Exploding firehouse toilet seat lawsuit thrown out
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A firehouse prank left a New Jersey firefighter with a burned ball and no one to sue. Firefighter Raymond Johns sat down on what soon became an exploding toilet seat in 2015. He exited quickly with a bleeding testicle and second degree burns.
An appeals court says a lawsuit by Johns can’t go forward because it was an on the job injury covered by workers comp. Johns was off-duty for two weeks with full pay due to his injured testicle. A firefighter was suspended for the prank.
Fellow firefighter Thomas Wengerter admitted placing snaps around the firehouse as a prank and apologized immediately after the incident, according to an appeals court decision released Monday. But Wengerter later denied he was the one who placed a snap on the toilet.
A trial judge ruled in 2017 that Johns couldn’t sue his fellow firefighter over the incident because the injury was covered under the Workers’ Compensation Act. The act covers workplace injuries and prohibits lawsuits in case of an injury caused by “horseplay or skylarking on the part of a fellow employee” when there is no indication of “intentional wrong.”
