Georgia: Provision of Motel Room Over a Week-End Did Not Create “Continuous Employment” Scenario

A Georgia appellate court, in a divided decision, reversed a trial court’s determination that a worker was a “continuous employee” and, accordingly, was due workers’ compensation benefits for an injury sustained on a Sunday afternoon while he shopped for groceries. The Appellate Division of the state’s Board of Workers’ Compensation had found that the worker’s injury did not arise out of and in the course of his employment in spite of the fact that at the time of the injury, the worker was staying in a motel room that had been provided by the employer. The Appellate Division also found that the worker had fixed hours—8:00 to 5:00, Monday–Friday—that he was staying in the motel room for his own convenience, and then only because the room had been rented by the employer on a 7-day basis. The trial court disregarded the Appellate Division’s findings and reinstated the WCJ’s award, based on continuous employment status. The appellate court found that the trial court had failed to give adequate deference to the factual findings of the Appellate Division.

Thomas A. Robinson, J.D., the Feature National Columnist for the LexisNexis Workers’ Compensation eNewsletter, is the co-author of Larson’s Workers’ Compensation Law (LexisNexis).

LexisNexis Online Subscribers: Citations below link to Lexis Advance.

See Avrett Plumbing Co. v. Castillo, 2017 Ga. App. LEXIS 119 (Mar. 10, 2017)

See generally Larson’s Workers’ Compensation Law, § 14.02.

Source: Larson’s Workers’ Compensation Law, the nation’s leading authority on workers’ compensation law

For a more detailed discussion of the case, see