The general rule, under Illinois workers’ compensation law, is that workers who are injured in the course of their employment are entitled to payment of benefits. These benefits include payment for medical expenses as well as lost wages if you are unable to work. However, not every worker is covered for every injury that is remotely related to his or her job. There are some gray areas that result in workers having to fight for benefits. One example is injuries that happen outside of the workplace, such as on the road or at a jobsite.
Workers who are injured away from their place of employment are sometimes – but not always – eligible for benefits. If you get hurt on your daily commute to work, for example, you’re generally not covered. However, if your employer requires you to travel out of town to attend a trade show, you likely would be covered if you got hurt. The difference is that this second scenario involves what’s called a “traveling employee.”
A workers’ compensation case about traveling employees was just decided by the Illinois court of appeals. The injured worker in this case was a pipe fitter out of Springfield who had taken a short-term job out of town. He was hired by a contractor (the employer) to do work on a power plant in Cordova, Illinois. Because the job site was 200 miles from home, he and a co-worker decided to stay at a hotel about 30 miles from the power plant and drive to and from each day. On the second day of the job, the worker’s truck skidded on ice on his way to the plant and he was seriously injured.
The employer of course argued that the employee was not a traveling employee because it was trying to avoid paying benefits. The employer argued that it did not require the pipe fitter to stay in that hotel or any hotel, nor did they pay lodging or travel expenses. The argument was that it was more like a daily commute. However, the court of appeals disagreed, which is good news for workers in Illinois.
The court said that someone who has to travel away from his employer’s premises to perform his job is a traveling employee. The power plant was not the employer’s premises. And in this case, the worker really had no choice but to stay in a hotel and travel from the hotel to the site, because the plant was too far from home.
Traveling employees aren’t automatically entitled to benefits. They still have to prove that their conduct (in this case, driving to the plant) was reasonable and foreseeable. And the court said that driving from a hotel to the plant each day was reasonable due to the location far from home, and the fact that workers from out of town would choose to stay close by was foreseeable by the employer.
When it comes to eligibility for workers’ compensation, each traveling employee case is a little different and the outcome often depends on the specific facts. This Illinois court of appeals case somewhat clarifies what it means to be a traveling employee and may put more workers in the “traveling employee” category, making them eligible for important benefits if injured.
If you have any questions about how this case might impact the outcome in yours, or questions about whether you might be considered a traveling employee, give us a call.
We are workers’ compensation attorneys who 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.