New York: Remote Regular Travel to Worksite is not "a Commute"

Acknowledging that under the standard going and coming rule, an employee's injuries sustained in the ordinary travel from his or her home to a specified worksite did not arise out of and in the course of the employment, a New York appellate court agreed with the state's Board that the going and coming rule did not apply to a situation in which the employee was required by the practical considerations of his remote work to stay in a hotel and travel each morning to a designated worksite to take control of one of the employer's trucks for his work that day, The employee was a traveling employee and as long as his activity was reasonable under the particular circumstances, he remained within the course and scope of the employment. Here, the employee sustained injuries in an auto accident as he traveled from the hotel -- located some six hours from his residence -- to a lot where the employer's vehicles were stored overnight. The employee also received a $65 per diem benefit to defray his travel expenses. An award of benefits was appropriate, held the appellate court.

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 Matter of Wright v. Nelson Tree Serv., 2020 N.Y. App. Div. LEXIS 2373 (3d Dept. Apr. 16, 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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