Generally, if an employee is required to travel as a part of his employment, he is covered by workers' compensation for the duration of the trip. There is a distinct exception to this rule when the employee markedly departs from the business trip to attend to a personal matter. In those jurisdictions following the majority rule for compensability above, an employee will usually be covered for an injury resulting from, for example, sleeping in a hotel or eating in a restaurant.
With respect to employees injured while at a hotel, compensability is consistent with the situation where an employee is required to reside on the employer's premises. Such living arrangement, even if temporary, is still at the behest of the employer and an obligation of the employee's job. The injuries that can befall an employee at a hotel, and which are compensable, are not limited to those involving sleeping. They can include an employee who is caught in a hotel fire, raped on the hotel's premises, or who slips and falls in the hotel lobby.
Compensability for injuries incurred while an employee engages in personal care are inconsistent throughout the states as a whole. Many states consider a fall in a hotel shower or, as an example, a burn from a hotel iron incurred while ironing clothes for the day, to be compensable as merely a part of the employment of the traveling employee. However, some states deny compensation on the theory that the employee is "preparing" to work, and, thus, not yet acting within the course of his employment. Other states deny compensation by considering personal care to be a normal part of life that is not unique to the traveling employee. Copyright 2009 LexisNexis, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc.
|
