New Jersey Has Jurisdiction to Hear Claim for Out-of-State Injury Where Employment Contract Completed Within the State
Where a New Jersey resident filed an online application for employment with a New York furniture company, received a phone call at his home to arrange an interview at the employer’s facility in New York and, following the interview, received a phone call at his home from a representative of the employer offering him a job as a warehouse worker, there was sufficient contact with New Jersey to support jurisdiction regarding the worker’s injury, in spite of the fact that the injury occurred in New York, held a New Jersey appellate court in Williams v. Raymours Furniture Co., 2017 N.J. Super. LEXIS 51 (Apr. 19, 2017), quoting Larson’s Workers’ Compensation Law, § 142.01.
The Court noted that Larson indicated there were six grounds for asserting applicability of a particular state’s compensation act:
- Place where the injury occurred;
- Place of making the contract;
- Place where the employment relation exists or is carried out;
- Place where the industry is localized;
- Place where the employee resides; or
- Place whose statute the parties expressly adopted by contract.
The Court continued that Larson had long expressed the view “that the state which was the locus of any one of the first three items—contract, injury or employment—and probably also of the next two—employee residence and business localization—can constitutionally apply its statute if it wants to.” In as much as the contract had been completed in New Jersey, that state could consider the claim.