Workplace Injury Coverage Denied Due to Home Office

Thursday, May 13, 2010 | 0

By Brett A. Burlison
The Law Office of Brett A. Burlison

As reported by the Austin Statesman, on March 21, 2003 Liana Leordeanu was a successful sales person.  And like so many sales people in the modern economy she worked out of her home.  On that day, on the way back to her office she was involved in a very serious personal injury accident.

She woke up in the hospital three months later and realized that she had lost her left eye, suffered a serious traumatic brain injury that required repairing her fractured skull, and faced years of recuperation and therapy.

So, she did what anyone would do under the circumstances – she filed a workers' compensation claim. That is, she filed a claim with her insurance company as she assumed that her injury was covered by her workers’ compensation insurance.  After all she thought, she was working when the accident took place. Sounds simple right?  Well it wasn’t and isn’t.

Her insurance company, American Protection Insurance Co., did what unfortunately many insurance companies do when you file a claim – they denied it. They asserted that a special legal rule applied that allowed them to escape having to pay for her medical care because she was not only on her way back to the office, to do some paper work, but was also on her way home.

Ms. Leordeanu had to take her insurance company to court in an attempt to get them to pay the benefits they owed her. And, as reported by the Austin Statesman, an Austin court ruled last year that because her trip back to the office was for both business and personal reasons her accident was not covered.  So she appealed.

Her personal injury attorney, Wade F. Stewart, took her case to the Texas Supreme Court. There her attorneys have argued that it is ridiculous to deny workers’ compensation insurance to a worker simply because she was driving to an office in her home. In other words, under this rule she would have been covered had her destination been an office building somewhere else.

Her attorney on appeal is quoted in the Austin paper as stating, “On the day of the accident, the entire purpose of Leordeanu’s travel was to further the interests of her company, and workers’ comp should apply to every mile of that trip — coming, going, in the middle segments or anything else[.]”

What Ms. Leordeanu’s attorneys are referring to are a couple of rules that apply to workplace injury insurance and are, in this injury lawyer’s opinion, outdated in today’s economy and workplace.

The first, is what many states refer to as the coming and going rule.  The rule essentially says that if you are coming or going to work and injured, your injury is not in the course and scope of your work and therefore not covered under workers’ compensation laws.

The second, and more directly related issue in this case, is the “dual purpose” doctrine.  This rule limits the availability of workers’ compensation insurance for folks injured while on a “dual-purpose” trip – one that has a business and personal basis.

The reality of today’s work force is that we work all the time.  We are always working and we are always either coming or going to work with both a business and personal motivation for our movements and trips.

More importantly, as technology has improved the number of individuals who work form home or have home offices is growing daily.  And we should encourage this trend – it increases efficiency and productivity, is better for the environment, and benefits consumers.

And one of the most direct ways our society can encourage the home office trend is to make sure that workers like Ms. Leordeanu are provided for when they are injured in the furtherance of their business.  And to not allow insurance companies to dodge their responsibilities with the application of outdated and arcane rules and legal doctrine.

If taken to its literal conclusion, the ramifications of the “dual-purpose” doctrine in today’s economy would mean that workers’ compensation insurance would never apply when someone has a home office and is injured on their way to that office – no matter the purpose of the trip.

Of course, that would suit insurance companies like American Protection just fine.

Subscribers may read the appellate court's decision in the case, Liana Leordeanu v. American Protection Insurance Company, Cause No. 03-06-00529-CV, by clicking on the case title in the sidebar.

Brett A. Burlison is owner of The Law Office of Brett A. Burlison, a workers' compensation and personal injury firm with offices in Austin, Texas and San Francisco. This column was reprinted with his permission from his blog, http://austin-injury-law-answers.com/