Workers' Compensation Defense

In Jonathan Peters v. WCAB (Cintas Corporation), 1 MAP 2020, decided November 17, 2021, by Justice Mundy, the Pennsylvania Supreme Court had held that the claimant, who sustained injuries in a motor vehicle accident on the way home from a non-mandatory but employer-sponsored work event, was in the course and scope of employment throughout the time of the event.

The claimant worked for the employer as a sales representative. On the day of the accident, the claimant visited customers in the northern portion of his sales territory. After completing his last sales call, he drove in the direction of his home, but he passed the highway exit home and headed directly to the Tilted Kilt to attend the employer’s social event. Upon returning home from the event, the claimant was in a motor vehicle accident and sustained multiple injuries. 

Because the claimant passed the exit to his home on the way to the event, the Workers’ Compensation Judge, the Appeal Board, and the Commonwealth Court all found that he ceased being in the course and scope of his employment once his home was passed and that his claim for benefits was therefore not compensable. The Supreme Court, however, found that the analysis performed by the lower courts was far too narrow. According to the Supreme Court, an employee’s course of employment does not end simply because the employee passed his or her home during the work day. 

The court noted that the claimant and a witness both testified that the events such as the one the claimant attended were commonly held during the employer’s sales blitzes. It further commented that it would be difficult to conclude that the claimant’s action in attending a regularly held event constituted an act so foreign as to remove him from his employment and be considered job abandonment. Although the event was voluntary and social, according to the Supreme Court, it was, nevertheless, work-related as the record showed the employer hosted and sponsored the event. The court, thus, held that the claimant remained in the course of his employment through the event at the Tilted Kilt. Because there was conflicting testimony as to whether the claimant took some action after leaving the Tilted Kilt that could be considered abandonment of employment, the court remanded the case to the Workers’ Compensation Judge, with instructions to make additional findings on this issue.

This is yet another highly fact-specific course and scope of employment case, and although in its decision the court reinforced the presumption of employment for traveling employees, that presumption is rebuttable. Therefore, it is recommended that for similar claims a thorough investigation of the facts be performed so that strong evidence of job abandonment can be presented. 

 

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