Thus a baker broke his finger after cleaning the car windows before driving to work, and applied to his accident fund as an on-the-way accident under Paragraph 8(2) No. 1 SGB VII. However, the accident coverage was rejected, as the fall would not lie within the protection scope of the on-the-way accident insurance. The accident would at most belong to general employee insurance, the accident fund said.
The court decision
The Social Court (SG) Hamburg, however, recognized
the finger fracture as a Wegeunfall (case no. S 40 U 140/23 D). Because the on-the-way accident protection under Paragraph 8 Abs. 2 Nr. 1 SGB VII requires that the insured main activity and the traversal of the path be linked, the court reasoned. And this is the case when the path is connected with the start or end of the main activity.
However, there must, however, be a factual connection between the insured activity and the
act leading to the accident, the Hamburg Social Court further explained. Accordingly, insured activities would include things like scraping ice in winter or cleaning the windows before departure.
Baker was allowed to clean the windows
Thus, the act of traversing the path from the front door to the vehicle and the subsequent visual inspection of the vehicle's windows and their cleaning, in order to be able to complete the work commute safely, constitutes a unified action of
the insured preparatory act within the meaning of Paragraph 8 Abs. 2 Nr. 1 SGB VII.
According to the Hamburg Social Court there was no interruption in the insured path, because the entire process took only a short period and did not correspond to any substantially different activity in a non-insured area. Thus, there was ultimately no interruption of the work path, and the entire sequence up to the baker's finger fracture was insured, the court concluded.
