Illinois Workers' Compensation Act covers boilermaker's fatal accident
The Illinois Workers' Compensation Commission held that a worker, who was killed in a car accident while returning home from an out-of-state project, was a traveling employee. Therefore, the decedent's accident was compensable under the WCA.
O'Neal v. RMF Delta, 17 ILWCLB 61 (Ill.W.C.Comm. 2009).
O'Neal, a boilermaker, was driving from a job in Minnesota to his home in Louisiana with a coworker when he was killed in a car accident in Illinois. O'Neal worked all his jobs through the union. After a project was over, he would return home until he received a new job. In awarding benefits, the arbitrator found the decedent was a traveling employee and that his conduct in driving home at the completion of a work project was anticipated and foreseen by the employer. Upon review, the Commission affirmed and adopted the decision of the arbitrator.
In determinnig whether a worker is a traveling employee, the courts will look at the employer's compensation to the worker for travel. The traveling employee exception is applicable where the employer agrees to compensate the employee for time spent traveling to or from work. But the exception is not applicable where the employee is only reimbursed for the expense of travel.
In this case, O'Neal was paid $42 per night for lodging and a total of $314.65 one way for mileage from his home to the job. The employer classified the payments to both workers as "mileage." However, only O'Neal was driving. Because both employees could not have incurred the same amount of travel expenses, it was clear that the payments to the employees were for time spent traveling and not for reimbursement of travel expenses.
