What’s the Going & Coming Rule in Wisconsin?

Do You Know the Rule?

As with most other jurisdictions, Wisconsin has statutory provisions regarding what happens when a worker experiences an injury heading to or leaving from the job. That information is available to Simply Research subscribers, but we highlight what America's Dairyland has to say about it here.

Coming & Going

Any employee going to and from her employment in the ordinary and usual way, while on the premises of the employer, or while in the immediate vicinity of those premises if the injury results from an occurrence on the premises; any employee going between an employer's designated parking lot and the employer's work premises while on a direct route and in the ordinary and usual way; any volunteer fire fighter, emergency medical responder, emergency medical services practitioner, rescue squad member, or diving team member while responding to a call for assistance, from the time of the call for assistance to the time of his return from responding to that call, including traveling to and from any place to respond to and return from that call, but excluding any deviations for private or personal purposes; or any fire fighter or municipal utility employee responding to a call for assistance outside the limits of his or her city or village, unless that response is in violation of law, is performing service growing out of and incidental to employment.

Carpooling?

An employee is not performing service growing out of and incidental to her employment while going to or from employment in a private or group or employer-sponsored carpool, van pool, commuter bus service, or other ride-sharing program in which the employee participates voluntarily and the sole purpose of which is the mass transportation of employees to and from employment.

Voluntary, Unpaid Wellness Activities

An employee is not performing service growing out of and incidental to employment while engaging in a program, event, or activity designed to improve the physical well-being of the employee, whether or not the program, event, or activity is located on the employer's premises, if participation in the program, event, or activity is voluntary and the employee receives no compensation for participation.

Traveling for Work?

Every employee whose employment requires the employee to travel shall be deemed to be performing service growing out of and incidental to the employee's employment at all times while on a trip, except when engaged in a deviation for a private or personal purpose. Acts reasonably necessary for living or incidental thereto shall not be regarded as such a deviation. Any accident or disease arising out of a hazard of such service shall be deemed to arise out of the employee's employment.

Case Examples

A salesperson, employed on a part-salary and part-commission basis, who travelled each day from his home, servicing and soliciting orders within a prescribed territory, using a delivery truck furnished by his employer whose office he was not required to report to, was performing services incidental to employment when he fell on his icy driveway going to his delivery truck to leave for his first call. Black River Dairy Products, Inc. v. DILHR, 207 N.W.2d 65 (Wis. 1973).

Worker's injuries suffered while walking to work shortly before 2 a.m. and being attacked by two unknown persons on a public sidewalk adjacent to the employer's building that was about 50 feet from the employee entrance were not compensable merely because his route to work intersected the route that would have been taken by an employee walking from the parking lot to the work premises; despite being on his way to work at a point on the direct path between the employer's parking lot and work premises, the worker made no use of the employer's parking lot, and if the legislature had wanted to create a zone in which bus riders, bicycle riders, walkers, etc., were covered while proceeding to or from work, it would not have expressed that intention by limiting coverage to the direct route between the employer's parking lot and work premises. Jaeger Baking Co. v. Kretschmann, 292 N.W.2d 622 (Wis. 1980).

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