Ohio: Home Health Aide’s Slip and Fall Outside Client’s Residence is Not Compensable

A home health care aide, who sustained injuries when she slipped and fell on wet grass outside her client’s residence, did not sustain an accidental injury arising out of and in the course of her employment, held a state appellate court. Noting that the aide was “off the clock” and had walked to the side of the residence to check on a loud noise that she had heard, the court agreed with the Industrial Commission that her claim was barred by the going and coming rule. The Board found, and the appellate court agreed, that the aide had removed herself from work-related activity when she departed from a walkway that led away from the client’s residence. At the time of her injury, the aide had commenced her commute. 

Thomas A. Robinson, J.D., the co-Editor-in-Chief and 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 McAlpine v. McCloud, 2021-Ohio-2430, 2021 Ohio App. LEXIS 2386 (July 16, 2021)

See generally Larson’s Workers’ Compensation Law, § 13.01.

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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