NOT FOR PUBLICATION WITHOUT THE APPROVAL OF THE APPELLATE DIVISION
SUPERIOR COURT OF NEW JERSEY APPELLATE DIVISION
DOCKET NO. A-3222-24
MICHAEL CARBONE,
Petitioner-Appellant, APPROVED FOR PUBLICATION September 11, 2026
v. APPELLATE DIVISION
BOARD OF TRUSTEES, POLICE AND FIREMEN'S RETIREMENT SYSTEM,
Respondent-Respondent.
__________________________
Argued March 24, 2026 – Decided September 11, 2026
Before Judges Rose, DeAlmeida and Torregrossa-
O'Connor.
On appeal from the Board of Trustees of the Police and Firemen's Retirement System, Department of the Treasury, PFRS No. xx3951.
Steven J. Kossup (Steven J. Kossup, PC) argued the cause for appellant.
Thomas R. Hower, Staff Attorney, argued the cause for respondent (Nels J. Lauritzen, Legal Affairs Deputy Director, attorney; Robert J. Papazian, on the brief).
The opinion of the court was delivered by DeALMEIDA, J.A.D.
Petitioner Michael Carbone appeals from the May 15, 2025 final agency decision of the Board of Trustees (Board) of the Police and Firemen 's Retirement System denying his application for accidental disability retirement benefits. We reverse.
I.
The facts are not in dispute. Petitioner was a detective with the Morris County Sheriff's Office (MCSO) assigned to the K-9 division of the emergency services unit. He had more than eight years' experience, approximately seven of which were as a K-9 handler and trainer. Petitioner's K-9 partner, Loco, was a Dutch shepherd weighing approximately ninety-two pounds. Loco was certified for fieldwork in the search and apprehension of criminal suspects and narcotics. He was trained to bite and hold suspects for apprehension and could cause severe physical injuries to the captured person. Loco was exceptionally strong, and bred and trained to be potentially deadly when deployed. His lineage was of large and muscular Dutch shepherd male dogs known for their "extreme power and drive."
Loco was not trained to recognize police officers other than petitioner as non-threatening. At an administrative hearing in this matter, petitioner testified Loco "knows me and that's it. Everyone else is essentially a target
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. . . ." As a result, police officers at active search scenes were warned to keep away from Loco and any other K-9 officer.
On September 22, 2020, at approximately 2:35 a.m., petitioner and Loco were called to assist with the search for and apprehension of suspects who abandoned and fled from a stolen vehicle and were presumed armed. Four police departments, including the State Police, were present at the scene, a residential neighborhood with several structures.
On arrival, petitioner was informed the Hanover Police Department established a search perimeter. Standard operating procedures provided upon arriving, the K-9 team must issue the following voice announcement three times before releasing a K-9 officer to apprehend a suspect: "This is the police. We have police-trained dogs. If you do not come out, you will be bit." Petitioner made the announcement over the loudspeaker in his patrol car three times.
Afterwards, petitioner, MCSO Officer Mark Slinger, and an officer with the Parsippany-Troy Hills Police Department conducted a search within the perimeter. Petitioner and Loco approached a structure and again petitioner gave the required announcement three times. Upon entry, he found state troopers entering the rear of the same structure. The troopers had not observed the warnings. Petitioner, consistent with his training, gathered the troopers
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and cautioned them about "getting ahead" of the search team. He reminded them Loco could not distinguish a suspect from an officer when deployed to apprehend a target and would bite any person in the search area. Petitioner and Loco then resumed searching for the suspects.
About forty minutes later, the K-9 team reached a garage and approached its back door. The door was partially opened inward, raising suspicion the suspects might be hiding inside. Petitioner stood with his right shoulder to the wall in a tactical posture because the suspects were believed to be armed. Loco was sitting or in a down position at petitioner's left foot. Petitioner held Loco's leash in his right hand and could see the left-side door of the dual garage front doors was closed. He could not see the right -side door. The distance from the back door to the front doors was approximately twenty-five feet. Petitioner was preparing to deploy Loco into the garage to search for the suspects.
Petitioner again gave the three pre-deployment announcements. He made Loco bark before the second and third announcements. Petitioner testified if anyone other than a hiding suspect was in the garage, he would expect to hear that person identify themselves to prevent being apprehended and bitten by the K-9 officer. No one responded to the announcements. Petitioner testified Loco was trained to bark if he detected human scent in a
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structure and signal a sighting of a person by lifting his head with his ears forward. Loco, at that point, gave no indication of scent or sight of a suspect in the garage.
Petitioner described what happened next:
I hear nothing.
I go to open the door to send Loco. As the door opens, I see Loco immediately posture up. I see he's fixated on something and now he is en route to engage the target he's supposed to.
....
Yeah, I mean it's like instantaneously. . . . .
....
So, at that point I believe he's going to go in there with enthusiasm and start doing some type of methodical search . . . . So being that I heard nothing when I open the door and give him his command he immediately postures and locates with his eyes that he is going to bite something . . . .
At that point, petitioner thought there was a suspect in the garage and deployed Loco.
Petitioner had his hand through the loop at the end of Loco's leash. The other end of the leash was attached to a collar around Loco's neck. He gave Loco the fully extended, fifteen-foot leash to permit him to apprehend the target, while retaining his grip on the leash loop. Petitioner broke tactical
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cover and stepped into the doorway to give Loco more leash and to see Loco 's target. Petitioner saw Loco running at maximum effort, about twenty-five to thirty miles per hour, toward a state trooper standing in the open right -side bay door.
Petitioner yelled commands to Loco to stop while "simultaneously pulling, yanking him back, as [Loco's] hitting the end of the leash to bite the trooper." The trooper saw Loco heading toward him at full charge and momentarily froze in place. Petitioner explained his reaction:
[K]nowing what these dogs are capable of and knowing what . . . the outcome of a bite could be if he would have bit [(sic)] that state trooper it could have been deadly.
....
. . . So, when I see that trooper, I'm immediately like . . . I need to stop that dog. If the dog bites him he's going to essentially tear him up.
....
. . . So, for the trooper's sake, for the sake of the dog not getting injured by the trooper . . . I yanked the dog back and stopped him from biting the trooper.
Loco was not trained to stop on verbal command while fully deployed to apprehend a suspect at such a short distance from the target. According to petitioner's testimony, Loco "probably didn't even hear what I was saying
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because . . . they're doing what they're supposed to do because we would never do that in training."
Petitioner's training did not include stopping Loco with a full force pull on his leash while he was deployed to apprehend a suspect. Petitioner testified the strength he needed to stop Loco "could literally snap his neck doing that just one time" and would never be used on a dog in training. He explained:
[T]hat . . . type of pulling, . . . we would never do that in . . . training. [I]t's abusive.
....
[I]t's not a training way. I mean that was like an instinctual thing . . . .
[T]he policy sets it up that we would never have to stop a dog from attacking someone that's not supposed to be attacked.
....
So, I would never deploy the dog unless it was a warranted situation. So once I give the deployment I'm not un[-]deploying unless I have a reasonable amount of time and distance.
Petitioner continued, "[Y]ou would damage the dog one way or another mentally, physically." He testified the incident confused and harmed Loco and his apprehension intensity subsequently dropped. At the administrative hearing, a K-9 training expert testified the recall of a K-9 officer in hot pursuit
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of a suspect would likely "break the dog" and render it ineffective for future police work.
Petitioner was able to stop Loco about three to five feet from the trooper.
Loco hit the end of the leash with great intensity and force, violently spinning around while still trying to apprehend the trooper. The force of Loco coming to a sudden and violent stop at the end of the leash caused petitioner to overextend his arm, resulting in a partial distal tendon tear in his right elbow. The injury rendered petitioner permanently and totally disabled from the performance of his usual duties and any other available duties the MCSO was willing to assign to him.
On May 10, 2022, petitioner applied for accidental disability retirement benefits. On January 9, 2023, the Board found petitioner satisfied all but one of the criteria for the benefits: (1) he was totally and permanently disabled from the performance of his duties and other duties MCSO was willing to offer him; (2) the event causing his disability was identifiable as to time and place; (3) the disability was caused by a circumstance external to petitioner and was not the result of a preexisting disease; (4) the event occurred during and as a result of petitioner's regular or assigned duties; and (5) his disability was not the result of willful negligence. However, the Board found petitioner did not satisfy the sixth criterion because "the event that caused [his] disability [was]
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not undesigned and unexpected." As a result, the Board denied his application for accidental disability retirement benefits and awarded him ordinary disability retirement benefits.
After an administrative appeal, the Board transmitted the matter to the Office of Administrative Law as a contested case. On November 14, 2024, an Administrative Law Judge (ALJ) conducted a hearing. Petitioner, Slinger, and a K-9 officer training expert testified at the hearing.
In an April 14, 2025 initial decision, the ALJ recommended affirming the Board's denial of petitioner's application for accidental disability retirement benefits. The ALJ noted the only issue before her was whether petitioner's disability was the result of an event that was undesigned and unexpected.
The ALJ was not convinced petitioner's sudden retraction of Loco's leash and the dog's violent stop were undesigned and unexpected events and found:
There is no evidence of such an occurrence here. As outlined above, [petitioner's] job, an experienced K[-
]9 detective trainer and handler, is incredibly dangerous. In fact, his training is extensive specifically to try to prevent a vicious attack of an unintended target, or in this case, a "blue-on-blue"
attack. [Petitioner] has utilized and/or deployed K-9 Loco on over two hundred similar searches. In fact, [petitioner] was trained to take the corrective action of recalling him on and off-leash should K-9 Loco seek to take down an unintended target.
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The ALJ found "many dangerous outcomes are trained for and thus contemplated and to be expected in K-9 work." She continued:
Further, in this case, he himself encountered [t]roopers in the structure just prior to the one where the injury occurred; thus the event was to be expected as others did not heed or hear [petitioner's] announcements during that early frantic morning. So, it would be reasonable to conclude that all searches are likely to have unintended targets present especially in a residential neighborhood full of structures that required searching, alongside many responding law enforcement agencies and their respective personnel as [petitioner] and his K-9 unit did in the normal course and pursuant to his training many times in the past.
Finally, the ALJ concluded petitioner did not meet his burden of establishing each element necessary to be awarded accidental disability retirement benefits and the Board should affirm its decision.
On May 15, 2025, the Board, after considering petitioner's exceptions to the ALJ's initial decision, issued a final agency decision adopting the recommendation of the ALJ and denying petitioner's application for accidental disability retirement benefits. This appeal followed.
Petitioner argues the Board erred because: (1) the trooper's presence in the garage and the need for petitioner's forceful intervention to stop Loco before he bit the officer was undesigned and unexpected; (2) the ALJ's reliance on prior instances in which petitioner terminated Loco's pursuit of a subject
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was misplaced because those instances were factually distinct in material ways from the circumstances that resulted in petitioner's permanent disability; and (3) the ALJ erroneously relied on the dangerous nature of petitioner 's work to conclude the forceful recall of Loco was expected.
II.
Our review of decisions of administrative agencies is limited, with petitioners carrying a substantial burden of persuasion. In re Stallworth, 208 N.J. 182, 194 (2011). An agency's determination must be sustained "unless there is a clear showing that it is arbitrary, capricious, or unreasonable, or that it lacks fair support in the record." Russo v. Bd. of Trs., Police & Firemen's Ret. Sys., 206 N.J. 14, 27 (2011) (quoting In re Herrmann, 192 N.J. 19, 27-28 (2007)). "[I]f substantial evidence supports the agency's decision, 'a court may not substitute its own judgment for the agency's even though the court might have reached a different result . . . .'" In re Carter, 191 N.J. 474, 483 (2007) (quoting Greenwood v. State Police Training Ctr., 127 N.J. 500, 513 (1992)).
While we are not bound by an agency's interpretation of legal issues, which we review de novo, Russo, 206 N.J. at 27, "[w]e must give great deference to an agency's interpretation and implementation of its rules enforcing the statutes for which it is responsible." Piatt v. Bd. of Trs., Police & Firemen's Ret. Sys., 443 N.J. Super. 80, 99 (App. Div. 2015) (quoting St.
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Peter's Univ. Hosp. v. Lacy, 185 N.J. 1, 13 (2005)). "Such deference has been specifically extended to state agencies that administer pension statutes." Id. at 99.
"[A]n accidental disability retirement entitles a member to receive a higher level of benefits than those provided under an ordinary disability retirement." Patterson v. Bd. of Trs., State Police Ret. Sys., 194 N.J. 29, 43 (2008). To qualify for accidental disability retirement benefits, an employee has the burden to prove that he or she is
permanently and totally disabled as a direct result of a traumatic event occurring during and as a result of the performance of his regular or assigned duties and that such disability was not the result of the member's willful negligence and that such member is mentally or physically incapacitated for the performance of his usual duty and of any other available duty in the department which his employer is willing to assign to him.
[N.J.S.A. 43:16A-7(a)(1).]
The statute and decades of precedents interpreting its provisions were examined by the Supreme Court in Richardson v. Board of Trustees, Police & Firemen's Retirement System, 192 N.J. 189 (2007). As we explained in Moran v. Bd. of Trs., Police & Firemen's Ret. Sys., 438 N.J. Super. 346, 348 (App. Div. 2014), the Richardson Court "found that in using the term 'traumatic event,' the Legislature did not mean generally to raise the bar for injured
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employees to qualify for accidental disability pensions." (citing Richardson, 192 N.J. at 210-11). "Rather, the Legislature intended 'to excise disabilities that result from pre-existing disease alone or in combination with work effort from the sweep of the accidental disability statutes and to continue to allow recovery for the kinds of unexpected injurious events that had long been called 'accidents.'" Ibid. (citing Richardson, 192 N.J. at 192).
The Richardson Court established new standards for determining whether an employee was disabled as a result of a traumatic event within the meaning of the statute and, as a result, is entitled to accidental disability retirement benefits. The Court held that "a traumatic event is . . . an unexpected external happening that directly causes injury and is not the result of pre-existing disease alone or in combination with work effort." Richardson, 192 N.J. at 212.
[T]o obtain accidental disability benefits, a member must prove:
1. that he [or she] is permanently and totally disabled;
2. as a direct result of a traumatic event that is a. identifiable as to time and place, b. undesigned and unexpected, and
c. caused by a circumstance external to the member (not the result of pre-existing
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disease that is aggravated or accelerated by the work);
3. that the traumatic event occurred during and as a result of the member's regular or assigned duties;
4. that the disability was not the result of the member's willful negligence; and
5. that the member is mentally or physically incapacitated from performing his usual or any other duty.
[Id. at 212-13.]
As discussed above, it is undisputed the only factor at issue here is whether petitioner's injury was caused by an undesigned and unexpected event. We are guided in our analysis of that question by the holding in Richardson.
Richardson was a corrections officer at a State prison. Id. at 193. When an inmate became violent, two officers sent an emergency signal for assistance. Ibid. Richardson and another officer responded. Ibid.
The officers attempted to subdue the inmate so they could handcuff him behind his back. They succeeded in wrestling the inmate to the ground on his stomach and contained his arms under his chest. Richardson straddled the inmate to hold him down, but the inmate continued to struggle by kicking, punching, and throwing his body around. A colleague attempted to hand Richardson his handcuffs. As Richardson was reaching for the handcuffs, the inmate pulled his arm loose and forcefully jerked up from the ground, knocking Richardson backward. The force caused Richardson to fall back onto his left hand and hyperextend his wrist.
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[Ibid.]
Richardson's injury resulted in his total and permanent disability from performing his duties as a corrections officer. Ibid.
The Board denied Richardson's application for accidental disability retirement benefits and instead awarded him ordinary disability retirement benefits. Ibid. Although the Board found Richardson totally and permanently disabled as a direct result of the encounter with the inmate, it determined that he did not suffer a traumatic event as required by the statute. Id. at 194. At a subsequent hearing, two officers testified the inmate's violent resistance was not part of the normal course of a corrections officer's duties. Ibid. "Nonetheless, the ALJ determined that the . . . incident did not constitute a traumatic event, because Richardson's response was part of the ordinary duties of a corrections officer. The Board adopted that decision." Ibid. We affirmed. Ibid.
The Supreme Court reversed. Ibid. After establishing the standards set forth above for determining whether an employee was disabled as a direct result of a traumatic event, the Court explained that "not every case will require a great rush of force" to qualify for accidental disability retirement benefits. Id. at 213. "Indeed, no particular amount of force is necessary, and no gravitational force analysis is implicated in the traumatic event standard."
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Ibid. "Thus, a member who is injured as a direct result of an identifiable, unanticipated mishap has satisfied the traumatic event standard." Ibid. The Court continued:
By way of example, a police officer who has a heart attack while chasing a suspect has not experienced a traumatic event. In that case, the work effort, alone or in combination with pre-existing disease, was the cause of the injury. However, the same police officer, permanently and totally disabled during the chase because of a fall, has suffered a traumatic event. Similarly, the gym teacher who develops arthritis from the repetitive effects of his work over the years has not suffered a traumatic event.
His disability is the result of degenerative disease and is not related to an event that is identifiable as to time and place. On the contrary, the same gym teacher who trips over a riser and is injured has satisfied the standard.
[Ibid.]
Applying the new standards to the circumstances that led to Richardson's injury, the Court held:
The Board contends that because subduing an inmate is part of the anticipated work of a corrections officer and was not unexpected or unintended, Richardson cannot satisfy the traumatic event standard. That is a misreading of the statute, which requires that the traumatic event occur "during and as a result of the performance of [the member's] regular or assigned duties."
[Ibid.]
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The Court provided examples of traumatic events that could arise during ordinary work effort and qualify the employee for accidental disability retirement benefits:
A policeman can be shot while pursuing a suspect; a librarian can be hit by a falling bookshelf while reshelving books; a social worker can catch her hand in the car door while transporting a child to court. Each of those examples . . . meets the traumatic event standard.
[Id. at 214.]
"In sum, the fact that a member is injured while performing his ordinary duties does not disqualify him from receiving accidental disability benefits; some injuries sustained during the ordinary work effort will pass muster and others will not." Ibid. The Court defined the "polestar" of the inquiry as "whether, during the regular performance of [the petitioner's] job, an unexpected happening, not the result of pre-existing disease alone or in combination with the work, has occurred and directly resulted in the permanent and total disability of the member." Ibid. The Court concluded:
Given the clarified test for traumatic event expressed above and our discussion of work effort, Richardson satisfied the accidental disability statute. While performing the regular tasks of his job as a corrections officer, subduing an inmate, Richardson was thrown to the floor and hyperextended his wrist . . . . The occurrence was . . . unexpected and undesigned . . . .
In short, Richardson suffered a traumatic event.
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[Id. at 214-15.]
The Richardson Court cited favorably to its prior decision in Gable v.
Board of Trustees, Public Employees' Retirement System, 115 N.J. 212 (1989), noting it "recognized the 'actions of an unruly inmate' as the necessary qualifying external force distinct from an employee's 'own conduct.'" Id. at 208; see also Gable, 115 N.J. at 222. In Gable, the Court noted:
We recognize that a corrections officer's job is dangerous. There is always the possibility that he or she will be attacked violently by an inmate. . . . These occurrences, however, while occupational hazards, do not occur frequently enough to constitute normal stress or strain. Although a corrections officer, such as Gable[,] . . . may realize that there is a "potential that he or she will be called upon to subdue an inmate, an officer does not expect his or her daily routine will normally involve being struck by an aggressive or escaping inmate."
[115 N.J. at 223-24 (quoting Gable v. Bd. of Trs. Pub.
Emp. Ret. Sys., 224 N.J. Super. 417, 423 (App. Div.
1988)).]
The Court added, "[m]erely by performing their jobs, corrections officers do not 'voluntarily' assume the risk of being assaulted by an unruly inmate" because they "are not hired to be punching bags." Id. at 224.
We do not want corrections officers to shy away from subduing unruly inmates. Nor do we want to discourage police officers from chasing criminal suspects. If law-enforcement officers act cautiously, they will not get injured – but they will also not be
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doing their jobs properly, and the public will not be as well protected.
[Ibid.]
The determination of whether an incident is undesigned and unexpected cannot be "resolved merely by reviewing the member's job description and the scope of his or her training" to determine whether the event is of the type the employee expects to encounter. Mount v. Bd. of Trs., Police and Firemen's Ret. Sys., 233 N.J. 402, 427 (2018). While "those considerations may weigh strongly for or against an award of accidental disability benefits," a reviewing court "must carefully consider not only the member's job responsibilities and training, but all aspects of the event itself." Ibid.
Therefore, in Mount, the Court considered the officer who suffered psychological trauma when he
confronted a catastrophic accident at close range. He initially viewed a victim's arm hanging from the vehicle's window. Bystanders approached the vehicle demanding that Mount rescue the occupants. With no firefighting equipment except a small fire extinguisher, Mount faced the imminent threat of an explosion. Within moments, the car burst into flames.
As Mount learned minutes later, the explosion "melted" the young victims' bodies into the interior of the vehicle.
[Ibid.]
The Court found
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[b]y virtue of his job description, training, and prior experience, Mount could anticipate being called to accidents that were serious or even fatal. As his job description suggest[ed], in some circumstances Mount would be expected to remove victims from a damaged vehicle pending the arrival of medical personnel.
[Ibid.]
Nonetheless, the Court held the "tragic event" was "undesigned and unexpected" because Mount "was not trained to combat, unassisted, an explosion of such magnitude experienced at such a close range. With no firefighting equipment or protective gear, he was helpless in the face of a terrible tragedy." Id. at 427-28.
Here, the event that triggered petitioner's injury was his discovery of a state trooper in a building standing approximately twenty-five feet from Loco, who was charging at full speed to apprehend his "target." Petitioner immediately intervened to prevent serious bodily injury to his fellow officer and harm to the dog, which he feared might be shot by the trooper. He was unable to stop Loco through voice commands, given the short distance between the K-9 officer and the trooper, the speed at which Loco was charging, and the dog's intense focus on apprehending his target. With no other option to prevent the dog from injuring the trooper, petitioner yanked on Loco's leash. He was met with the significant external force of Loco coming to a sudden stop from his charge and violently writhing to attack the trooper.
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For several reasons, we find insufficient support in the record for the ALJ's finding, adopted by the Board, the event was not unexpected and undesigned. First, the ALJ's observation petitioner's job was "extremely dangerous," while supported by the record, is not dispositive to the traumatic event analysis. Both N.J.S.A. 43:16A-7(a)(1) and Richardson predicate the award of accidental disability retirement benefits on a disabling injury resulting from an event that occurs during the applicant's performance of his or her regular or assigned duties. Petitioner's assignment to a hazardous position does not make him more or less likely to have experienced an unexpected or undesigned event while performing his duties. It is the unexpected nature of the triggering event, not the inherent dangerousness of the applicant 's duties, that is most significant to analysis. See Richardson, 192 N.J. at 214 (holding "[a] policeman . . . shot while pursuing a suspect" constitutes a traumatic event for purposes of qualifying for accidental disability retirement benefits); Mount, 233 N.J. at 427 (holding a police officer who "[b]y virtue of his job description, training, and prior experience[,]" could anticipate being called to a serious or fatal motor vehicle accident, can experience a traumatic event when he encounters a fatal accident in which he witnesses the death of young victims in a resulting fire).
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Second, there is no support in the record for the ALJ's conclusion petitioner was trained to safely recall Loco in the circumstances that resulted in his disabling injury. An applicant's training is relevant to the determination of whether a triggering event was unexpected and undesigned. Training to respond to an event suggests the event is expected to occur during the performance of the applicant's duties, and militates against a finding the event was unexpected and undesigned. The testimony established petitioner was trained to safely recall Loco after he was deployed to apprehend a suspect in some circumstances, and had done so on several occasions. The ALJ relied on that training and experience to find the triggering event was not unexpected and undesigned.
However, petitioner testified he recalled Loco by verbal commands when the dog was off leash in an open field and fifty to seventy-five feet from a suspect who surrendered as the dog approached him. Petitioner explained those circumstances are meaningfully different from the triggering event in which Loco was approximately twenty-five feet from his target in an enclosed space, and charging at full speed. According to petitioner, in view of Loco 's intense response to the close proximity of his target, petitioner doubted the dog even heard his verbal commands to stop.
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In addition, petitioner testified he recalled Loco on another occasion after he had apprehended and bitten a suspect. This too, petitioner testified, was a significantly different situation than the circumstances leading to his injury. According to petitioner, once Loco has bitten a suspect, Loco has completed his assignment and is, through training, responsive to a verbal command to release the suspect. Neither of these situations is comparable to petitioner's unexpected realization Loco was charging at full speed to violently attack a state trooper a short distance away.
Nor are we convinced, as found by the ALJ, because petitioner encountered state troopers in a different building forty minutes prior to the triggering event, he should have expected a trooper's presence in the garage after he deployed Loco. After the earlier incident, petitioner gathered the other officers to remind them Loco could not distinguish between police officers and suspects and would apprehend and bite anyone in the search area when he is deployed. He instructed the officers not to get ahead of the K-9 team for their safety. There is no evidence in the record suggesting the troopers would not comply with petitioner's instructions once the search resumed. To the contrary, it would have been reasonable for petitioner to assume the troopers, having just been reminded of the need to take heed of his warning and stay
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behind the K-9 team, were not likely to be present in any structure Loco subsequently searched.
To the extent petitioner may have anticipated a person other than a suspect would be present in the garage, he took the steps required by standard operating procedures to clear the building of non-suspects. He gave three verbal warnings and made Loco bark twice before deploying him into the garage. Moreover, as we have held, "it is clear that an accident can be 'undesigned and unexpected' under the Richardson test even though it may be concluded in retrospect that the employee could have anticipated the risk of such an accident and taken steps to avoid it." Brooks v. Bd. of Trs. Pub. Emp. Ret. Sys. 425 N.J. Super. 277, 284 (App. Div. 2012).
We note as well the external force that injured petitioner was not the trooper's presence in the garage, but Loco's violent and writhing sudden stop when petitioner yanked on the dog's leash while he was charging his target. Petitioner was not trained to violently yank Loco's leash to recall him from apprehending a suspect. To the contrary, the testimony established yanking Loco's leash could have seriously injured or killed the dog, and likely ruined his future usefulness in apprehending suspects. Petitioner testified yanking on Loco's leash would have been "abusive" had it not been necessary to prevent serious physical harm to the trooper.
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The record supports the conclusion the unexpected and undesigned event that resulted in petitioner's disability was his need to use a violent method in stopping Loco from causing serious physical harm to another officer. Having been injured as the result of a traumatic event within the meaning of N.J.S.A. 43:16A-7(a)(1) and Richardson, petitioner is entitled to accidental disability retirement benefits.
Reversed.
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