Maryland: Home-Based Worker’s Slip and Fall on Sidewalk Near Home Might Be Compensable

A Maryland appellate court, indicating it was undertaking a case of first impression, held that the compensability of an injury to a home-based employee depended upon an examination of the factors involved in the so-called “Larson Three-Part Test” [see Larson’s Workers’ Compensation Law, § 16.10], which the court adopted. That three-part test examines the following:

1. The quantity and regularity of work performed at home;
2. The continuing presence of work equipment at home; and
3. Special circumstances of the particular employment that make it necessary and not merely personally convenient to work at home.

Considering those factors in the case at bar, the court held that material factual questions remained as to whether (a) the injured employee’s home should qualify as a home work site, and (b) whether the employee had actually commenced his work day at the time he slipped and fell on black ice on a sidewalk adjacent to his residence. Accordingly, the court remanded the case for further proceedings in conformity with its opinion.

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

LexisNexis Online Subscribers: Citations below link to Lexis Advance.

See Schwan Food Co. v. Frederick, 2019 Md. App. LEXIS 512 (June 27, 2019)

See generally Larson’s Workers’ Compensation Law, § 16.10.

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

For a more detailed discussion of the case, see