Case Title: Calvo v. Montgomery County, Maryland

Citation: 

Docket Number: 48/17

State: maryland

Court: Maryland Supreme Court

Date: 2018-05-21T00:00:00Z

Document:
Rina Calvo v. Montgomery County, Maryland, No. 48, September Term, 2017, Opinion by 
Adkins, J. 
 
WORKERS’ COMPENSATION — TRAVELING EMPLOYEE: An employee who 
was required to report from her home to a different work site was not a traveling employee 
under Mulready v. Univ. Research Corp., 360 Md. 51 (2000), because traveling employee 
status generally applies to employees who are injured on premises where the employee is 
staying to carry out the employer’s business.   
 
WORKERS’ COMPENSATION — GOING AND COMING RULE — SPECIAL 
MISSION OR ERRAND EXCEPTION:  Determining whether an employee’s journey 
is sufficiently special to satisfy the special mission or errand exception to the going and 
coming rule requires consideration of: (1) the relative regularity or unusualness of the 
particular journey in the context of the employee’s normal duties; (2) the relative 
onerousness of the journey in comparison to the service to be performed at the end of the 
journey and other circumstances of the journey including the length and time of the 
journey, and whether the employee usually worked at that time; and (3) the suddenness 
with which the employee was called to work, or whether the call was made with an element 
of urgency.   
 
WORKERS’ COMPENSATION — GOING AND COMING RULE — SPECIAL 
MISSION OR ERRAND EXCEPTION — SUMMARY JUDGMENT: Employer’s 
motion for summary judgment should not have been granted because employee’s claim 
was not barred by the going and coming rule when the employee was required to attend an 
annual mandatory training on a day she did not typically work, the training was held at a 
different location than her usual work site, and the training was not regular in the context 
of her ordinary duties.  From these facts, a trier of fact could reasonably infer that the 
special mission exception applied.   
Circuit Court for Montgomery County 
Case No.: 412413V  
Argued: February 5, 2018 
  
IN THE COURT OF APPEALS 
OF MARYLAND 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
No. 48 
September Term, 2017 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
RINA CALVO 
v. 
MONTGOMERY COUNTY, MARYLAND 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
Barbera, C.J. 
Greene 
Adkins 
McDonald 
Watts 
Hotten 
Getty, 
 
JJ. 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
Opinion by Adkins, J. 
Barbera, C.J., Greene, and Getty, JJ., dissent. 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
Filed: May 21, 2018 
 
 
“Each case involving the going and coming rule and its exceptions must turn on its 
own particular facts.”  Alitalia Linee Aeree Italiane v. Tornillo, 329 Md. 40, 46 (1993).  
Rina Calvo was injured in a car accident while driving from her home to a mandatory work 
training on a Saturday—normally her day off.  We consider whether the Circuit Court for 
Montgomery County should have granted summary judgment in judicial review 
proceedings of an order of the Workers’ Compensation Commission (“Commission”).  In 
so doing, we shed light on a complicated and factually-intensive exception to the going and 
coming rule: the special mission or errand doctrine.   
FACTS AND LEGAL PROCEEDINGS  
Calvo has been employed by Montgomery County (“County”) as a bus driver for 
approximately 20 years.  Her regular work schedule is Monday through Friday, and she is 
based at the Silver Spring Depot.  On May 6, 2015, Calvo received a letter notifying her 
that she was scheduled to attend an “important mandatory training” set for Saturday, May 
16, 2015, at the Gaithersburg Depot.  The notice stated that Calvo was not required to be 
in uniform to attend the “customer service class,”1 and that the training was set to run from 
8:00 a.m. to 4:30 p.m.  The County required all employees to attend this training annually.  
En route to the training, Calvo was rear-ended by another car while waiting at a traffic 
light.   
                                              
1 The subject line of the training notice refers to the “WE Care Scheduled Training,” 
and the notice refers to it as “the customer service class.”  During her testimony before the 
Commission, Calvo stated that it was “a mandatory class for the ADA” and a “customer 
service training.”  There is no other information in the record regarding the nature and 
content of the training.   
2 
Calvo filed a claim with the Commission, seeking compensation for injuries 
sustained in the rear-end collision.  At the Commission hearing on October 30, 2015, Calvo 
testified about her injury, as well as the mandatory nature of the training.  She believed that 
if she missed the training she would probably get suspended or be prevented from going 
back to work “full duty.”2  Before the Commission, the parties argued the applicability of 
the special mission exception.  The Commission awarded compensation after finding that 
Calvo “sustained an accidental injury arising out of and in the course of employment . . . .” 
The County sought judicial review of the Commission’s Order in the Circuit Court 
for Montgomery County, and requested a jury trial.  Shortly thereafter, the County filed a 
motion for summary judgment on grounds that the “going and coming rule” prohibited 
recovery—because accidental injuries sustained while going to or coming from work do 
not ordinarily arise out of and in the course of employment, and none of the exceptions to 
the rule applied.  Calvo opposed the Motion, maintaining that compensation was proper 
under the special mission exception, or because she was a traveling employee.  After a 
hearing, the Court granted the County’s motion.   
The Court concluded that as a matter of law, Calvo’s accident fell within the going 
and coming rule, and that Calvo was not a traveling employee.  The Court considered that 
Calvo was not compensated for her travel, it was an “annual, regular training” that was 
“part and parcel of her job,” and it was not “out of the ordinary.”  It found that the training 
was “bus driver stuff,” which involved “go[ing] over the rules of the road,” and that the 
                                              
2 Calvo made up her missed training in October 2015.   
3 
change in location, work on a day off, and the difference in distance did not bring Calvo’s 
case within the special mission exception.   
In an unreported opinion, the Court of Special Appeals affirmed the Circuit Court’s 
grant of summary judgment Calvo v. Montgomery Cty., No. 1036, 2017 WL 2666161, at 
*8 (Md. Ct. Spec. App. June 21, 2017).  The intermediate appellate court agreed that there 
was no dispute of material fact and concluded that the going and coming rule controlled.  
Id. at *4, 6.   
We granted certiorari to resolve the following question:3  
                                              
3 Calvo presented the following questions, which we have consolidated and 
rephrased:  
 
1. Where the Claimant/Petitioner prevailed before the Workers’ 
Compensation Commission and a determination by the 
Commission is statutorily “presumed to be correct,” and where 
the appellate courts have held that whether an injury “arose out 
of and in the course of employment” constitutes a question of 
fact, should the granting of summary judgment against the 
Petitioner be overturned and the appeal allowed to be heard by 
a fact finder?  
 
2. Did the lower court commit error when it summarily found, 
without submitting it to a fact finder, that, the “special errand” 
exception to the “going and coming” rule cannot even be 
considered, notwithstanding that Petitioner was on her way to 
a different assignment, at a different work site, on her off day, 
at the direction of her Employer, and in the furtherance of her 
Employer’s business, especially where 3 judicial/quasi-judicial 
bodies reached 3 different conclusions on the issue of whether 
the claim “arose out of and in the course of employment”?  
 
3. Whether, given that Maryland case law holds that an injury is 
compensable when it occurs in a place the employee would not 
have been “but for” her employment and/or while engaged in 
an activity “incidental” to her employment, and Ms. Calvo was 
4 
Did the Circuit Court err in concluding as a matter of law 
that Calvo’s injury did not arise out of and in the course of 
her employment, and granting summary judgment?  
 
Our answer is yes.   
STANDARD OF REVIEW  
Maryland Rule 2-501(a) permits a party to seek summary judgment at any time “on 
the ground that there is no genuine dispute as to any material fact and that the party is 
entitled to judgment as a matter of law.”  In reviewing a summary judgment motion, a court 
should not attempt to resolve factual issues, but only determine if there is a dispute of 
material fact sufficient to try the case.  Baltimore Cty. v. Kelly, 391 Md. 64, 73 (2006).  
Even if “the relevant facts are undisputed, ‘if those facts are susceptible to inferences 
supporting the position of the party opposing summary judgment, then a grant of summary 
judgment is improper.’”  Ashton v. Brown, 339 Md. 70, 79–80 (1995) (quoting Clea v. 
Mayor & City Council of Baltimore, 312 Md. 662, 677 (1988)).  We review a grant of 
summary judgment without deference, and construe the facts, and any reasonable 
inferences that may be drawn from them, in the light most favorable to the non-moving 
party.  Rockwood Cas. Co. v. Uninsured Emp’rs’ Fund, 385 Md. 99, 106 (2005). 
                                              
involved in an accident only because she was travelling to 
training at the direction of, and for the benefit of, her Employer, 
did the lower courts err in finding, as a matter of law, that 
Petitioner’s claim was not “in the course of” her employment?  
 
(Emphasis in original).  
5 
DISCUSSION  
The Workers’ Compensation Act (“Act”) is intended to protect workers and their 
families through compensation for a loss of earning capacity due to workers’ injuries that 
arise out of and in the course of employment.  See Howard Cty. Ass’n for Retarded Citizens, 
Inc. v. Walls, 288 Md. 526, 531 (1980).  The Act “is to be construed as liberally in favor 
of injured employees as its provisions will permit in order to effectuate its benevolent 
purposes as remedial social legislation.”  Tornillo, 329 Md. at 48; Roberts v. Montgomery 
Cty., 436 Md. 591, 603 (2014).   
Maryland Code (1991, 2016 Repl. Vol.), § 9-501 of the Labor and Employment 
Article (“LE”) provides that “each employer of a covered employee shall provide 
compensation in accordance with this title to . . . the covered employee for an accidental 
personal injury sustained by the covered employee . . . .”  An “accidental personal injury” 
is an “accidental injury that arises out of and in the course of employment[.]”  LE § 9-
101(b).   
LE § 9-737 permits a party to seek judicial review of Commission orders in circuit 
court.  A party may request review on the record before the Commission, which we have 
described as similar to “judicial review of the final action of most state administrative 
agencies . . . .”  Kelly, 391 Md. at 67.  Alternatively, a party may select a “new evidentiary 
hearing and decision before a jury . . . .”  Id. at 67–68; LE § 9-745(d).  The latter is what 
the County requested, and so our review is “much like” that due a motion for summary 
judgment following “an original civil complaint brought in a circuit court.”  Id. 
6 
Regardless of the method of appeal, the Commission’s decision is “presumed to be 
prima facie correct[,]” and “the party challenging the decision has the burden of proof.”  
LE § 9-745(b).  To prevail in judicial review, the appellant must overcome the statutory 
presumption.  Kelly, 391 Md. at 76; LE § 9-745(b)(1).  After the Commission issues an 
award to a claimant, “the burden of proof, which was borne by the claimant before the 
Commission, switches to the employer before the circuit court.”  Kelly, 391 Md. at 75–76.  
A successful claimant has no burden of production in judicial review—the Commission’s 
decision may serve as the claimant’s prima facie case.  Id. at 76 (citing General Motors 
Corp. v. Bark, 79 Md. App. 68, 80 (1989)).   
The parties raise perennial questions about the fact/law dichotomy inherent in 
review of summary judgments.  Calvo contends that whether an accident arose out of and 
in the course of employment, the special mission exception, and her status as a traveling 
employee are questions of fact.  Calvo maintains that summary judgment was improper 
because the County did not offer additional evidence in its motion for summary judgment, 
and the Commission’s factual determinations are presumed correct.  She relies on Kelly, 
391 Md. at 80, for the proposition that a circuit court may not enter summary judgment 
against a claimant who prevailed before the Commission.   
The County argues that summary judgment was proper because there is no material 
dispute of fact, the going and coming rule bars compensation as a matter of law, and the 
facts do not permit any other inferences.  The County does not disagree that the 
Commission’s decision is presumed prima facie correct but maintains that the presumption 
only applies if the issue on appeal is a question of fact, not of law.  The County agrees that 
7 
an agency’s interpretation of a statute it administers receives deference but observes that a 
court may always consider whether the agency made an error of law.   
 
LE § 9-745(b)(1) provides that the Commission’s decisions are presumed correct, 
but the presumption “does not extend to questions of law.”  Wal Mart Stores, Inc. v. 
Holmes, 416 Md. 346, 357 (2010); Beyer v. Decker, 159 Md. 289, 291 (1930).  Although 
the Commission is entitled to deference in its interpretation of the statute it administers, we 
may still consider whether its legal conclusions were erroneous.  Holmes, 416 Md. at 359; 
W.M. Schlosser Co. v. Uninsured Emp’rs’ Fund, 414 Md. 195, 204 (2010).   
 
The question of whether evidence before the Commission is legally sufficient to 
support its decision is a question of law.  Moore v. Clarke, 171 Md. 39, 45 (1936).  When 
the Commission’s decision involves “consideration of conflicting evidence as to essential 
facts, or the deduction of permissible but diverse inferences therefrom, its solution of such 
conflict is presumed to be correct . . . .”  Id.  If the undisputed facts do not permit a 
conclusion, or any permissible inferences consistent with the Commission’s award, the 
case will be resolved solely as a question of law.  Id. at 46; see also Hygeia Ice & Coal Co. 
v. Schaeffer, 152 Md. 231, 235 (1927).   
 
Cases involving the going and coming rule and its exceptions hinge on the specific 
facts of each case.  Tornillo, 329 Md. at 46; see also Reisinger-Siehler Co. v. Perry, 165 
Md. 191, 198 (1933) (“The question, therefore, whether a case is an exception to the 
general rule, depends upon its own particular facts.”).  But, as we explained in Harrison v. 
Cent. Constr. Corp., 135 Md. 170, 180 (1919):  
8 
[t]he question as to whether an injury arose out of or in the 
course of employment is ordinarily, like negligence or 
probable cause, a mixed question of law and fact; but when the 
facts have been ascertained and agreed upon by the parties, or 
are undisputed and there is no dispute as to the inferences to be 
drawn from the facts, the question becomes one of law and may 
be decided by the Court.   
 
Contrary to Calvo’s arguments, Kelly does not establish that summary judgment is 
never permissible against a prevailing claimant during judicial review of a Commission 
decision.  See 391 Md. at 77–78.  In Kelly, the employer sought judicial review of a 
Commission Order that awarded compensation after finding that a car accident at work 
aggravated an employee’s old injury.  Id. at 69–70.  In circuit court, the employer moved 
for summary judgment, arguing that the case presented a complex medical question and 
the employee failed to provide sufficient medical evidence connecting his need for 
treatment with the car accident.  Id. at 72.  The employee maintained that a factual dispute 
over causation existed and opposed summary judgment on the basis of the Commission 
record and the presumption of correctness.  The Circuit Court granted summary judgment.  
Id. at 72–73.   
We determined that summary judgment was improper.  The prevailing employee 
was entitled to rely on the Commission’s determination of causation, and the employer was 
required to produce evidence establishing the lack of causation because, as the losing party, 
it bore the burdens of proof and production at summary judgment.  Id. at 77.  We held that 
there was sufficient evidence before the Commission to support the conclusion that the car 
accident aggravated the employee’s old injury.  Id. at 80.  We explained that “‘[t]he general 
rule in Workmen’s Compensation cases is that where there is any evidence from which a 
9 
rational conclusion may be drawn, as opposed to the theory of prayer for a directed verdict, 
the trial court must leave to the jury all considerations as to the weight and value of such 
evidence.’”  Id. (quoting Jewel Tea Co. v. Blamble, 227 Md. 1, 4 (1961) (emphasis in 
original)).   
Kelly teaches us that summary judgment is improper against a prevailing party when 
the moving party does not carry its burden, or if there is any evidence that can rationally 
permit the Commission’s factual determination.  Id.  With these principles in mind, we turn 
to the question of whether the Circuit Court improperly granted summary judgment for the 
County.   
Arises Out Of And In The Course Of Employment  
A claimant who seeks compensation must prove that the injury “both arose out of 
and in the course of the employment.”  Montgomery Cty. v. Wade, 345 Md. 1, 9 (1997) 
(emphasis in original).  “‘Arises out of’ refers to the causal connection between the 
employment and injury.”  Livering v. Richardson’s Rest., 374 Md. 566, 574 (2003).  We 
have adopted the positional risk test to determine if an injury arose out of employment.  Id. 
at 575.  Under this test, “‘[a]n injury arises out of the employment if it would not have 
occurred but for the fact that the conditions and obligations of the employment placed [the 
employee] in the position where he [or she] was injured.’”  Id. (quoting A. Larson, 
Workers’ Compensation Law § 3.05 (2002)) (emphasis in original).   
In analyzing whether the injury occurred “in the course of employment” we consider 
“the time, place, and circumstances of the accident in relation to the employment.”  Id. at 
576–77.  “An injury is in the course of employment ‘when it occurs during the period of 
10 
employment where the employee reasonably may be in performance of his or her duties 
and while fulfilling those duties or engaged in something incident thereto.’”  Id. at 577 
(quoting Wade, 345 Md. at 11).   
To determine whether Calvo’s injury arose out of her employment, we consider 
whether Calvo would have been injured but for her employer’s requirement that she attend 
the Saturday training.  Id.  The Circuit Court found that Calvo’s injury did not arise out of 
her employment.  The Court of Special Appeals applied the positional risk test, observing 
that the parties do not dispute that the travel was “sufficiently work-related” and that but 
for Calvo’s obligation to attend the training, she would not have been traveling the route.  
Calvo, 2016 WL 2666161, at *6.  The parties do not dispute that Calvo ordinarily did not 
work on Saturdays, and that the training was mandatory.  But for the County’s requirement 
that she attend, Calvo would not have been driving when and where she was injured.  
Therefore, under the positional risk test, Calvo satisfies the “arises out of” requirement.  
Livering, 374 Md. at 575; see also 1 Clifford B. Sobin, Maryland Workers’ Compensation 
§ 6:1, at 158 (2017 ed.).   
Whether Calvo’s injury occurred in the course of her employment depends on the 
time, place, and circumstances of her injury relative to her employment.  Livering, 374 Md. 
at 576–77.  To fall within the Act, her injury must have occurred during her employment 
when she was in the performance of her duties or doing something incident to those duties.  
Id. at 577; Wade, 345 Md. at 11.  The parties do not dispute that Calvo was traveling from 
her home to the Gaithersburg Bus Depot for training when she was injured.  Rather, they 
dispute the legal character of this journey. 
11 
The County contends that the going and coming rule controls.  Under this rule, 
employees’ injuries sustained while going to or coming from work are not ordinarily in the 
course of employment.  Roberts, 436 Md. at 606; Tornillo, 329 Md. at 44.  Such injuries 
are not usually compensable because employees are responsible for ensuring their presence 
at work, and during the commute, they generally face the same hazards as other commuters.  
Roberts, 436 Md. at 606.  Thus, the risks are not usually “directly attributable to a person’s 
particular employment.”  Morris v. Bd. of Educ. of Prince George’s Cty., 339 Md. 374, 
380 (1995).  Applying this rule, the County reasons that Calvo should not receive 
compensation because she was traveling to work.  We have, however, recognized several 
exceptions to the going and coming rule.4  See Tornillo, 329 Md. at 44.   
                                              
4 We have enumerated these exceptions in Board of Cty. Comm’rs for Frederick 
Cty. v. Vache, 349 Md. 526, 532 (1998):  
 
1. Thus, where the employer furnishes the employee free 
transportation to and from work, the employee is deemed to be 
on duty, and an injury sustained by the employee during such 
transportation arises out of and in the course of employment.  
2. Compensation may also be properly awarded where the 
employee is injured while traveling along or across a public 
road between two portions of the employer’s premises.  3. The 
“proximity” exception allows compensation for an injury 
sustained off-premises, but while the employee is exposed to a 
peculiar or abnormal degree to a danger which is annexed as a 
risk incident to the employment.  4. Injuries incurred while the 
employee travels to or from work in performing a special 
mission or errand for the employer are likewise compensable.   
 
(Cleaned up).  We have also recognized the “dual purpose” doctrine.  See Montgomery Cty. 
v. Wade, 345 Md. 1, 13 (1997).   
12 
Calvo offers two reasons for why the Circuit Court should not have granted 
summary judgment.  First, she argues that the special mission or errand exception to the 
going and coming rule applies, and therefore her injury arose out of and in the course of 
her employment.  She also contends that she was a traveling employee.  Because applying 
the traveling employee rule would bar the applicability of the going and coming rule, we 
address this argument first.5   
The Traveling Employee  
Calvo argues that whether she was a traveling employee is a material question of 
fact.  She contends that the Circuit Court erred in determining that the nature of her journey 
did not make her travel incidental to her employment.  Calvo maintains that if she was 
indeed a traveling employee, then the going and coming rule would not apply at all, and 
the positional risk test applies to determine whether her injury occurred in the course of her 
employment.  The County contends that the going and coming rule applies, and that Calvo 
was not a traveling employee because she was on her way to work, rather than staying at a 
different site for work, traveling between work sites, or on her employer’s premises.   
A traveling employee is “an employee who is required to travel away from . . . [an] 
employer’s premises in order to perform his [or her] job.”  Gravette v. Visual Aids Elecs., 
216 Md. App. 686, 686–87 (2014).  The seminal traveling employee case in Maryland is 
Mulready v. Univ. Research Corp., 360 Md. 51 (2000).  There, an employee for an 
                                              
5 The Court of Special Appeals decided that the going and coming rule controlled 
and did not address the applicability of the traveling employee rule and the positional risk 
test.  Calvo v. Montgomery Cty., No. 1036, 2017 WL 2666161, at *5 (Md. Ct. Spec. App. 
June 21, 2017).   
13 
American company was on a business trip in Canada when she slipped and fell in her hotel 
shower.  Id. at 53–54.  The parties agreed that Mulready was acting in the course of her 
employment at the time of her injury.  We considered whether Mulready’s injuries arose 
out of her employment.  Id. at 54–55.  We adopted the positional risk test and reasoned that 
Mulready should receive compensation because her injury arose from an activity that was 
“reasonably incidental” to travel required by her employer.  Id. at 66.  We explained:  
Absent facts indicating a distinct departure by the employee on 
a personal errand that would not be in the contemplation of the 
parties, an injury to a traveling employee generally is 
compensable so long as it occurred as a result of an activity 
reasonably incidental to the travel that the employer required.  
Thus even injuries suffered by traveling employees as a result 
of common perils of everyday life or as a result of purportedly 
personal acts generally are compensable.  Inasmuch as, under 
ordinary circumstances, a traveling employee’s eating and 
bathing are reasonably incidental to the travel required by the 
employer, injuries resulting from these acts are compensable.   
 
Id.   
 
Although Calvo argues that her status as a traveling employee is a factual question, 
we fail to see any support for that theory.  The traveling employee rule applies to situations 
in which “the employee suffered the injury on premises, distant from the employee’s 
home where the employee was staying in order to carry out the employer’s business.”  Id. 
at 61–62 (emphasis added); see also Gravette, 216 Md. App. at 692–93.  The requirement 
that Calvo report from her home to a different, but not very distant, work location does not 
transform her into a traveling employee.  Her injury did not occur on the premises of a 
different location where her employer required her to stay to perform work functions.  
Calvo simply does not qualify as a traveling employee under applicable legal standards.   
14 
 
Calvo argues that two of our other cases, Livering v. Richardson’s Rest., 374 Md. 
566 (2003), and Roberts v. Montgomery Cty., 436 Md. 591 (2014), provide a basis to 
conclude that her injury occurred in the course of her employment because travel to the 
training was incident to her employment.  In Livering, 374 Md. at 580–81, we held that an 
employee’s injury arose out of and in the course of her employment when—while on her 
day off—she was injured at the restaurant where she worked while checking her schedule.  
In that instance, Livering’s visit to restaurant on her day off was an effort to accommodate 
her employer’s practice of frequently changing the work schedule.  Livering had no phone, 
so she confirmed her schedule by either visiting the restaurant or calling in from elsewhere.  
Id.  We applied the positional risk test to determine that Livering’s injury arose out of her 
employment.  Id. at 575–76.  Relying on cases “involving off-duty or post-termination 
injuries sustained while on-premises to collect wages or personal property[,]” id. at 577–
79, we determined that Livering’s injury was compensable because checking her schedule 
was incident to her employment and she was injured on her employer’s premises.  Id. at 
580.   
In Roberts, 436 Md. at 606, we considered whether to apply the going and coming 
rule or the positional risk test to determine if a firefighter’s injury arose out of and in the 
course of his employment.  Roberts was a firefighter on light duty who had been 
temporarily assigned to a station different from his regular duty station.  Id. at 595–96.  He 
was injured during his shift while traveling from one site, where he had been engaged in 
physical training, to his regular duty station to pick up his mail.  Id. at 596–97.  We 
determined that the positional risk test controlled whether Roberts’s injury arose out of and 
15 
in the course of his employment because he was “en route from a work-related activity to 
a site where he was to engage in a work-related act,” and his employer was aware that 
Roberts routinely picked up his mail.  Id. at 607.  Because this travel was incident to his 
employment, the going and coming rule did not apply.  Id. at 607 & n.15.   
Calvo’s reliance on these cases is misplaced, as both Roberts and Livering are 
materially distinct from the present circumstances.  The County employed Calvo as a bus 
driver, required her to attend training at a different work site, and Calvo was injured while 
driving from her home to the site.  Unlike the claimant in Livering, Calvo was not on her 
employer’s premises engaging in an activity incident to her employment like checking her 
schedule, picking up a paycheck, or collecting tools.  See 374 Md. at 579–80.  And the 
facts do not show that Calvo was traveling between work-related sites, on duty, or 
compensated for her trip.  See Roberts, 436 Md. at 607.  The Circuit Court did not err in 
granting summary judgment for the County on the question of whether Calvo was a 
traveling employee.   
Calvo has better luck with her next argument—that the special mission or errand 
exception to the going and coming rule applies to this case.   
The Special Mission Exception  
 
We have recognized the special mission exception since Reisinger-Siehler Co. v. 
Perry, 165 Md. 191 (1933).  See Director of Fin. for the City of Baltimore v. Alford, 270 
Md. 355, 360 (1973).  “[A] journey not normally covered under the Act . . . ‘may be 
brought within the course of employment by the fact that the trouble and time of making 
the journey, or the special inconvenience, hazard, or urgency of making it in the particular 
16 
circumstances, is itself sufficiently substantial to be viewed as an integral part of the service 
itself.’”  Wade, 345 Md. at 15 (quoting 1 Arthur Larson, The Law of Workmen’s 
Compensation § 16.11 (1996)).  The rule “provides that an employee is acting in the course 
of employment when travelling on a special mission or errand at the request of the 
employer and in furtherance of the employer’s business, even if the journey is one that is 
to or from the workplace.”  Barnes v. Children’s Hosp., 109 Md. App. 543, 555–56 (1996).  
The applicability of the exception turns on the particular facts of the case.  Reisinger-
Siehler, 165 Md. at 198.   
To support her theory that the special mission or errand exception applies, Calvo 
points out that she was required to attend a mandatory training on a day she did not 
normally work, the training was infrequent and distinct from her normal role as a bus 
driver, and her attendance benefitted the County.  The County argues that although Calvo 
was traveling to a different location and on a different day, she was attending a routine 
annual training, she was not compensated for her travel, there was no element of urgency, 
and no hazards out of the ordinary.  Therefore, the County reasons, the special mission 
exception should not apply, and the going and coming rule bars compensation.   
 
The Court of Special Appeals provided a thorough analysis of how a trip may fit 
within the special mission exception in Barnes, 109 Md. App. at 557–59.  Barnes was the 
hospital’s director of computer and information systems.  She worked Monday through 
Friday, from 8:30 a.m. to 4:30 p.m., and was also “on call” at all times.  She regularly 
received calls during her off hours, and although she usually resolved issues by phone, 
occasionally she would have to go in to address a problem.  Id. at 551.  One Saturday, the 
17 
hospital comptroller contacted Barnes while she was on a shopping trip with family 
members and asked her to come in and complete the monthly accounts receivable report, 
which was due that day.  Barnes intended to drive her family home before heading to work, 
but realized she needed gasoline to reach the hospital.  While en route to drop her family 
off, Barnes stopped to get gas, slipped on a puddle of oil and fell, sustaining injuries.  Id.  
The Commission determined that Barnes’s injury did not arise out of and in the course of 
her employment, and the Circuit Court affirmed the decision after a bench trial.  Id. at 550.   
 
The Court of Special Appeals reversed.  It explained that whether a mission is 
sufficiently “special” to fall within the exception requires the analysis of multiple factors.  
Id. at 557.  First, a court should consider the “‘relative regularity or unusualness of the 
particular journey.’”  Id. (quoting 1 Arthur Larson & Lex K. Larson, The Law of 
Workmen’s Compensation § 16.13, at 4-208.24 (1992)).  If the trip is “‘relatively regular’ 
in the context of the employee’s normal duties,” then there is a “‘strong presumption’” that 
the going and coming rule applies.  Id. (quoting 1 Larson & Larson, supra at § 16.13, at 4-
208.24, 4-208.26).   
 
Second, a court examines “‘the relative onerousness of the journey compared with 
the service to be performed at the end of the journey.’”  Id. at 558 (quoting 1 Larson & 
Larson, supra, at § 16.13, at 4-208.26).  This analysis looks to the relationship between the 
journey and the service to be performed.  Traveling a long distance to perform a minor 
service, supports application of the mission exception because it appears that the journey 
is part of the service.  Whether a journey is onerous may also depend on the length of the 
18 
journey and the circumstances under which it is made, such as time of day, whether it is a 
regularly scheduled work day, or travel conditions.  Id.   
 
Finally, “the ‘suddenness’ of the call to work or whether it was made under an 
‘element of urgency’ are also relevant factors.”  Id. (quoting 1 Larson & Larson, supra, at 
§ 16.13, at 4-208.26, § 16.16, at 4-208.39).  This factor may support a conclusion that the 
mission was special, but is not dispositive.  Id. at 558–59.   
 
The Court of Special Appeals applied the “usualness” and “onerousness” tests to 
the facts of Barnes’s case, concluding that her trip was a special mission.  Id. at 559.  Barnes 
was asked to come in on a day she did not normally work, and there was no evidence that 
Barnes made regular trips in to work on Saturday.  Id. at 559–60.  Thus, the Court 
explained, Barnes’s trip was “irregular or unusual in the context of her duties.”  Id. at 560.  
Barnes’s trip was clearly in furtherance of the hospital’s business interests, and it was 
onerous because she came in on her day off.  Id.  Although preparing the report was a 
routine task, the Court considered that there was an element of urgency because the report 
was due that day, the employee who usually did the task was absent, and the hospital asked 
Barnes to come in on her day off to specially complete it.  Id. at 560–61.   
 
The Barnes Court rejected the hospital’s argument that the routine nature of the task 
barred application of the special mission exception because the exception “contemplates 
situations in which either the journey or the mission is special, not simply where the task 
to be performed is special.”  Id. at 561–62 (emphasis in original).  Relying on cases from 
other jurisdictions, the Court explained that the exception applies because the employee 
makes a special trip at the employer’s request, even if the task itself is normal in relation 
19 
to the employee’s duties.  Id. at 562–64.  Thus, Barnes’s journey to the hospital was a 
special mission.6 
 
On the other hand, Mayor & City Council of Baltimore v. Jakelski, 45 Md. App. 7 
(1980), illustrates when the special mission exception does not apply.  Jakelski was a police 
officer who made regularly scheduled appearances in court once a month to testify about 
the traffic citations he had issued.  Id. at 8.  Jakelski got into a car accident while driving 
to court.  He had been scheduled to appear at 2:00 p.m., and after testifying, report to his 
regular shift beginning at 3:30 p.m.  Id.  The Court of Special Appeals determined that 
Jakelski’s trip was not a special mission.  Id. at 11.  Jakelski was required to regularly 
testify in traffic court as part of his job, and the journey was not irregular or unusual.  Id. 
at 12.  The Court observed that “if the court appearance had been an isolated obligation, 
the journey to testify might well have been a special errand or mission,” but because it was 
a “regular duty, periodically to be performed,” the exception did not apply, and the going 
and coming rule barred compensation.  Id. at 13.   
Considering these cases, as well as other Maryland precedent, the first requirement 
of the exception is that employer must require the employee carry out the special mission.  
See Alford, 270 Md. at 363–64; Reisinger-Siehler, 165 Md. at 192–93; Coats & Clark’s 
Sales Corp. v. Stewart, 39 Md. App. 10, 13 (1978); see also Huffman v. Koppers Co., Inc., 
94 Md. App. 180, 187 (1992) (“Employees feel obligated to go on the special mission 
                                              
6 The Court of Special Appeals concluded that Barnes’s anticipated detour to obtain 
gasoline and drop off her family also fell within the special mission exception because the 
journeys were reasonably related to business purposes.  Barnes v. Children’s Hosp., 109 
Md. App. 543, 565–68 (1996).   
20 
because of the apparent underlying implication that if they do not go, their employment 
may be jeopardized.”).  The parties do not dispute that the County required Calvo to attend 
the training because of her employment.  The fact that the training was mandatory, as the 
training notice states, suggests that Calvo’s attendance benefitted her employer.   
 
Applying Barnes and Jakelski, the question of whether Calvo was on a special 
mission hinges on two factors: (1) the regularity or unusualness of the journey in the 
context of Calvo’s normal duties, and (2) the onerousness of the journey.  See Barnes, 109 
Md. App. at 559–60; Jakelski, 45 Md. App. at 11–13; see also 2 Arthur Larson, Lex K. 
Larson & Thomas Robinson, Larson’s Workers’ Compensation Law § 14.05[3], at 14–10–
14-11 (Matthew Bender rev. ed. 2017).   
Here, the parties do not dispute that the customer service training took place 
annually.  Calvo points out that her training took place much less frequently than Jakelski’s 
court appearances.  The County maintains that Jakelski is dispositive because the required 
training occurred with regularity—annually—and the factors in Barnes do not support 
Calvo’s position.  We are not persuaded.  Jakelski is an uneasy fit as precedent here.  Once 
per month does not readily compare with once per year when we consider that the material 
question at hand is the regularity or unusualness of Calvo’s journey in the context of her 
normal duties.  Barnes, 109 Md. App. at 557.   
The mandatory nature of the training does not mean it was regular in relation to her 
employment.  The Commission considered the following facts: (1) Calvo regularly drove 
21 
a bus Monday through Friday;7 (2) her regular trip to work was to the Silver Spring Bus 
Depot; (3) she was assigned to attend training on a Saturday, when she did not work; and 
(4) the training took place at a different location than her usual work site.   
 
With regard to regularity or unusualness, we consider the journey to the training in 
the context of Calvo’s normal duties.  Journeys made daily, at regular intervals, or that are 
part of the employee’s regular duties weigh against application of the special mission 
exception.  See 2 Larson, supra, at § 14.05[3], at 14-10; Barnes, 109 Md. App. at 557; 
Jakelski, 45 Md. App. at 11.   
 
Determining regularity or unusualness requires heavy reliance on the particular facts 
and the inferences that may be drawn from those facts.  For example, Jakelski’s trips to 
court were regularly scheduled and part of his ordinary duties as a police officer.  Jakelski, 
45 Md. App. at 12.  On the other hand, Barnes’s trip took place on a day she did not 
normally work.  While she was on call during her off hours, Barnes usually addressed 
problems by phone, and only infrequently went in to work.  Barnes, 109 Md. App. at 560.  
The Court’s determination that Barnes’s trip was not regular in the context of her duties 
focused on the journey, not the task to be performed.  Id. at 564.  In reaching this 
conclusion, the Barnes Court relied on cases from other jurisdictions that had awarded 
                                              
7 During oral argument, the County speculated that Calvo’s schedule could “change 
at any time” because “bus routes change.”  The special mission exception requires that the 
employee have “identifiable time and space limits on the employment . . . .”  2 Arthur 
Larson, Lex K. Larson & Thomas Robinson, Larson’s Workers’ Compensation Law 
§ 14.05[1], at 14-5 (Matthew Bender rev. ed. 2017).  It is uncontroverted from the record 
that Calvo had fixed temporal and spatial limits on her employment.  We do not find the 
argument that her employer could change her schedule persuasive.   
22 
compensation under the special mission exception to employees who performed tasks 
“within the scope of their ordinary duties” when the employee made an unusual journey to 
perform the task at a time when the employee did not typically work.8  Id. at 562–64.   
 
Like Barnes, and unlike Jakelski, Calvo was required to work on a day she did not 
normally work.  See id. at 551.  That the task might have been part of her employment is 
not dispositive—Barnes’s duties occasionally required her to come in to work during her 
off hours.  Id. at 560.  Special mission cases from other jurisdictions support this 
conclusion.  See Johnson v. Fairbanks Clinic, 647 P.2d 592, 596 (Alaska 1982) (pre-
surgical meeting); Eady v. Med. Pers. Pool, 377 So. 2d 693, 695 (Fla. 1979) (nursing 
duties); Brown v. City of Wheeling, 569 S.E.2d 197, 200 (W. Va. 2002) (mandatory 
training).  Although the record shows that Calvo attended the other trainings, there is no 
evidence whether the past trainings took place on her day off, or whether she was regularly 
required to journey to different worksites for training.  Applying the law to the facts, we 
conclude that it would not have been unreasonable for a jury to conclude that Calvo’s travel 
                                              
8 See, e.g., Johnson v. Fairbanks Clinic, 647 P.2d 592 (Alaska 1982) (compensation 
to doctor who made an unusual weekend trip to work to discuss an upcoming surgery with 
a patient); Eady v. Med. Pers. Pool, 377 So. 2d 693 (Fla. 1979) (compensation awarded to 
nurse who made a trip to a patient’s home at her employer’s behest after a full shift earlier 
in the day); Kyle v. Greene High Sch., 226 N.W. 71 (Iowa 1929) (compensation awarded 
to school janitor who was asked to come in after work to fix lights for the high school 
basketball game); Jonas v. Lillyblad, 137 N.W.2d 370 (Minn. 1965) (affirming 
compensation to janitor who went to work outside his regular hours to turn on and off the 
furnace); Bengston v. Greening, 41 N.W.2d 185 (Minn. 1950) (awarded compensation to 
bookkeeper who worked on weekdays and was asked to come in on a Saturday to gather 
records for the accountant preparing her employer’s tax return); Hughes v. N.Y. Tel. Co., 
472 N.Y.S.2d 513 (N.Y. App. Div. 1984) (compensation awarded to line foreman who was 
called in while off duty to check on a report of a broken telephone pole).   
23 
to a different location for training—on a day she did not normally work—was sufficiently 
irregular or unusual to justify a fact-finder’s conclusion that she met that criteria for the 
exception. 
Like regularity, analysis of the onerousness factor is fact-intensive.  See 2 Larson, 
supra, at § 14.05[3], at 14-10–11.  In support of her argument that onerousness is a factual 
question to be decided by the jury, Calvo avers that the County never established the 
difference in distance between Calvo’s usual work journey and her journey to the assigned 
training.  She contends that the Circuit Court improperly engaged in fact finding in deciding 
that the training was insufficiently remote to support the special mission exception.  The 
County responds that it was proper for the Circuit Court to rely on the length of the journey 
in evaluating the applicability of the special mission exception, and nothing about Calvo’s 
commute rendered it onerous.   
To determine whether a journey is onerous, a court examines the “relative 
onerousness of the journey compared with the service to be performed at the end of the 
journey.”  Id. at 14-10; see also Barnes, 109 Md. App. at 558.  This inquiry considers 
whether the journey itself is an element of the service, which may be assessed by looking 
to the task performed compared with the trip.  See Barnes, 109 Md. App. at 558; 2 Larson, 
supra, at § 14.05[3], at 14-10–11; see also Reisinger-Siehler, 165 Md. at 198–99 (nature 
of employment suggests implied agreement that travel was part of duties).  We also 
consider the circumstances of the journey, such as “the time of day, whether it is a regular 
workday, or the conditions of travel.”  Barnes, 109 Md. App. at 558; see also 2 Larson, 
supra, at § 14.05[3], at 14-11.  But if the “terms of employment” clearly contemplated that 
24 
the employee would regularly have to make the journey at that time, then that factor does 
not support onerousness.  2 Larson, supra, at § 14.05[3], at 14-11.  
Barnes, 109 Md. App. at 558, is the primary Maryland case to directly consider the 
onerousness of a journey.  There, the Court of Special Appeals determined that Barnes’s 
journey—even to her usual place of employment—was “sufficiently onerous” because she 
had to report in on a day she did not expect to work.  Id. at 560.  Other Maryland cases 
have peripherally addressed onerousness.  In Reisinger-Siehler, 165 Md. at 198–99, we 
determined that compensation was appropriate under the special mission exception when 
the employee’s regular duties created an implied agreement that travel was part of his 
duties.  This decision rested in part on the fact that the employee was constantly on call, 
and the work he might be required to do when called in after his usual hours might only 
occupy a few minutes of time.  Id.  In Jakelski, 45 Md. App. at 13–14, the Court of Special 
Appeals determined that the exception did not apply when Jakelski was traveling to “the 
courthouse where he was regularly compelled to attend on a monthly basis . . . .”  Further, 
Jakelski was already scheduled to work a shift that would begin after his court appearance.  
Id. at 8.   
Other jurisdictions consider similar factors to conclude that a journey is onerous.  In 
Eady, 377 So. 2d at 696, the Supreme Court of Florida explained that the analysis centers 
on “the relative burden of the journey on the employee” in comparison with “the extent of 
the task to be performed in the context of the employee’s duties.”  Other factors in assessing 
the employee’s burden include “[t]he suddenness of the assignment from the employer, the 
time and length of the journey, and any special circumstances . . . .”  Id.; see also Johnson, 
25 
647 P.2d at 594; State v. Indus. Comm’n of Utah, 685 P.2d 1051, 1055 (Utah 1984); Schell 
v. Blue Bell, Inc., 637 P.2d 914, 917 (Okla. Civ. App. 1981).   
Maryland precedent, and that of other jurisdictions demonstrates that onerousness 
requires a consideration of all the facts and circumstances of the journey.  We think 
appropriate factors include the burden of the journey in comparison with the task to be 
completed, suddenness, urgency, the length and time of the journey, as well as whether the 
employee was required to work on a day that she did not normally work.  See Reisinger-
Siehler, 165 Md. at 198–99; Barnes, 109 Md. App. at 558; Eady, 377 So. 2d at 696; 2 
Larson, supra, at § 14.05[3], at 14-11.   
The undisputed facts relating to onerousness in this case are: (1) Calvo was required 
to attend a mandatory work training on a day she did not typically work; and (2) she was 
required to go to a different location than her usual worksite.9  We observe that in Barnes, 
109 Md. App. at 560, the Court of Special Appeals found onerousness because Barnes was 
required to go to work on her day off.  This factor brings Calvo’s case closer to Barnes, 
id., than Jakelski, 45 Md. App. at 8.  See also Fairchild Space Co. v. Baroffio, 77 Md. App. 
494, 501 (1989) (no special mission if the only special element is that the employee was 
required to come in earlier than usual).   
                                              
9 The County is correct that the length of the journey is relevant to onerousness.  See 
Barnes, 109 Md. App. at 558; 2 Larson, supra, at § 14.05[3], at 14-10–11.  But it is not 
dispositive.  We also observe that in its motion for summary judgment, and during the 
hearing, the County did not offer any information about the length of the journey, other 
than to point out that the training notice provides directions from the Silver Spring Depot 
to the Gaithersburg Depot.   
26 
The Circuit Court concluded that the County’s requirement that Calvo attend the 
training on her day off was “of no moment.”  The Court of Special Appeals likewise 
ignored this factor, stating that there was no evidence to support onerousness other than 
the change in worksite.  Calvo, 2016 WL 2666161, at *7.  Both Courts erred in this respect.  
Barnes and authority from other jurisdictions support application of the special mission 
exception when the employee was called in to perform a task on a day the employee did 
not ordinarily work.10   
With regard to the burden of the journey in comparison with the task to be 
performed, the facts show that Calvo was required to spend a full day in training after her 
journey in.  So clearly, this case does not fit within the rule that an arduous journey to 
complete a relatively negligible task may be a means of reaching onerousness.  See 2 
Larson, supra, at § 14.05[3], at 14-10–11.  But there is more than one way to qualify as a 
special mission, and here, the most important factor is that Calvo was required to attend 
the work-related function on a day she did not normally work.   
 The County is correct that cases addressing the special mission exception have 
considered urgency and suddenness in applying the mission.  See Reisinger-Siehler, 165 
Md. at 198; Alford, 270 Md. at 363; Barnes, 109 Md. App. at 560–61.  It is undisputed that 
Calvo, unlike Alford or Barnes, was given 10 days’ notice of the training, rather than 
suddenly being called in to work.  But, as the Court of Special Appeals correctly pointed 
out, urgency is a sometimes sufficient, but not necessary condition that can transform a trip 
                                              
10 See supra note 8 (listing cases).   
27 
into a special mission.  Calvo, 2016 WL 2666161, at *7; see also 2 Larson, supra, 
§ 14.05[5], at 14-13.  As such, we do not find the County’s argument about urgency 
persuasive.   
The County also contends that Calvo was not exposed to any special hazards by 
being required to attend the training on her day off at a different location.  In Baroffio, 77 
Md. App. at 501 n.5, the Court of Special Appeals observed that 1 Larson, Workmen’s 
Compensation Law, § 16.11, at 4-154–4-157 (1985), supports application of the special 
mission exception “if the employee is required to report to work so early or remain so late 
that hazards are created or magnified . . . .”  Larson’s Workers’ Compensation Law cites 
cases suggesting that extended hours of work may support application of the exception 
when extraordinary demands of employment substantially increase the hazards of the 
commute.  See 2 Larson, supra, at § 14.05[4], at 14-11–12.  But other Maryland cases 
addressing the special mission exception have not treated this as a necessary condition, and 
we decline to do so today.  See Reisinger-Siehler, 165 Md. at 198–99; Alford, 270 Md. at 
364; Barnes, 109 Md. App. at 564. 
Our conclusion that an employer-assigned training at a different location may rise 
to the level of a special mission is supported by cases from other jurisdictions.  See McLin 
v. Indus. Specialty Contractors, Inc., 851 So. 2d 1135, 1142 (La. 2003) (employee 
attending an off-site mandatory safety meeting after work hours); Edens v. New Mexico 
Health & Soc. Servs. Dep’t, 547 P.2d 65, 68 (N.M. 1976) (employees required to attend 
special meeting in other city); Brown, 569 S.E.2d at 203 (employee required to attend 
training at different location).   
28 
Our review of the facts and the law lead us to conclude—in this admittedly close 
case—that the evidence created permissible inferences from which the jury could have 
rationally concluded that the special mission exception applied.11  Accordingly, the Circuit 
Court erred in granting summary judgment against Calvo on the grounds that the special 
mission exception did not apply.  Kelly, 391 Md. at 80; Jewel Tea Co. v. Blamble, 227 Md. 
1, 4 (1961); Moore, 175 Md. at 45.   
CONCLUSION  
 
The Circuit Court did not err in its conclusion that the going and coming rule, rather 
than the traveling employee doctrine, controlled Calvo’s case.  But because the undisputed 
facts permit a reasonable conclusion that the special mission exception to the going and 
coming rule applies, the Circuit Court erred in granting summary judgment against Calvo.   
JUDGMENT 
OF 
THE 
COURT 
OF 
SPECIAL APPEALS REVERSED.  CASE 
REMANDED TO THAT COURT WITH 
INSTRUCTIONS 
TO 
REVERSE 
THE 
JUDGMENT OF THE CIRCUIT COURT 
FOR MONTGOMERY COUNTY AND 
REMAND THE CASE TO THAT COURT 
FOR TRIAL.  COSTS IN THIS COURT 
AND THE COURT OF SPECIAL APPEALS 
TO BE PAID BY THE RESPONDENT.   
 
                                              
11 Calvo did not file a cross-motion for summary judgment.  Accordingly, because 
we conclude the grant of summary judgment was improper, the appropriate remedy is a 
remand to the Circuit Court for a trial before a jury, who can decide whether, under the 
facts of this case, Calvo’s injury is compensable.   
Circuit Court for Montgomery County 
Case No. 412413V 
Argued: February 5, 2018 
    
IN THE COURT OF APPEALS 
OF MARYLAND 
 
 
No. 48 
 
September Term, 2017 
 
 
RINA CALVO 
 
v. 
 
MONTGOMERY COUNTY, 
MARYLAND 
 
 
Barbera, C.J. 
Greene 
Adkins 
McDonald 
Watts  
Hotten 
Getty 
 
 
JJ. 
 
 
Dissenting Opinion by Greene, J., which 
Barbera, C.J. and Getty, J., join. 
 
 
 
            Filed: May 21, 2018
I respectfully dissent. 
The Maryland Workers’ Compensation Act (“Act”) benefits persons who suffer “an 
accidental injury that arises out of and in the course of employment.”  Maryland Code, 
Labor and Employment Article, § 9-101(b)(1).  Generally, the Act excludes compensation 
benefits for injuries that occur when an employee is going to or coming from the workplace.  
When the “going and coming” rule applies, compensation benefits are denied because the 
injuries do not “arise out of and in the course of employment.”  Board of Cnty. Comm’rs 
for Frederick Cnty. v. Vache, 349 Md. 526, 531, 709 A.2d 155, 158 (1998); see also Alitalia 
Linee Aeree Italiane v. Tornillo, 329 Md. 40, 44, 617 A.2d 572, 574 (1993).  The rationale 
of the “going and coming” rule is rooted in the idea that “the Act does not protect 
employees against the common perils of life and the dangers of ordinary commuting are 
dangers that are common to all people.”  Barnes v. Children’s Hosp., 109 Md. App. 543, 
555, 675 A.2d 558, 564 (1996) (internal citations omitted).  We have, of course, recognized 
several exceptions to the “going and coming” rule.  As we explained in Vache, several 
exceptions to this general rule include: 
1. [W]here the employer furnishes the employee free transportation to and 
from work, the employee is deemed to be on duty, and an injury sustained by 
the employee during such transportation arises out of and in the course of 
employment.  2. Compensation may also be properly awarded where the 
employee is injured while traveling along or across a public road between 
two portions of the employer’s premises.  3.  The “proximity” exception 
allows compensation for an injury sustained off-premises, but while the 
employee is exposed to a peculiar or abnormal degree to a danger which is 
annexed as a risk incident to the employment.  4. Injuries incurred while the 
employee travels to or from work in performing a special mission or errand 
for the employer are likewise compensable.   
 
2 
 
349 Md. at 532, 709 A.2d at 158.  (Emphasis added) (internal citations omitted).  In the 
present case, we are concerned with the last exception, the special mission or errand rule.    
 
The special mission rule has been explained as follows: 
When an employee, having identifiable time and space limits on the 
employment, makes an off-premises journey which would normally not be 
covered under the usual going and coming rule, the journey may be brought 
within the course of employment by the fact that the trouble and time of 
making the journey, or the special inconvenience, hazard or urgency of 
making it in the particular circumstances, is itself sufficiently substantial to 
be viewed as an integral part of the service itself. 
 
Larson’s Workers’ Compensation Law, § 14.05 at 14-5 (2017) (footnotes omitted).  
Additionally, the rule has been framed in terms of the “special degree of urgency or 
inconvenience[:]” 
[w]hen the making of the journey, or the special degree of urgency or 
inconvenience under which the journey is made, is of such a character that 
the journey itself constitutes a substantial part of the service that the 
employee is rendering, an employee is considered to be acting in the course 
of employment.     
 
See Barnes, 109 Md. App. at 556, 675 A.2d at 564 (citing Arthur Larson & Lex K. Larson, 
The Law of Workmen’s Compensation, § 16.00 (1992)).  
Despite the difficult task of precisely defining a “special mission,” the Court of 
Special Appeals has distilled the special mission rule into three factors that, when taken 
together, tend to suggest whether “a mission is sufficiently ‘special’ to be brought within 
the ambit of the rule.”  Barnes, 109 Md. App. at 557, 675 A.2d at 565.  Those factors 
include: (1) the relative regularity of the journey in the context of the employee’s normal 
duties; (2) the onerousness of the journey in light of the service the employee must perform 
3 
 
at the workplace; and (3) the suddenness, or element of urgency, of the call to work.  See 
id. at 557-59, 675 A.2d. at 565. 
The first factor considers whether the journey is “relatively regular.”  If, “in the 
context of the employee’s normal duties,” the journey is relatively regular then there is a 
“‘strong presumption’ that the trip is not special and instead falls within the normal going 
and coming rule.”  Id. at 557, 675 A.2d at 565.  The second factor weighs the onerousness 
of the journey in tandem with the service to be performed at the conclusion of the journey.  
A service that is of little consequence but requires a long or onerous journey is more likely 
a special mission.  See id. at 558, 675 A.2d at 565.  Finally, the third factor examines “the 
‘suddenness’ of the call to work or whether it was made under an ‘element of urgency’[.]”  
Id.  For example, a court may consider whether the “employee must drop everything and 
travel to the workplace.”  Id.  
In this case, the material facts relevant to the application of the special mission rule 
are not in dispute.  Ms. Calvo was injured while traveling from her home to a required 
work-related training on a Saturday, she suffered injuries as a result of an accident that 
occurred while she was traveling to the training, and she filed a claim under the Act.  When 
measured against the three Barnes factors, and taken together as a whole, the undisputed 
facts do not tend to suggest that Ms. Calvo’s “mission [wa]s sufficiently ‘special’ to be 
brought within the ambit of the rule.”  Id. at 557, 675 A.2d at 565.  In my view, Ms. Calvo’s 
journey was not sufficiently irregular, onerous, or unusual to constitute a “special mission.”     
 
 
4 
 
a. Regularity 
With respect to the first factor relating to the relative regularity of her journey in the 
context of Ms. Calvo’s normal duties, the parties do not dispute that:  
• The travel to the scheduled training was sufficiently work-related.  
• But for Ms. Calvo’s obligation to attend the training, she would not 
have been in route that day.  
• The County mandated that Ms. Calvo attend the training as part of her 
employment. 
• The training occurred on an annual basis. 
• Ms. Calvo has attended the training in previous years. 
  
In the case of Mayor and City Council of Baltimore v. Jakelski, the Court of Special 
Appeals concluded that a police officer’s monthly appearances in traffic court were not 
sufficiently special for the officer to recover for injuries sustained in an accident on his 
way to traffic court to testify.  45 Md. App. 7, 11-14, 410 A.2d 1116, 1119-20 (1980), cert. 
denied, 287 Md. 753 (1980).  The intermediate appellate court explained that the officer’s 
court appearance was not “an isolated obligation” but was “a regular duty” that was 
performed “periodically.”  Id. at 13, 410 A.2d at 1120.  The court did not define regular or 
periodic for purposes of the special mission rule, noting only that the officer “was regularly 
compelled to attend [court] on a monthly basis.”  Id. at 14, 410 A.2d at 1120. 
The Majority Opinion in the present case concludes that Jakelski is “an uneasy fit 
as precedent here.”  Maj. Slip Op. at 20.  The analysis of the Majority Opinion turns on the 
rationale that the once per month court appearances in Jakelski are incompatible with the 
once per year training for Ms. Calvo.  Given the language used by the Jakelski court to 
describe the officer’s court appearances—“[not] an isolated obligation”, “regular duty,” 
“periodically”—it cannot be said that the rule’s application depends on one rigid temporal 
5 
 
definition, e.g. monthly.  See Jakelski, 45 Md. App. at 13, 410 A.2d at 1120.  An annual 
obligation is as periodic as a monthly or weekly obligation.  See Merriam Webster 
Collegiate Dictionary 862 (10th ed. 2001) (defining “periodic” as “occurring or recurring 
at regular intervals”).  Ms. Calvo could anticipate, indeed even expect, that she would have 
to attend mandatory training on an annual basis, just as the officer in Jakelski could 
anticipate that he would appear in traffic court on a regular basis.  That Ms. Calvo’s journey 
took place only once per calendar year does not, by itself, transform the nature of the 
journey into an irregular, unpredictable, or special mission.  
b. Onerousness of the journey in light of the service to be performed 
 
With respect to the second factor involving “the onerousness of the journey in light 
of the service the employee must perform at the workplace[,]” the parties do not dispute 
that: 
• Ms. Calvo regularly worked Monday through Friday.  
• Ms. Calvo was required to attend the training on a Saturday. 
• Ms. Calvo’s regular work site was the Silver Spring Bus Depot.  
• Gaithersburg, the location of the training, was a different location than 
Silver Spring, her usual work site.  
• The training was related to customer service.  
 
In Barnes, the Court of Special Appeals determined that the special mission rule 
applied where an employee had been called into her workplace on a Saturday to complete 
an accounting report that was due that day.  109 Md. App. 543, 675 A.2d 558 (1996).  There 
was no evidence of “the frequency with which Barnes made weekend trips to the Hospital 
or the circumstances under which such trips were made.”  Id. at 560, 675 A.2d at 566 
(footnote omitted).  Moreover, there was no evidence that the employee “regularly made 
6 
 
weekend trips to the Hospital.”  Id. at 559, 675 A.2d at 566.  In analyzing the second factor, 
the intermediate appellate court concluded that the trip was “sufficiently onerous” based 
on numerous considerations, including that the journey “required Barnes to report to the 
office on a day on which she did not expect to work” and “she was engaged in a personal 
matter at the time she was paged.”  Id. at 560, 675 A.2d at 566.   
The Majority Opinion zeroes in on the fact that Ms. Calvo, as was also true in 
Barnes, “was required to work on a day she did not normally work.”  Maj. Slip Op. at 22-
23.  According to the Majority Opinion’s analysis of Barnes, the intermediate appellate 
court “found onerousness because Barnes was required to go to work on her day off.”  Id. 
at 25.  That characterization, however, imprecisely narrows the scope of the Barnes 
analysis.  The intermediate appellate court considered more than the fact that the 
employee’s trip was on a day that “was not a normally scheduled work day.”  It also 
weighed the regularity of her making weekend trips to the hospital, the unusualness of 
being contacted during off-hours as well as the frequency and circumstances under which 
she made weekend trips to the hospital.  See Barnes, 109 Md. App. at 559-60, 675 A.2d at 
566.   
Nevertheless, even if the Majority only focused on the onerousness factor in the 
instant case, it would come up short.  There were no facts—other than it was not a normally 
scheduled work day— to indicate that Ms. Calvo’s journey to the training worksite on a 
Saturday was onerous in terms of its length, the distance the employee had to travel, the 
travel conditions, or “the circumstances under which it [wa]s made, i.e. the time of day, 
7 
 
whether it [wa]s a regular workday, or the conditions of travel”  See Barnes, 109 Md. App. 
at 558, 675 A.2d at 565.   
Moreover, the undisputed facts of this case do not warrant the conclusion that the 
journey in light of the service to be performed, i.e. participation in training to improve the 
employer’s customer service, constituted a substantial part of the service that Ms. Calvo 
rendered to her employer.  The relationship between Ms. Calvo’s journey and the service 
to be performed is illustrated by the hypothetical in Barnes: “if a janitor [who] walks five 
blocks to spend two hours working at a church in the evening, it would be difficult to 
conclude that the journey is a significant part of the total service.”  109 Md. App. at 558, 
675 A.2d at 565.  The record before us is devoid of facts that would explain the onerousness 
of the journey in light of the service to be performed, such as: 
• Travel conditions on the day of the journey, 
• Time of day of the journey as compared to usual work obligation, 
• Weather conditions on the day of the journey, 
• Difference in the distance between Ms. Calvo’s usual work site and the 
training work site, or 
• Whether the employer had directed the employee’s course of travel. 
 
I am persuaded by the reasoning of Carberry v. State, Div. of State Police, 652 A.2d 232 
(N.J. Sup. Ct. 1995), which rejected the application of the special mission rule in a case 
involving an officer who was injured while returning from the physician’s office.  The 
officer’s employer had directed him to obtain a medical clearance from a physician prior 
to returning to work.  Id. at 234.  The New Jersey intermediate appellate court recognized 
that although the employer directed the officer to obtain the clearance prior to returning to 
full-time duty, the employer “did not dictate, nor did it have any control over the course of 
8 
 
petitioner’s travel, or manner by which he was transported to [the doctor’s] office.”  Id. at 
236.  Similarly, in the present case, the employer directed that Ms. Calvo obtain the 
required training.  In no way can it be said that the employer had any control Ms. Calvo’s 
travel, or manner of travel to the training site.    
c. Suddenness, or element of urgency  
With respect to the third factor of “suddenness, or element of urgency,” the parties 
do not dispute that: 
• Ms. Calvo was given 10 days of advance notice of the training.  
• Ms. Calvo attended a make-up training session later that year.  
 
When this Court first recognized the special mission rule in Reisinger-Siehler Co. 
v. Perry, we applied the rule in a case where an employee was called to investigate unusual 
activity at his workplace between the hour of 11 and 12 o’clock at night.  165 Md. 191, 
193, 167 A. 51 (1933).  Upon completing his duties at the store and while returning home, 
the employee suffered injuries after being struck by a vehicle.  Id. at 193, 167 A. at 51.  
There, our rationale was based on the premise that the employee had been called 
unexpectedly to his workplace at midnight to check on an unusual circumstance.  Given 
these circumstances, we concluded that the journey was a special mission on behalf of the 
employer. 
Likewise, in Barnes, the Court of Special Appeals considered the urgency factor of 
the employee who was called into work on a Saturday.  There, the intermediate appellate 
court noted that the employee who usually ran the accounting report was not available, 
9 
 
thus, making Barnes’s trip necessary.  109 Md. App. at 560-61, 675 A.2d at 566.  The 
Court of Special Appeals properly focused on the nature of the journey as one that was 
unexpected, unusual, and urgent, and, therefore, correctly determined that the journey was 
a special mission on behalf of her employer. 
In the instant case, the Majority Opinion disregards any consideration of urgency, 
or lack thereof, in its analysis.  See Maj. Slip Op. at 26-27.  By doing so, the Majority 
Opinion gives short shrift to the import of this factor in the Barnes analysis.  Significantly, 
the Court of Special Appeals, in Barnes, observed, “the fact that Barnes was called on a 
Saturday and instructed to report to the Hospital indicates that the task was . . . obviously 
urgent . . . because the employee who usually did the work was not available.”  109 Md. 
App. at 560-61, 675 A.2d at 566.  In Ms. Calvo’s case, there was no evidence of an 
emergency situation, much less evidence that the training was an urgent matter.  The instant 
case stands in strong contrast to the Reisinger-Siehler Co. case, as well, because “the 
employee rushed to a store at which he was employed after hearing a report of a possible 
break-in.”  Barnes, 109 Md. App. at 558, 675 A.2d at 565.  In this way, Ms. Calvo’s journey 
differs from the employees’ journeys in both Barnes and Reisinger-Siehler Co.  Ms. 
Calvo’s journey, however, is on similar footing as the officer’s journey in Carberry.  The 
Superior Court of New Jersey in that case observed that the officer endured “no such 
‘enhanced exposure to hazard” on his journey and concluded that “the inconvenience in 
making the trip to [the doctor’s] office was not ‘sufficiently substantial to be viewed as an 
integral part of the service itself.’”  652 A.2d at 236-37 (quoting Larson, § 16.11 at 4-204). 
10 
 
Although I agree with the intermediate appellate court that “an emergency is not 
always needed for there to be a special mission[,]” see Dir. of Fin. for City of Baltimore v. 
Alford, 270 Md. 355, 311 A.2d 412 (1973), evidence of an urgency was entirely lacking 
from the record in the present case.  Thus, I depart from the Majority’s wholesale exclusion 
of any consideration of urgency in its analysis of the facts before us.  The urgency factor, 
or lack thereof, is relevant and informs the analysis of an employee’s journey as much as 
the other factors.  It is undisputed that Ms. Calvo was given 10 days of advance notice of 
the date scheduled for training.  Moreover, when Ms. Calvo was not able to attend the first 
training, she attended a training session held later that same year. 
As the Majority Opinion explains, and I agree, where “the facts have been 
ascertained and agreed upon by the parties, or are undisputed and there is no dispute as to 
the inferences to be drawn from the facts, the question becomes one of law and may be 
decided by the Court.”  Harrison v. Cent. Constr. Co., 135 Md. 170, 180, 108 A. 878 
(1919).  Where there are facts, or inferences drawn therefrom, that are relevant to the 
regularity, onerousness, or urgency of the journey that are in dispute, the question of 
whether the special mission rule applies is appropriate for the jury.  Cf. Whitehead v. 
Safeway Steel Products, Inc., 304 Md. 67, 75, 497 A.2d 803, 807 (1985) (“[T]he question 
as to whether the injury occurred out of or in the course of employment is ordinarily, like 
negligence or want of probable cause, a mixed question of law and fact[.]” (quoting 
Harrison, 135 Md. at 180, 108 A. at 878)).  Here, there are no facts in dispute, and no 
dispute as to the inference to be drawn from the facts.  The Circuit Court, therefore, 
properly decided the question of law.  See Bogatsky v. Swerdlin, 152 Md. 18, 22, 135 A. 
11 
 
416, 418 (1926) (“[I]f the facts are conceded or undisputed, there is no issue of fact to be 
submitted to the jury[.]”). 
Accordingly, the Circuit Court did not err in granting summary judgment as the 
special mission exception did not apply.  The County was entitled to judgment in its favor 
as a matter of law, as there was no genuine dispute as to any material fact.  Therefore, I 
would affirm the judgment of the Court of Special Appeals.   
Chief Judge Barbera and Judge Getty have authorized me to state that they join in 
this dissenting opinion.