First District Court of Appeal Attempts to Clarify Traveling Status and Exclusive Personal Use of Vehicle With Regard to the Going and Coming Rule.

The claimant, an air conditioning service technician, was injured in August 2020 while performing service calls within a four-county area. He was provided with a company vehicle for his use, and per the insured‘s manual, the claimant had the exclusive ability to drive his employer-provided car to and from work and to make incidental personal trips on the way to and from work, including stopping for gas or groceries. He was not required to drive the vehicle to and from work, but he was permitted to do so at his convenience. On the date of the accident, the claimant was traveling from his last service call location and had “clocked out” for the evening by reporting to his supervisor that he had finished his work for the day. 

Florida’s going and coming provision states: “An injury suffered while going to or coming from work is not an injury arising out of an in the course of employment whether or not the employer provided transportation if such means of transportation was available for the exclusive personal use by the employee, unless the employee was engaged in a special errand or mission for the employer.” Fla. Stat. Section 440.092(2). Injuries sustained while “going to or coming from work” are not compensable because they do not arise out of and in the course of the employment. 

In this case, the Judge of Compensation Claims ruled that the injury was compensable because the claimant did not have full, unrestricted use of the vehicle outside of stops that occurred within his travel to and from work.

The appellate court felt that this case presented an opportunity to analyze the application of the statutory language as prior decisions did not offer substantive guidance on the definition or interpretation of “exclusive personal use.”

The lower court judge had also found that the claimant was a traveling employee. The appellate court contended that the analysis should have been the travel status at the time of the injury. They went on to say that an employee is not in travel status when he is traveling to or from work, which means that injuries suffered while traveling to and from work, even where the employee regularly works in a travel status, are not compensable. The distinction between the two can be made by determining when the claimant has arrived at or departed from “work.”

The appellate court found that the judge erred in determining that the claimant became a traveling employee. The appellate court also found that the claimant was not in travel status at the time of the injury and that the going and coming provision should have been applied. They emphasized that the claimant had “clocked out” for the day and was driving home from work at the time of the accident. Further, he was traveling in an employer-provided vehicle available for his exclusive personal use for travel to and from work and was not being compensated for his travel. Therefore, the injury was not compensable.

Therefore, the court reversed and remanded the case.
 

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