An employer’s insurance carrier appeals from a decision of the Workmen’s Compensation Board affirming a referee’s decision and award to claimant of compensation for disability, made payable to the employer in reimbursement.
The question presented is whether the policy for workmen’s compensation insurance issued by appellant to claimant’s employer, a lawyer, covered her employment at the time and place of her injury. She was a stenographer in the sole employ of the insured and in the course of her work fell and broke her arm while at work in a room in the offices of the Public Administrator of Bronx County in the Bronx County Court House. Her employer, .whose law office was located elsewhere, was attorney for the Public Administrator and the arrangement of his law practice was such that claimant performed all her services for him in the offices of his client. The evidence is that her presence there was solely occasioned by her stenographic service to her employer in connection with the latter’s legal services to that particular client, and that her services were directed and controlled from his law office at 349 Bast 149th Street.
In my opinion there are two grounds upon which we may hold that claimant’s injuries were Within the coverage of the policy, viz.: first, that when injured it may rightly be said that she was engaged in a £< business operation ” of her employer which pertained to his law practice and which, while performed away from the rooms of the law office, nevertheless took place in connection with or in relation to the business operations of those headquarters; second, that by the inclusion of claimant’s earnings in the computation of the premium paid by the employer and accepted by appellant, the parties to the agreement by their conduct have, under its express wording, determined such coverage.
The business operations conducted at a law office and elsewhere in relation thereto may fairly be said to embrace many activities. Countless, of such may occur away from the place where the lawyer maintains his office rooms. The business operations of a law office, generally speaking, consist of law practice. The law office location is but the headquarters wherein legal service is performed and from which it emanates to be
As noted above it was stipulated as a condition of the agreement that the cost of the policy be based on the earnings of all employees of the insured engaged in the business operations of his law office, both thereat and elsewhere in connection therewith or in relation thereto. Thus the agreement called for the inclusion of claimant’s wages in the make-up of the price paid for the insurance. This manifests a relationship between payroll and coverage. When the policy was written the former was estimated therein with reference to the operations covered, and the latter was stated as “ Clerical Office Employees ”. The relationship is again referred to on the last page of the policy
The decision and award should be affirmed.
Poster, P. J., Heffereae, Bergae and Cooe, JJ., concur.
Decision and award affirmed, with costs to the Workmen’s Compensation Board.
