Unhappy Hour

A Google employee who had attended a Happy Hour and was seriously injured after leaving was entitled to worker’s compensation, according to an opinion of the New York Appellate Division for the Third Judicial Department

Claimant, an account executive for the employer in New York City, sustained serious injuries – including a traumatic brain injury – in October 2021 when he was struck by two motorized bicycles while crossing a street enroute to a bus stop. On the evening in question, claimant had attended an invitation-only event denominated as a “SADA & Google Cloud – Happy Hour” at a local biergarten for the “Google Cloud NYC team.” Claimant was injured after he left the event, while attempting to locate a bus stop for the particular bus that he usually took home on the days he worked from Google’s local offices.

Happy Hour as a job requirement

With respect to the event itself, claimant testified that attending the SADA and Google Cloud happy hour, which had been placed on “everyone’s calendar” by one of the employer’s managers, was not only encouraged but was “absolutely, [100%]” part of his job requirements. As claimant explained, sessions and events such as the happy hour were “an integral part” of his duties as an account executive, and building positive working relationships with the employer’s business partners was “the only way” he and his coworkers could “sell anything.” According to claimant, the employer “track[ed] every dollar [of] revenue that [the employer] co-produce[d] with [its business partners],” and the amount of time and effort he expended in building these relationships impacted the metrics utilized to evaluate his performance. During such events, claimant testified, he would spend most of his time talking with the relevant business partner – in this case, SADA – but would “also spend time talking to the [the employer’s] management that is responsible for the [particular] business partner[ ]” in order to “make sure that [he got] connected to the right person.” Although the employer’s representative testified that employees were not required to participate in events such as the subject happy hour, he acknowledged that attendance at business partner events was “encouraged.” Indeed, the employer’s representative explained that the purpose of such events was to develop and maintain business relationships between the employer’s sales team and its business partners, which, in turn, allowed the employer and its partners to better understand the different strategies that they should pursue in order to make sales.

Based upon the foregoing, we are satisfied that the Board’s finding of a causal nexus between the accident and claimant’s employment is supported by substantial evidence. Despite the informal nature of the happy hour, it is readily apparent that the employer derived a benefit from claimant’s participation in the event.

The matter involved an employee with the last name of Matter. (Mike Frisch)