Kansas: Roofer Struck by Drunk Driver at 2:20 A.M. While Walking to Hotel Cannot Recover Benefits

A Kansas roofer, who worked as part of a construction crew in Enid, Oklahoma, who stayed in a hotel there will he and others performed their roofing services and who was struck by a drunk driver as he crossed a street at 2:20 a.m. from a bar so as to return to his hotel, did not sustained an accidental injury arising out of and in the course of his employment, ruled the Supreme Court of Kansas. The high court noted that much of the legal discussion at lower levels had incorrectly concentrated on the going and coming rule and whether the activities of the roofer fit within the state’s so-called “intrinsic travel exception.” The Court stressed that indeed the course and scope of traveling employees is broader than those who have an assigned job at hours that are regular and routine. If a traveling employee is hurt in a hotel fire, for example, the injuries would likely be compensable. That was not the case here, where the roofer had long finished the day’s work and had been drinking at the nearby bar. His walking across the street was too far removed from his duties to be compensable. 

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 Atkins v. Webcon, 2018 Kan. LEXIS 204 (June 8, 2018)

See generally Larson’s Workers’ Compensation Law, § 25.03.

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

For a more detailed discussion of the case, see