North Carolina: No In-State Contract of Employment Where Driver Required to Undergo Three Days of Orientation and Tests in Mississippi Prior to Final Hire

A truck driver’s contract of employment was not made in North Carolina where he was required to complete a three-day orientation, a road test, a drug test, and a physical exam in Mississippi—a hiring procedure that extended well beyond mostly administrative paperwork. That the driver was paid during the orientation period did not control; his actual employment was contingent on successful completion of the orientation and tests, and thus his last act of the employment contract took place in Mississippi. Since the employment contract was not made in North Carolina and since neither the employer’s principal place of business nor the driver’s principal place of employment was in North Carolina, the state’s Industrial Commission had no subject matter jurisdiction to hear the driver’s claim.

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. Bracketed citations link to lexis.com.

See Taylor v. Howard Transp., Inc., 2015 N.C. App. LEXIS 379 (May 5, 2015) [2015 N.C. App. LEXIS 379 (May 5, 2015)]

See generally Larson’s Workers’ Compensation Law, § 143.03 [143.03]

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