Vola brought a workers’ compensation claim against both the city and Asplundh. For its part, Asplundh denied the claim petition and moved to dismiss it. The judge of compensation ruled against Asplundh. First, the judge pointed to the municipal code for traffic control services to support a finding of joint employment. The code required payment by Asplundh to the police for traffic control services. The code also specified that the private company requesting extra traffic control services must provide indemnification to the city, as well as a hold harmless provision. 

Asplundh also argued that the officer’s injury was barred by the premises rule because he was reporting to work and had technically not begun the traffic duty. The judge disagreed. 

“This is not the usual coming or going scenario for which preemployment travel might be deemed beyond the scope of a respondent’s liability," the judge said. "Rather, under the terms and design of this extra duty assignment, one or both [Northfield and Asplundh] was obligated for injuries incurred by [Vola] from the moment he pulled out of the police headquarters with his marked patrol vehicle en route to the first or any of the tree-trimming assignments that day.”

The judge ruled that Asplundh was a joint employer at the time of Vola’s injury, and both the city and Asplundh were jointly responsible for workers’ compensation benefits.  Asplundh appealed.

The Appellate Division first tackled the premises rule issue. It said that the special mission exception to the premises rule applies when an employee is “required to be away from the conventional place of employment, if actually engaged in the direct performance of employment duties.” 

The court also relied on the case of Keim v. Above All Termite & Pest Control to support its reasoning, as Vola was using an authorized vehicle at the time of his injury.  The Keim decision focused on the rule that an injury that occurs while using an authorized vehicle for business purposes constitutes an additional exception to the premises rule.

Next, the court addressed the principal issue of joint employment. It found that the facts were controlled by the 1989 decision in Domanoski v. Borough of Fanwood. That case addressed the “whose interests are served” principle to establish joint employment for a police officer injured while performing an extra duty assignment at a store. The Appellate Division said, “Similar to Domanoski, Vola served the public interest of Northfield to ensure the safe and expeditious movement of traffic and the private interest of protecting Asplundh employees.” 

Accordingly, the Appellate Division affirmed the decision of the judge of compensation. 

This case underscores that the determination of joint employment focuses on whether an injured employee in performing work is serving the interest of two or more employers. Direct payment to the injured worker is not dispositive, nor is direct hiring. Vola was not getting paid directly by Asplundh and was not hired directly by it. What mattered for purposes of a finding of joint employment was that he was engaged to provide for the safety of Asplundh employees while also discharging his duties to his department and the residents of the city. 

John H. Geaney is an attorney, shareholder and co-chair of Capehart Scatchard's Workers' Compensation Group in New Jersey. This post appears with permission from Geaney's New Jersey Workers' Comp Blog.