Arizona: City Auditor’s Injuries in Auto Accident Barred by Going and Coming Rule

A city auditor, who was involved in an automobile accident as she traveled home at the end of the day after completing a business errand did not sustain injuries arising out of and in the course of her employment, held an Arizona appellate court. The going and coming rule barred her claim for workers’ compensation benefits. The auditor performed her work in an office provided by her employer and sometimes at the offices of her “audit clients.” She had borrowed an operations manual for a city facility she would soon audit and she wanted to return it in a timely manner. After her workday ended, she drove to the city facilities office and, because the office was closed, slipped the manual through a mail slot and left to drive home. A few minutes later, she was involved in the accident. Quoting Larson’s Workers’ Compensation Law, the appellate court affirmed the Commission’s denial of benefits. It concluded that at the time of the accident, the auditor was not involved in a dual-purpose endeavor. The court noted that the trip to return the manual was actually unnecessary, that the auditor’s mail department performed daily delivery and pickup to all City departments and that she could have used that service. Her trip to the other facility’s office was not a special trip tied to her work.

Thomas A. Robinson, J.D., the Feature National Columnist for the LexisNexis Workers’ Compensation eNewsletter, is the co-author of Larson’s Workers’ Compensation Law (LexisNexis).

LexisNexis Online Subscribers: Citations below link to Lexis

See Gurtler v. Industrial Comm’n of Ariz., 2015 Ariz. App. LEXIS 128 (July 28, 2015)

See generally Larson’s Workers’ Compensation Law, §§ 16.03, 17.02

Source: Larson’s Workers’ Compensation Law, the nation’s leading authority on workers’ compensation law.

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