## Facts

- Solomon Martin worked at J. Lichtman & Sons’ plant.
- During a lunch break, Martin ate in a room on the employer’s premises customarily used by employees for lunch, with roughly eighteen employees present.
- Martin sat between two co-workers, Bradford and Taylor, and asked Bradford about apparently having two jobs.
- Bradford did not respond verbally, went to his locker, returned with a soda bottle, waited briefly, and struck Martin on the head with the bottle, injuring him.
- The record showed no prior quarrels between Martin and Bradford and no evidence they interacted outside work.
- The Division of Workmen’s Compensation awarded benefits; the County Court reversed; the Appellate Division reinstated the award; the employer appealed.

## Issues

1. Whether an unprovoked assault by a co-employee on the employer’s premises during a lunch break “arose out of” the employment for workers’ compensation purposes when the dispute’s subject matter was not work-related.
2. Whether New Jersey’s “but-for”/positional-risk approach supports compensability absent proof the assault stemmed from purely private vengeance or an off-duty relationship.

## Decision

- The New Jersey Supreme Court affirmed, per curiam, adopting the Appellate Division’s reasoning.
- The Court held Martin’s injuries were compensable because the employment brought the workers together in the place and circumstances that produced the assault.
- The Court reinstated the workers’ compensation award.

## Legal Principles

- Under New Jersey’s “but-for”/positional-risk test, an injury arises out of employment if it is more probably true than not that the injury occurred at the time and place of employment rather than elsewhere because employment positioned the worker in the setting where the risk materialized.
- A co-employee assault may arise out of employment even if the quarrel is unrelated to work, when workplace relations and conditions created the occasion for the clash.
- Compensation is generally denied when the assault is motivated by personal vengeance stemming from contact outside the employment or from a purely private relationship independent of the job.
- The possibility that a similar assault could have occurred off the job does not defeat compensability if the employment-based setting and enforced association explain why it occurred where and when it did.

## Conclusion

The court treated the workplace environment and enforced association as a compensable source of risk, holding that a spontaneous co-employee assault during an on-premises lunch break arose out of employment absent evidence of an independent, purely private motive.


Martin v. J. Lichtman & Sons, 199 A.2d 241 (N.J. 1964)