Maryland: State Trooper’s Injuries in Personal Vehicle Not Barred by Going and Coming Rule

Applying Maryland’s “free transportation” exception to the normal going and coming rule, a state appellate court affirmed an award of workers’ compensation benefits to a state trooper who sustained injuries in a vehicular accident while commuting to work in his private vehicle. The court observed that the terms of the trooper’s employment contract required the state to provide the trooper with a patrol car to travel from his home to work. The court indicated the trooper was driving his own vehicle only because his assigned patrol car was out of service due to engine problems and was being repaired at a police facility; the agreement to provide the trooper with free transportation did not change from day to day based upon whether the patrol car was in service.

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 Advance. Bracketed citations link to lexis.com.

See State v. Okafor, 2015 Md. App. LEXIS 137 (Oct. 2, 2015) [2015 Md. App. LEXIS 137 (Oct. 2, 2015)]

See generally Larson’s Workers’ Compensation Law, § 15.01 [15.01]

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

For more information about LexisNexis products and solutions connect with us through our corporate site