Driving to work in a company car in Illinois - workers' compensation
Ordinarily if you’re injured on your way to or from work, you’re on your own time. Workers’ compensation benefits would not be able to compensate you. The rationale is that your employer doesn’t really have any interest in, or get any benefit from, where you live or how you get to work—as long as you arrive on time.
There are a few exceptions, though, and a recent Illinois Workers’ Compensation case highlighted one of those exceptions. When your employer provides you with a company car to drive to and from work, then you are likely going to get benefits for an injury that happens during the drive.
What’s key in these situations is the fact that your employer is getting some benefit from the fact that you are using the car. In some situations, providing transportation allows the employer to expand the company’s work base. Sometimes the company vehicle is used to transport materials back and forth. And sometimes the vehicle has advertising possibilities.
Thought there could be many reasons for providing a company car to an employee, one thing remains the same: the employer has exercised some control and received some benefit from your drive to work. Because of this, your drive is considered to be in the scope of your employment, and can entitle you to workers’ compensation benefits for an injury.
The result would likely be the same if the employer, instead of providing the car or truck, reimbursed employees for the cost of their mileage in their own cars, or made an arrangement for a bus. Once the employer gets involved in your commute to work, the actual mode of travel can vary. It’s the affect of the transportation in creating some benefit to the employer that changes the character to being in the scope of employment.
In these situations you’re not “clocking out” and leaving work in the usual way. You’re remaining involved with your employer for a purpose as you drive home and back the next day. It’s as though the workplace extends to include the purpose for which you’ve been given the transportation. And any injury arising out of your employment should entitle you to workers’ compensation benefits.
We are workers' compensation attorneys that help people with Illinois work injuries anywhere in IL via our statewide network of attorneys. Contact us and we will answer your questions or find the right lawyer for your situation.
