No Workers' Comp for Victim of Horseplay

(CN) – A Ruby Tuesday’s waiter is not entitled to workers’ compensation for an injury stemming from ice-tossing horseplay with co-workers, the Virginia Court of Appeals ruled.     Matthew Simms was entering a food order into the computer when three of his fellow waiters started to pelt him with ice. Simms had a checkbook in his left hand, and as he lifted his left arm to block the ice, he suffered a dislocated shoulder.     Though Simms was an innocent victim of the horseplay, the workers’ compensation commission denied his claim on the basis that the injury did not arise from his regular work duties.      The appellate court upheld the decision, saying the evidence contradicted Simms’ claim that horseplay was tolerated by management.     “Considering the evidence in the case,” Judge Alston wrote, “the commission could properly find that the incident was personal in nature to claimant, and was not directed at him in his status as an employee.”