Was Plumber who Used Car to get to 29 Jobsites ‘Traveling Employee?’

What Do You Think?

Chicago, IL (WorkersCompensation.com) – Whether a worker is a traveling employee and thus possibly entitled to benefits from a car accident that occurred on the way to work hinges on various factors. These include whether the worker uses his own car and whether he chose his route to work. 

An illustrative case involves a plumber in Illinois who traveled long distances to various job sites and during one of those trips was in a head-on collision. The plumber worked for the employer for one and half years, travelling from his fixed residence to 29 job sites during that period. He used his own car, though, and didn’t receive compensation for doing so. His employer didn’t tell him how to get to the job sites.

One day, on his way to a jobsite, another vehicle came over the hill in the wrong lane and crashed into him. 

The employer argued that the injuries did not arise out of and occur in the course of employment because the plumber was commuting at the time of the crash and was not a “traveling employee” for purposes of the workers’ compensation statute. Therefore, the injury was not work-connected and not compensable.

The court explained that employees injured on their way to or from work are generally not entitled to workers’ compensation benefits for those injuries, under the “coming and going rule.” An exception to that rule may apply if the worker is a traveling employee.

A traveling employee is one whose travel away from a regular workplace or whose travel is at least partly for their employers' purposes rather than simply serving to convey the employees to or from a regular jobsite. 

Was the plumber a traveling employee?

A. Yes. He was traveling to the job sites at least in part for the benefit of his employer.

B. No. He used his own car, picked his own route, and no one forced him to maintain his residence away from the jobsites. Therefore, he was merely commuting to work when he was injured.

If you selected A, you agreed with the court in Mechanical, Inc. v. Illinois Workers’ Compensation Comm’n, No. 4-24-0319WC (Ill. App. Ct. 12/23/24).

The court pointed out that the plumber’s travel was as much a product of the employer's multiple job sites as it was of the plumber’s choice of where to live. The work could only be performed at customers’ locations, and therefore traveling was an essential part of the job. 

Also, it didn’t matter that the plumber chose to reside far from the jobsites. “Unlike an ordinary employee, claimant could not simply move closer to work and mitigate his exposure to this risk,” the court wrote.

In fact, the court gave great weight to the increased risk the plumber was exposed to. It noted that he was required to travel at least 28 more times than an ordinary commuter. Because of that travel, he was forced to navigate unfamiliar roads to a greater extent than an ordinary commuter would be. 

The court rejected the employer's claim that the plumber was not a traveling employee.

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