Case Law Summaries

Wilkins v. Prudential Insurance and Financial Services

• Opinion Date: March 27, 2001
• Business Law
• E-Mail

WORKERS COMPENSATION—An employee whose usual workplace is at home, is not barred from collecting workers compensation benefits by characterizing travel to and from a branch office as commutation.

A commission salesman worked for an insurance company, selling insurance and investment policies. Aside from reporting to the company’s office for meetings two mornings each week, the salesperson worked out of a home office, seven days a week, day and night, meeting potential clients at times and sites of their convenience. The insurance company was aware that its salespersons performed work at home and encouraged it. One morning, the salesperson met with a client to deliver a policy, obtain the client’s signature on an acceptance letter, and mail the acceptance to the insurance company in a special pre-printed envelope. Discovering that he did not have the required policy-delivering envelope, he went to get one from a company office other than his usual one. Upon leaving the building, he tripped over a broken curb in the parking lot and fell. He sought compensation for his injuries. The workers’ compensation judge found that the salesperson had “left his place of employment prior to his fall and, absent an exception to the ‘going-and-coming’ rule, was barred from compensation.” The Appellate Division, however, inquired as to whether the salesperson’s employment and the task in which he was engaged brought him within the “special-mission” exception. The workers’ compensation judge regarded the salesperson’s “action in obtaining the special envelope as returning to his place of employment and, ergo, his departure as leaving his place of employment.” The Appellate Division refused to find that the particular office which the salesperson visited to obtain the needed envelope was “his place of employment.” The Court was satisfied that the salesperson’s usual place of employment was his office at home. Therefore, according to the Court, the salesperson’s activities fell within the “special-mission” exception. The mailing of the envelope was a necessary part of his employment duties and the choice of how and where to post it, other than the need to use the special envelope, was left up to him. Consequently, the Court held the salesperson was entitled to receive workers’ compensation benefits.

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