Posts Tagged ‘traveling’

Extraterrestrial Exposures: Astronaut Medical Oddities

Tuesday, July 24th, 2012

Every profession has its unique occupational risks and hazards, and some also have widely recognized work-related health risks associated with the profession. For example, the mining profession is associated with black lung disease; poultry and other food processing workers are at high risk for repetitive stress injuries, and so on. Or see Alice’s Mad Hatter and Work-Related Illness for an interesting historical perspective. Even seemingly safe professions such as musicians have work-related health risks.
Some workers we had never really considered from this perspective are astronauts. It’s not that we didn’t think they took risks – how could you possibly watch a metal cylinder being hurled into the farthest reaches of space and not think of the risks? But beyond curiosity about what they ate and how they handled bodily functions (oh come on, everyone wonders about that), we hadn’t given much thought to the more mundane day-to-day health hazards that astronauts face, and we feel safe in saying that most of you probably haven’t either.
We think that is about to change. The intriguingly titled Blindness, Bone Loss, and Space Farts: Astronaut Medical Oddities offers a fascinating glimpse into the “curious, bizarre, and potentially dangerous ways that space affects the human body and mind.”
spacemedicine.jpg
Adam Mann of Wired Science says that, “Though astronauts have been flying above the Earth for more than half a century, researchers are still working to understand the medical toll that space takes on travelers’ bodies and minds. Astronauts must deal with a highly stressful environment, as well as weakening bones and muscles and the ever-present dangers of radiation. If people are ever to venture far from our home planet, such obstacles will need to be overcome.”
We aren’t going to go into much more detail about the article, beyond piquing your interest with these few teasers: “flying space barf” “foot molting” and “bugs in space.”
Pay attention people, because these are the looming exposures for commuting workers – and the future may not be as far away as you think.

Compensable Sex, Down Under?

Thursday, July 28th, 2011

When employees travel overnight for their employers, workers comp may expand into 24 hour coverage. Work put you on the road; comp covers you while you are working.
An unnamed (for soon to be evident reasons) woman in Australia has filed a workers comp claim for injuries incurred during sexual activity while on a business trip. She was having sex with a man (not that that matters) when a glass light fitting came away from the wall above the bed. The light struck her in the face, leaving her with injuries to her nose, mouth and a tooth, as well as “a consequent psychiatric injury”. The relative positions of the man, the woman and the light are not detailed in either of two newspaper articles, one in the Sydney Morning Herald and the other in the Herald Sun.
The woman’s lawyers argue that being injured while having sex “during an interval or interlude within an overall period or episode of work” was no different to being hurt while carrying out other recreational activities – some recreational activities evidently being “higher risk” than others.
Course and Scope
But Australia’s ComCare, which says the woman was having sex with “an acquaintance, who had no connection with her work”, will argue “neither legal authority nor common sense” could lead to a finding that the injury was sustained during the course of her employment. This implies, of course, that had the man been a work acquaintance, the injury might have been compensable. Hmmm. The devil, as always, is in the (salacious) details.
From the American litigation perspective, it might seem more logical to sue the hotel or the light manufacturer. But as Australia’s comp law – unlike the American statutes – does allow compensation for pain and suffering, a liability claim might not add anything to the potential payout.
In the final analysis, this incident stands as a stark example of the dangers of mixing business and pleasure. In her expansive notion of the “course and scope of employment,” the anonymous claimant has literally brought the workers comp system into the (hotel) bedroom, where it rarely resides. We await with great interest the final resolution of this intriguing case from down under.

When play becomes work, or the case of the traveling employee

Tuesday, February 26th, 2008

There are various circumstances in which an injury that occurs during a recreational activity might be compensable. One exception might be if the injury occurs on company premises or at a company-sponsored event, a likelihood that approaches near certainty if participation in the event was mandatory. Another common exception is in the case of traveling employees. When employees are engaged in business travel on behalf of their employer, compensable activities may encompass a variety of activities that would likely not be compensable for a “fixed place” employee. For the purpose of workers compensation, a traveling employee is generally considered to be working continuously during the business trip unless a special deviation from business can be determined. Daily life and personal comfort activities that would not be covered at home are generally considered work: eating, sleeping, and traveling, for example, as well as some recreational activities.
Roberto Ceniceros of Business Insurance has a brief write-up of a judgment by Washington’s Supreme Court that offers an excellent illustration of the traveling employee doctrine at work. Alfred Giovanelli was a skilled firebrick mason who regularly traveled the country to rebuild and fix furnaces for Saint-Gobain Corporation (formerly Ball-Foster Glass Container Company). During one assignment at one of the company’s plants in Seattle, he was injured on his day off. He was headed to a park with his supervisor to investigate a concert, but on crossing the street in front of his hotel, he was struck by a vehicle and grievously injured. He applied for and was granted workers compensation. His employer continued to appeal on the basis that the Giovanelli was engaged in a recreational activity that had no business purpose. The appeal wended its way through the various strata of the court until the matter reached the Supreme Court where compensability was upheld. In his article, Ceniceros notes:

The doctrine–also known as the “commercial traveler rule” or the “continuous coverage rule” — generally states that a traveling employee is considered to be in the course of employment during his or her entire trip, except for “a distinct departure on a personal errand,” court records show. The case document – Ball Foster Glass Container Company v. Alfred Giovanelli and the Department of Labor and Industries in the State of Washington – is worth a read. It’s pretty plain-spoken and it illustrates various principles that generally apply to workers compensation. It offers a brief history of how workers comp evolved, and the adoption of the British Compensation Act’s formula of an injury “arising out of and in the course of employment” – nine not-so-simple words that have spawned innumerable court challenges. The document discusses this phrase in this context and moves on to discussing the matter of whether Giovanelli fit the definition of a “traveling employee” (yes) and the meat of the case, whether Giovanelli had “left the course of employment” when he was injured. In its discussion, the court referenced a few cases when compensability for recreational activities was denied:

Although distinguishing between reasonable personal ministrations and purely
personal amusement ventures may be difficult, courts have had little difficulty denying compensation for unusual or unreasonable activities. See, e.g., E. Airlines v. Rigdon, 543 So. 2d 822 (Fla. Dist. Ct. App. 1989) (denying compensation for employee injured during skiing trip at resort over 50 miles from hotel); Buczynski, 934 P.2d 1169 (hot tub injury occurring in hotel 150 miles away from convention
center and days before convention not compensable).

The employer argued that Giovanelli’s activity was a deviation and that crossing a thoroughfare without the right of way was an “inherently dangerous” activity. The Court disagreed, citing the personal comfort doctrine, and finding that negotiating unfamiliar streets is one of the typical risks that a traveling employee faces. In the discussion of personal comfort, the Court stated:

The scope of activities covered by the personal comfort doctrine depends on the particular circumstances of employment. A traveling employee is entitled to broader coverage than a nontraveling employee because a traveling employee is in a significantly different position of risk than a nontraveling employee. The nontraveling employee may satisfy his personal needs without leaving the comfort of home. In contrast, the traveling employee must face the perils of the street in order to satisfy basic needs, including sleeping, eating, and seeking fresh air and exercise.

In evaluating this particular activity, the Court found that Giovanelli’s crossing the street did not represent a significant deviation from the course of employment.
For further discussion on these matters, see Jim Pocius’ excellent discussion of Workers Compensation and Course of Employment. He looks at the issues of course of employment, fixed place versus traveling employees, and scope of employment. He also offers excellent advice to employers on how to minimize risk:

  • Make social events voluntary. An employer should not make attendance at a social event mandatory. The less control that an employer exerts over social events, the less chance there will be that an injury during a softball game, volleyball game, basketball game, etc., will be considered within the course of employment.
  • Enforce work rules. If the employer has a valid set of work rules that are enforced, such employee behavior as fighting, foul language, and wandering to restricted areas of the plant can all be considered activities which would remove the employee from the course of employment.
  • Keep traveling employees to a minimum. There are innumerable cases of traveling employees being hurt while in vehicles, hotels, and restaurants. In order to avoid this liability, traveling employees should be kept to a minimum if your business permits.
  • Do not send fixed place employees on special missions unless absolutely necessary. If your employees work at one location, the employer must try to keep casual missions by these employees to a minimum. Thus, sending an employee to obtain a form at a state office building or run other errands increases workers compensation exposure.
  • Investigate all claims. As always, good factual investigation on any questionable course of employment claims will pay dividends during litigation.