TortsWorkers' compensationworkers' compensationtraveling employeearising out of employmentcourse of employmentbusiness triphotel injury
Facts
Capizzi worked as a transcriber-typist for Southern District Reporters, Inc. Her employer sent her and four coworkers to Toronto to transcribe deposition minutes and directed them to remain there for a specified time. The hearings were suspended for the New Year's holiday, and at about 7:00 a.m. the next morning Capizzi slipped and fell while stepping into the hotel bathtub to shower before returning to New York. She sought workers' compensation benefits for the resulting injuries.
Issue
Whether a traveling employee's injury from slipping and falling in a hotel bathtub while showering in preparation for a return trip from an employer-required business trip arose out of and in the course of employment.
Rule
When an employee is directed as part of her duties to remain in a particular place for a specified length of time, she is not expected to remain immobile but may engage in any reasonable activity there, and the risks inherent in such activity are incidents of employment. This expanded view applies to traveling employees injured while bathing or showering, so long as the employee was required to work and stay away from home, was placed in a new environment creating a greater risk of injury, and was engaged in a reasonable activity attendant to employment, though not directly part of job duties.
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Lena Ortiz, a payroll specialist for Harbor Ledger Services, was sent from Buffalo to Cleveland for a two-day records audit and told to remain there until the assignment wrapped up the next morning. Before checking out and returning to Buffalo to complete follow-up work, she slipped in the hotel shower and fractured her wrist.
Is Lena's injury most likely compensable?
Explanation. The majority held that when an employee is directed to remain in a particular place for a specified time, the employee need not remain immobile and may engage in any reasonable activity there. It rejected a categorical rule that bathing or showering by a traveling employee is purely personal and noncompensable. Because Lena was required to work and stay away from home, was in a new environment, and was injured while showering in preparation for her return, the injury would likely be found to arise out of and in the course of employment. (Derived from Capizzi v. Southern District Reporters Inc. (n.d.).)