Opinion
November 28, 1949.
Appeal from Workmen's Compensation Board.
Present — Foster, P.J., Heffernan, Brewster, Santry and Bergan, JJ. [See post, p. 1042.]
Claimant was employed by the welfare department of the city of New York as an investigator, whose duties were to call on and investigate applicants for relief and assistance in a specified area in the borough of Brooklyn. Her claim for compensation was based on disablement due to tuberculosis which she claimed she contracted from exposure to persons afflicted with that disease while engaged in her investigations. She obtained her position following a city civil service examination. She was paid by the city and she was a member of the city retirement system. Her claim was disallowed for lack of coverage. Claimant contends that she was a State employee because public welfare is a State function, and the State contributes to the funds which the city welfare department expends for welfare, and that group 16 of subdivision 1 of section 3 Work. Comp. of the Workmen's Compensation Law makes the city liable to pay compensation to all State employees whose wages are paid by the city. She also contends that the City of New York is engaged in conducting a hazardous employment and that all of its employees are covered by the compensation law. Neither of these contentions is tenable. Group 16 provides that an employee whose wages are paid by a municipal corporation shall be deemed an employee of such municipal corporation for the purposes of the Workmen's Compensation Law. This clearly makes the claimant an employee of the City of New York and she would be entitled to compensation only if her work for the city constituted a hazardous employment. The New York City department of welfare is not engaged principally in a hazardous employment nor does the particular work in which the claimant was engaged itself constitute a hazardous employment. ( Matter of Clyde v. City of New York, 275 App. Div. 161.) Claimant was not covered by the Workmen's Compensation Law. Decision unanimously affirmed, without costs.