Michigan: Appellate Court Clarifies Exceptions to the State’s Going and Coming Rule

A state appellate court reversed a decision by the Michigan Compensation Appellate Commission that had denied workers’ compensation benefits to a company auditor who suffered injuries in an auto crash as he drove from his home to a manufacturing plant owned by his employer where he was to perform audit work. The court found that in as much as the auditor’s job entailed travel to various employer facilities to perform his work, such travel was an integral part of his work duties and the auto crash occurred within the course and scope of the employment. The court also noted that the employer reimbursed the auditor for the expenses of the travel. The going and coming rule did not bar the claim. The court criticized the decisions by the magistrate and the MCAC which appeared to consider the four exceptions set forth in Stark v L. E. Myers Co., 58 Mich App 439, 228 NW2d 411 (1975) as “factors” to be weighed. They were not factors, but separate exceptions and the auditor here had met at least two of them.

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 Smith v. Chrysler Grp., LLC, 2020 Mich. App. LEXIS 1388 (Feb. 25, 2020)

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

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