Telecommuter Loses Workers' Comp Case

The latest major court decision addressing a workers' compensation claim from a telecommuting employee has found for the employer, but the decision left the door open for future claims, and an expert in the field warns that work-at-home situations pose risks for which businesses might not be prepared.

The warning came from John F. Burton, professor emeritus at Rutgers University School of Management and Labor Relations.

He was reacting to a November ruling from the Tennessee Supreme Court, which decided that a woman assaulted while working at home should not collect workers' comp because the attack did not have enough of a connection to her employment.

However, while denying benefits, the precedent-setting ruling did agree with the plaintiff that the incident occurred in the course of employment.

The unanimous decision by the court upheld an appeals court finding against Kristina Wait of East Nashville, Tenn., who was brutally beaten by an acquaintance from her neighborhood.

Ms. Wait, a senior director for the American Cancer Society, had worked from home for four years using a spare bedroom. ACS had furnished her with a dedicated telephone line and other equipment, and her supervisor and other employees regularly came to the house for meetings.

On Sept. 3, 2004, she was preparing lunch when a neighbor, Nathanial Sawyers, paid a brief visit, then returned, saying he had left his keys. The court found that when Ms. Wait turned from the door, Mr. Sawyers followed her inside and beat her unconscious "without provocation or explanation."

In 2005, Ms. Wait filed for injury benefits from Travelers Indemnity Company of Illinois, the workers' comp insurer for her employer, claiming the assault arose out of, and occurred in the course of employment. Her case was dismissed on a summary judgment.

The high court, in upholding the chancery court last month, found that Ms. Wait's injuries did not occur from an employment-connected "street" hazard, which would be compensable.

The facts do not show that Ms. Wait was attacked "because she was identifiable as an ACS employee, or because she was performing a job duty, or because she was safeguarding ACS property," the court said in an opinion written by Chief Justice William M. Barker.

The plaintiff, the court said, was not advancing the interests of the ACS when she let in Mr. Sawyers, and her employment "did not impose any duty...to admit Sawyers to her home." The opinion mentioned that during working hours she locked the outside doors and activated an alarm.

While the court found the attack was a "neutral assault" not distinctly associated with employment, it rejected arguments by Travelers that Ms. Wait's injury did not occur "in the course of" her employment."

The court said "we reject" such a narrow interpretation of the worker's comp law.

Wade Cowan, the attorney for Ms. Wait, said he never doubted that workers' comp covered home-office employees, "but this was the first time the [Tennessee Supreme] court has recognized it applies to telecommuters and home-office workers."

Mr. Cowan said he doubted the case would provoke any serious amount of litigation, noting that home-office workers are "typically not prone to serious injury."

He said Mr. Sawyers had been arrested and pled guilty to attempted murder.

As part of its ruling, the court included a section of praise for flexible telecommuting employment arrangements--which, it noted, lowered employer costs, traffic pollution, worker travel time and employee stress.

Mr. Burton said the Tennessee decision was "fairly significant" because of the finding that while Ms. Wait's assault was not compensable, it occurred in the course of her employment--meaning that a home can be regarded as a work premises for purposes of workers' comp.

There are four tests involved in assessing whether there is a workers' comp injury, he explained:

o There must be an injury or physical harm.

o The event must be an accident or something unusual.

o It has to arise out of employment.

o It must occur in the course of employment.

Normally, Mr. Burton said, there is no workers' comp coverage for travel to and from the job, but if a worker is traveling between job sites they are protected, and this also extends to people--such as those in sales--visiting prospects.

He noted, however, that in a California case, a college professor who was taking papers with him from his campus office to grade at home was not covered when he was injured in an auto accident.

Taking work home for the sake of convenience did not make the home a workplace, Mr. Burton explained.

However, if the professor's employer, in the course of a renovation, had told him to take a file cabinet and work at home, "then the commuting would have been covered."

"A lot of employers may not know the implications of commuting accidents," he said, adding a word of caution for risk managers and the brokers and insurers that serve them: "If you authorize a home work site you may be exposing yourself to commuting accidents," he said.

Lex Larson, president of Employment Law Research and author of "Workers' Compensation Law," said there have actually been such workers' comp cases going back to 1930. "There have always been people working at home," he noted.

Michael L. Haynie, in Nashville, Tenn., one of the attorneys that represented Travelers in the Wait case, said that in its arguments the legal team had argued to limit the scope of coverage along the lines of federal regulations for telecommuting.

Federal agencies, he said, have the policy that "once you leave your work station you are no longer covered."