 |
 |
to fill out a simple form to connect to DUI Lawyers in your area.
|
|
|
|
|
Maryland Casualty Co. v. Lorkovic6/1/1994
st of travel between the District of Columbia and Quantico, in lieu of the employer actually furnishing transportation.
Public transportation was not feasible, so the claimant car pooled with other employees. The employees each drove separate cars to a central point, and one employee drove the remaining distance. On the day in question, the employee was driving his car, with other members of the car pool aboard, when a stone propelled through the windshield from a passing truck fatally injured the employee. The District of Columbia Compensation Commission found that the injury arose out of and in the course of employment and awarded benefits.
After appeals to the District Court and the Circuit Court, the Supreme Court granted certiorari. Speaking to the free transportation exception, the Court stated:
To be sure, there are many holdings to the effect that, where the employer merely pays the costs of transportation, an injury occurring during the journey does not arise out of and in the course employment; there must be something more than mere payment of transportation costs. But assuming those holdings [which were cited in a footnote] to be correct and assuming the Deputy Commissioner's findings in this case to be justified, there is more here than mere payment of transportation costs. It was found that Ticer's employer paid the costs as a means of carrying out its contract obligation to furnish the transportation itself. Where there is that obligation, it becomes irrelevant in this setting whether the employer performs the obligation by supplying its own vehicle, hiring the vehicle of an independent contractor, making arrangement with a common carrier, reimbursing employees for the cost of transportation by any means they desire to use. In other words, where the employer has promised to provide transportation to and from work, the compensability of the injury is in no way dependent upon the method of travel which is employed.
Id. at 482-83 (emphasis added) (footnote omitted), quoted in Ryan, 38 Md. App. at 325-26.
Judge Wilner, speaking for the Court, held that "the key to compensability ... was the underlying contractual commitment to furnish the transportation, not the mere reimbursement of transportation expenses." Ryan, 38 Md. App. at 326. The next important case in the line of cases reviewed in Ryan was Watson v. Grimm, 200 Md. 461, 90 A.2d 180 (1952). There, the claimant's decedent, Watson, was a helper for Grimm, a self-employed garbage collector for the City of Hagerstown. Watson was paid fifty dollars per month and board and lodging on Grimm's farm. Typically, Grimm and Watson would drive the garbage collection truck into Hagerstown to work, stopping on the way to pick up two helpers. Watson and the two helpers rode on the running boards alongside the truck.
On the day of Watson's accident, the crew finished their work about one mile from the center of town. Rather than
ride back to Grimm's farm, Watson and one of the helpers stated that they wanted to be let off downtown. While traveling downtown, Watson fell off the running board and sustained fatal injuries.
This Court found the holding in Watson very important because it weaved together the essential teachings of Harrison, Heaps, and Cardillo. Ryan, 38 Md. App. at 326. Specifically, the Watson Court concluded:
It is held by the overwhelming weight of authority that where the employer agrees to provide transportation for his employee to and from work, compensability of injury sustained during transportation is in no way depend
Page 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 Maryland DUI Attorneys
DUI Lawyers
|
| |
to fill out a simple form to connect to DUI Lawyers in your area.
|
|