What Do You Think?
A “travelling employee” who is injured while travelling may be entitled to workers’ compensation. But doesn’t every employee “travel” in some sense of the word? A case involving a handyman who often travelled between two of his employer’s facilities considers the boundaries of the travelling employee doctrine.
The claimant mainly worked cleaning the company’s office, and a gym a couple doors down from the office. These were the employer’s facilities, located at 977 and 1015 Elm Street, and they were within walking distance of each other. Sometimes, the employer would call the claimant during the day to clean at other locations. He thought of himself as being “always on call.”
One day, he asked his employer if he could go home to get his motorcycle so he could put it in storage for the winter. His supervisor gave him the green light and he drove home, which was 20 miles away, and picked up the bike. On his way back to work, a van hit and severely injured him. He filed for workers’ compensation.
To obtain workers’ compensation benefits, an employee must show that his injuries arose out of and in the course of employment. “Arising out of” employment means, essentially, that the risks of the job caused the injury.
The claimant asserted that he was a “traveling employee.” As such, the hazards of the travel route were also risks associated with his employment.
The New Hampshire Compensation Appeals Board denied the claim on the basis that it did not arise out of employment. The handyman appealed.
Did the handyman’s injury arise out of employment?
A. Yes. Because he was a traveling employee, the risk of getting into an accident while driving was job-related.
B. No. His job primarily required him to travel between two locations which were within walking distance of one another.
If you selected B, you agreed with the court in Appeal of Michael Messina, No. 2024-0712 (N.H. 01/06/26), which denied the claim.
A traveling employee, the court said, is a worker whose business requires that he be away from home, or for whom travel is an integral part of his job.
Here, the employee claimed he frequently travelled to various locations at the request of his employer and thus travel was a required component of his job. Further, he said, he was travelling from his home to the gym location when he was injured, and that he was on call while travelling.
This was not a case, however, the court said, where the employee was required to live away from home or to extensively travel.
“[The ‘travel’ required by the claimant’s job on the day he suffered his injury was between two buildings on the same street within walking distance of one another,” the court said. That was not the type of circumstance that rendered travel integral to his job. Nor was he travelling such distances that he was required to live away from home.
Further, at the time of the accident, the claimant was on a personal errand. His ride home and back to the office was not travel that was required by his employer. Thus, the risks he faced in doing so were not work-related.
The court affirmed the Board’s denial of the claim.
For workers’ compensation compliance info in New Hampshire and the rest of the U.S., turn to Simply Research.
