2.4. ERMUSR 05-10-2016 - Laserfiche WebLink

Home Browse Search

In cases where the city concludes that an employee should be encouraged or even required to participate in a particular organization, the city will want to find out whether the organization has liability coverage to protect its members and officers for claims arising from those activities. If the organization hasn't done anything to cover the liability risks its officers and members face because of the organization's activities, the city has several options: • The city can decide it's comfortable simply assuming the risk that the damages and defense costs for a liability claim against a city employee See Section II.D,Coverage arising from his or her activities in the organization will not be greater limits. than the LMCIT liability coverage limit of$100,000. If the city determines that participation in a particular organization is within the Minn.Stat.§466.07. scope of an employee's duties, state law requires the city to defend and indemnify the employee for tort claims arising from that activity. If the cost exceeds the $100,000 coverage limit,the rest will be the city's responsibility. • The city can decide that participating in the organization will not be considered part of the employee's city duties. In that case, the city should make sure the employee understands that if she or he chooses to participate, she or he is doing so on his or her own. • The city may want to encourage the organization to obtain liability coverage. In some cases, depending on the organization's purpose and structure, LMCIT may be able to provide coverage. If a city pays an employee for time spent working with or participating in an outside organization, it will be very hard for the city to argue that the activity is outside the scope of the employee's duties. At the very least it puts the city in a very odd position of telling the employee the activity wasn't part of his or her duties even though they were being paid. If the city treats the employee's time spent participating in an outside organization's activities as paid work time, it will almost certainly be interpreted to mean that the city does in practice consider it part of the employee's duties. That in turn would trigger both the LMCIT coverage and the city's own duty to defend and indemnify, notwithstanding the city's stated intent to the contrary. For more information see If the city does wish to allow use of paid work time to participate in an HR Reference Manual,ch. 7,Personnel Policies. organization that the city does not consider part of the employee's city duties, the best approach might be to formally structure it as a type of paid leave. In other words,the city could adopt a formal policy allowing the employee to take paid time off for this purpose, similar to sick, vacation or funeral leave. Treating it as a form of paid leave might help avoid creating the implication that participating in the organization is part of the employee's city duties. 71