I Ran a Personal Errand When I Was Injured While Driving for Work—Am I Still Covered?

I Ran a Personal Errand When I Was Injured While Driving for Work—Am I Still Covered?

How a Personal Stop or Detour Can Affect an Alabama Workers’ Compensation Claim

Suppose you are driving for work.  You have finished a service call and are traveling to your next customer.  On the way, you stop at a convenience store to buy a drink.  Or perhaps you stop at a pharmacy to pick up a prescription.

Maybe you take a short detour to handle another personal matter before continuing with your work.

Then you are involved in a car accident.

The workers’ compensation insurance company may argue: “You were on a personal errand when the accident happened, so this isn’t workers’ compensation.”

Is that necessarily correct?  No.

A personal stop or detour during work-related travel does not automatically prevent an accident from being covered by Alabama workers’ compensation.  The important questions include:

How substantial was the personal deviation?

Had you abandoned your work to pursue a completely personal objective?

And perhaps most importantly: Had the personal errand ended and had you returned to your work-related travel when the accident occurred?

Those distinctions can determine whether your injury is covered.

Recommended Reading: I Was Hurt Going to or Coming Home From Work—Is My Injury Covered by Alabama Workers’ Compensation? Alabama’s Going and Coming Rule generally excludes an ordinary commute, but work-related travel and recognized exceptions can produce a very different result.

First, Was the Trip Work-Related Before the Personal Errand?

Before worrying about the personal stop, we first have to determine whether you were engaged in work-related travel to begin with.  Suppose you are:

• Driving between job sites;
• Traveling from one customer to another;
• Making a delivery;
• Picking up supplies for your employer;
• Traveling to perform a service call;
• Returning to the company after completing an assignment; or
• Otherwise driving because your job requires you to travel.

That travel may be part of your employment.

The situation is different if you are simply driving from home to your normal place of employment.  An ordinary commute is generally excluded under Alabama’s Going and Coming Rule unless an exception applies.

So the first question is: “If I had not made the personal stop, would I otherwise have been traveling for work?”

If the answer is yes, we then look at what effect the personal errand had upon that work-related travel.

Not Every Personal Stop Ends Workers’ Compensation Coverage

Real people do personal things during the workday.

They stop for gasoline.

They buy something to drink.

They get lunch.

They use a restroom.

Alabama law does not treat every deviation from work as automatically removing an employee from the course of employment.  Instead, Alabama appellate courts have recognized that a deviation generally must be substantial before it takes an employee outside the course of employment.

That distinction was discussed in Meeks v. Thompson Tractor Co., 686 So. 2d 1213 (Ala. Civ. App. 1996).

In Meeks, the employee was driving a company van home, stopped at a convenience store, and later died in a collision. The Court of Civil Appeals concluded there was evidence from which the factfinder could determine that the deviation was not substantial and, importantly, that the employee had completed the personal mission and resumed his customary route when the accident occurred.

That illustrates an important principle: The fact that you made a personal stop does not necessarily answer whether you were back in the course of your employment when the accident happened.

What Is a “Substantial Deviation” From Employment?

A substantial deviation generally involves something more than a minor or incidental personal activity.  The issue becomes more serious when an employee actually abandons the employer’s business to pursue a purely personal objective.

Imagine a service technician traveling from Customer A to Customer B.  Customer B is ten minutes away.

Instead of continuing to Customer B, the employee drives twenty miles in the opposite direction to visit a friend for an hour.  An accident occurs while the employee is driving toward the friend’s house.

Those facts create a much stronger argument that the employee substantially deviated from the employment and was pursuing a personal mission when injured.

Compare that with an employee who stops for five minutes at a convenience store located along the work route and then continues toward the next customer.

Both employees technically did something personal, but the workers’ compensation analysis may be very different.

What If I Stop at a Pharmacy?

There is actually an Alabama workers’ compensation decision involving that very situation.  In Hospice Family Care v. Allen, a hospice nurse regularly traveled to patients’ homes and also performed work from her own home.  On the day of the fatal accident, she briefly stopped at a pharmacy for a purely personal reason before continuing toward home, where she still had work to perform.  The Alabama Court of Civil Appeals concluded that the pharmacy stop did not prevent the accident from being compensable because the personal errand had ended and at the time of the automobile accident she was again traveling in furtherance of her employment when the accident occurred.

That case gives us a very practical lesson:  Where you were going at the exact moment of the accident may matter more than where you stopped ten minutes earlier.

What If My Personal Errand Was Already Over?

This may be one of the most important questions in a deviation case.

Suppose you temporarily leave your work route to handle a personal matter.  The personal errand ends.  You then return to the normal route and resume traveling toward your work destination.  An accident occurs after you have resumed the employer’s business.

The insurance company may focus on the earlier personal stop, but that does not necessarily end the analysis.  Alabama courts have recognized that an employee who temporarily deviates from employment may re-enter the course of employment once the personal mission has ended and the employee resumes the employer’s business.

The Alabama Supreme Court addressed this principle many years ago in Queen City Furniture Co. v. Hinds, 274 Ala. 584, 150 So. 2d 756 (1963). Here, the employee had deviated on a personal errand, but the Court concluded that the personal enterprise had ended by the time of the fatal accident.

So, the important question may not be: “Did you make a personal stop?”

It may be: “What were you doing when the accident actually happened?”

A Simple Example

Suppose a salesperson leaves Customer A at 2:00 p.m. and is scheduled to meet Customer B at 3:00 p.m.  Customer B is twenty miles away.

Example One: Brief Stop

The salesperson stops at a convenience store along the route, buys a drink, gets back into the car, and continues toward Customer B.  Five miles later, another vehicle runs a red light and hits her.  The fact that she bought a drink does not necessarily transform the entire trip into a personal journey.

Example Two: Substantial Personal Detour

Instead of traveling toward Customer B, the salesperson drives fifteen miles in the opposite direction to go shopping for personal reasons.  The accident occurs while she is driving toward the shopping center.

That creates a much stronger argument that she had temporarily abandoned the employer’s business.

Example Three: Returning From the Personal Detour

Now suppose the salesperson finishes shopping, returns to the normal work route, and resumes traveling toward Customer B.  An accident occurs after she has resumed the business trip.

Now another question arises: Had she re-entered the course of employment before the accident occurred?

That distinction can completely change the analysis.

Does the Length of the Stop Matter?

Yes, but it is not necessarily the only consideration.  A five-minute stop looks very different from disappearing for three hours, but time alone does not determine whether a deviation was substantial.

Other facts may include:

• How far you departed from the work route;
• Why you made the stop;
• How long the personal activity lasted;
• Whether the stop also benefited the employer;
• Whether the employer permitted similar stops;
• Whether you remained on the clock;
• Whether you had completed the personal activity before the accident; and
• Whether you had resumed your work duties or work-related route.

The overall circumstances matter.

What If the Trip Served Both Work and Personal Purposes?

Sometimes a trip is not purely business or purely personal.  Suppose your employer asks you to deliver documents across town.  You also realize that your bank is near the delivery location, so you decide to make a deposit while you are there.

Was the trip for work?

For you?

For both?

Alabama courts have considered what is sometimes called a dual-purpose journey.  The analysis generally considers whether the employer’s business itself created a need for the trip or was a concurrent reason for the journey.

In McClelland v. Simon-Williamson Clinic, P.C., 933 So. 2d 367 (Ala. Civ. App. 2005), the Court of Civil Appeals discussed the dual-purpose doctrine and the distinction between travel necessitated by the employment and a personal journey that merely happens to include some incidental business purpose.

In practical terms, ask: “Would this trip still have needed to occur for my employer’s business if my personal reason for traveling disappeared?”

The answer may help determine whether the journey remained connected to the employment.

What If I Stop for Lunch?

Lunch presents another fact-specific question.

An employee traveling for work may obviously need to eat.  A brief meal during an extended business trip is very different from abandoning a work assignment for several hours to pursue an unrelated personal activity.

Whether a particular lunch-related accident is covered may depend upon where the employee was traveling, whether the employee was a traveling employee, what the employer required, whether the employee remained engaged in the employer’s business, and the circumstances surrounding the trip.

There is no useful rule that says: “Lunch is always covered.”  Nor is it accurate to say: “The moment you stop for lunch, workers’ compensation ends.”

The particular facts matter.

Recommended Reading: What If I was Injured During Lunch Break?

What If I Stop for Gas?

Stopping for fuel while driving for work may be directly related to the continued performance of the job.  If the vehicle needs gasoline to continue the employer’s business, the stop may be incidental to the work-related travel rather than a departure from it.  The same reasoning may apply to other activities reasonably necessary to continued travel.

Again, context matters.

Traveling Employees Can Be Different

The distinction becomes especially important for employees whose jobs require regular travel.  Examples include:

• Home-health nurses;
• Sales representatives;
• Delivery employees;
• Service technicians;
• Construction supervisors;
• Inspectors; and
• Employees who routinely work at multiple locations.

In Hospice Family Care v. Allen, the Court of Civil Appeals explained that the usual rationale for the Going and Coming Rule loses much of its force when an employee does not work at a fixed job site but regularly travels to varying destinations while serving the employer. For a traveling employee, the travel itself may constitute part of the employment service, subject to departure for an exclusively personal errand.

That can make the distinction between a brief personal activity and an abandonment of employment particularly important.

Recommended Reading: What If I Was Injured While Riding as a Passenger for Work? Employees who travel as part of their jobs may be covered even though they are not driving and even though the accident occurs away from the employer’s premises.

What If I Was Driving a Company Vehicle?

A company vehicle can be important evidence, but it does not automatically make every trip compensable.

Suppose your employer allows you to take a company truck home.  You use it one Saturday for a completely personal trip unrelated to your job.  The fact that the employer owns the truck does not automatically turn your personal trip into employment.

Conversely, you may be driving your own vehicle and still be within the course of employment if you are using it to perform your job.

The better question remains: “What was I doing for my employer when I was injured?” not simply: “Who owned the vehicle?”

What If Another Driver Caused the Accident During My Personal Detour?

This introduces an important distinction between the workers’ compensation claim and the automobile claim.

Suppose you substantially depart from your employment for a personal errand and another driver negligently hits you.

The personal deviation may create a serious problem for the workers’ compensation claim.

But it does not automatically eliminate your personal injury claim against the negligent driver.

The two claims ask different questions.

Workers’ compensation asks whether the injury arose out of and occurred in the course of employment.

The personal injury claim asks whether another person negligently caused your injuries.

That means you could potentially lose the workers’ compensation argument because you were on a personal mission and still have a valid personal injury claim against the driver who caused the collision.  Conversely, if you had already resumed your work-related travel, you may potentially have both claims.

Recommended Reading: Can I Have Both a Workers’ Compensation Claim and a Personal Injury Claim? and What if Another Driver Hit Me While Working-Can I have both a Workers Compensation claim and a Claim for the Automobile Accident?

What Evidence Can Show I Had Returned to Work?

These cases can turn on surprisingly ordinary evidence.  Suppose the insurance company contends that you were still on a personal errand when the accident occurred.  Evidence showing otherwise might include:

• GPS information;
• Cell-phone location information;
• Work orders;
• Dispatch records;
• Text messages with a supervisor;
• Customer appointment records;
• Receipts showing when the personal errand ended;
• Time records;
• Mileage records;
• Witness testimony; and
• The location and direction of travel when the collision occurred.

For example, a receipt may show that you left the pharmacy at 2:10 p.m.

A dispatch record may show your next work appointment at 2:45 p.m.

The accident report may establish that at 2:25 p.m. you were traveling directly toward that customer’s location.

Those facts may become important evidence that the personal errand had ended and you had resumed your employer’s business.

Recommended Reading: What Should I Do After a Car Accident While Working? How to Protect Both Your Alabama Workers’ Compensation Claim and Your Personal Injury Claim.

The Law

Under § 25-5-51, Ala. Code 1975, workers’ compensation generally applies to covered injuries arising out of and in the course of employment.

Alabama appellate courts have recognized that not every deviation from employment removes an employee from the course of employment.

In Meeks v. Thompson Tractor Co., 686 So. 2d 1213 (Ala. Civ. App. 1996), the court explained that a deviation must be substantial before it necessarily precludes workers’ compensation benefits and considered evidence that the employee’s personal mission had ended before the accident.

In Queen City Furniture Co. v. Hinds, 274 Ala. 584, 150 So. 2d 756 (1963), the Alabama Supreme Court recognized that an employee who had undertaken a personal errand had returned to the course of employment after the personal enterprise ended.

And in Hospice Family Care v. Allen, the Court of Civil Appeals applied those principles to a traveling hospice employee who briefly stopped at a pharmacy for personal reasons but had completed that errand and resumed work-related travel before the fatal collision.

The question is therefore highly dependent upon what the employee was doing, why the employee was traveling, the nature of the deviation, and whether the employee had resumed the employer’s business when the injury occurred.

The Bottom Line

If you were injured while driving for work, do not automatically assume that making a personal stop destroyed your workers’ compensation claim.  A brief personal stop may not constitute a substantial deviation from employment.

A significant departure to pursue a completely personal objective may temporarily take you outside the course of employment, but even then, the analysis may not be over.  Once the personal errand ends and you resume your employer’s business, you may re-enter the course of your employment.

So instead of asking only: “Did I make a personal stop?” ask: “What was I doing when the accident actually happened?”

That may be the question that determines whether your injury is covered by Alabama workers’ compensation.

Experience With Work-Related Automobile Accidents

At Powell & Denny, P.C., we have extensive experience representing Alabama employees in workers’ compensation cases involving work-related travel, the Going and Coming Rule, personal deviations, and automobile accidents. When another driver or third party causes the injury, we also handle the related personal injury claim. Determining whether an employee remained in—or had returned to—the course of employment can require careful examination of the employee’s route, job duties, purpose of travel, and the circumstances immediately surrounding the accident.

At Powell & Denny, P.C., we have extensive experience representing injured workers in Alabama workers’ compensation claims and related third-party personal injury claims. When the same accident creates both claims, it is important to understand how they work together. Medical evidence, settlement decisions, workers’ compensation subrogation rights, and other issues in one claim can directly affect the other. Our experience handling both workers’ compensation and personal injury cases allows us to evaluate the entire case—not just one part of it—and work to protect all of the benefits and compensation available to our clients.

If you believe you have a workers compensation and also a personal injury claim against another party-don’t hesitate to contact and speak with one of the experienced  attorneys at Powell and Denny today for a free consultation. Appointments are available in person, or virtually via Zoom if more convenient.  Powell and Denny would appreciate the opportunity to help.  And remember, there is no fee unless you win.