Title: Mulready v. University Research

State: maryland

Issuer: Maryland Supreme Court

Document:

Patricia Mulready v. University Research Corporation et al., No. 133, September Term, 1999.
[Workers' Compensation - Claimant traveling on employer's business and at latter's expense
injured by fall in bathtub in room at conference hotel while preparing to attend business
meeting.  Held:  Injury compensable.  Traveling employee doctrine applied.  Klein v. Terra
Chemicals International, Inc., 14 Md. App. 172, disapproved.]
Circuit Court for Montgomery County
Case No. 186313 - Civil
IN THE COURT OF APPEALS OF MARYLAND
No. 133
September Term, 1999
_________________________________________
PATRICIA MULREADY
v.
UNIVERSITY RESEARCH CORPORATION
et al.
_________________________________________
Bell, C.J.
Eldridge
Rodowsky
Raker
Wilner
Cathell
Harrell, 
JJ. 
_________________________________________
Opinion by Rodowsky, J.
________________________________________
Filed:   July 26, 2000
Unless otherwise noted, all statutory references are to Maryland Code (1991, 1999
1
Repl. Vol.), Title 9 of the Labor and Employment Article.
While attending a seminar in Canada on behalf of her employer, the petitioner, Patricia
Mulready (Mulready), was injured when she  slipped in her hotel bathtub.  This case presents
the issue of whether her injury is compensable under the Workers' Compensation Act (the
Act), Maryland Code (1991, 1999 Repl. Vol.), Title 9 of the Labor and Employment Article.1
We shall hold that the injury is compensable, as explained below.  
The Workers' Compensation Commission (the Commission) determined that Mulready
sustained a compensable injury.  The employer, University Research Corporation, and insurer,
Hartford Underwriters Insurance Company (collectively "Employer"), sought review by the
Circuit Court for Montgomery County where both sides moved for summary judgment.  In its
cross-motion, the Employer stipulated to the facts set forth by Mulready in her motion.  They
are:  
"On May 31, 1995, while on a seminar in Canada with the Employer, the
Claimant, Patricia Mulready, slipped in a bathtub at a hotel.
"Ms. Mulready was a dissemination coordinator and worked long hours
at the seminar in her position.  The hotel was paid for by the Employer, selected
by the Employer, and she was told to be at that particular hotel.  On May 31,
1995, there was a meeting at ten o'clock a.m. to be attended by many people in
close quarters in a conference room.  She was to take an active part in that
meeting.  She got up early, and was working on her preparation for the meeting.
"At about nine o'clock a.m., she went to take a shower in order to be
presentable, and she slipped in the bathtub.  At her home, there was a bath mat
to prevent slippage, soap dish and ceramic in the wall, and a towel rack also
ceramic in the wall.  These are the things she could have grabbed on to.  The
Canadian bathtub was very slippery and did not have any of these items on the
wall, nor did it have a bath mat or the sandy strips that are found in other bathtubs
to prevent slippage." 
- 2 -
The circuit court granted the Employer's motion and reversed the award.  
Mulready appealed to the Court of Special Appeals which affirmed the circuit court's
judgment.  Mulready v. University Research Corp., 128 Md. App. 392, 738 A.2d 331 (1999).
Relying on Klein v. Terra Chemicals International, Inc., 14 Md. App. 172, 286 A.2d 568,
cert. denied, 265 Md. 740 (1972), described infra, the court held that the requisite "'causal
connection between the conditions under which the work is required to be performed and the
ensuing injury'" was lacking because "there was no unusual or extraordinary condition of
[Mulready's] employment that caused her to bathe or to expose herself to the hazards of
bathing differently than most people concerned about their appearance and hygiene."
Mulready, 128 Md. App. at 396, 397, 738 A.2d at 333, 334 (quoting Klein, 14 Md. App. at
176, 286 A.2d at 570).
This Court issued a writ of certiorari.  Mulready v. University Research Corp., 357
Md. 233, 743 A.2d 245 (2000).  The parties agree that Mulready was acting in the course of
her employment at the time of injury.  The issue before us is whether the injury was one "that
arises out of" her employment.  § 9-101(b)(1).  Thus, the employer disagrees with the rule
stated in 2 A. Larson & L.K. Larson, Larson's Workers' Compensation Law § 25.01, at 1-2
(2000) (Larson's), which reads:
"Employees whose work entails travel away from the employer's
premises are held in the majority of jurisdictions to be within the course of their
employment continuously during the trip, except when a distinct departure on
a personal errand is shown.  Thus, injuries arising out of the necessity of
sleeping in hotels or eating in restaurants away from home are usually held
compensable."
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(Footnote omitted).
An early attempt in Maryland to flesh out the "arising out of" concept is found in
Weston-Dodson Co. v. Carl, 156 Md. 535, 144 A. 708 (1929).  There the claimant, a
salesman, after meeting in his home with his employer's credit manager, was struck by a car
in the street outside of the home while the claimant was walking with the credit manager to the
latter's car.  This Court held that the issue of accidental injury presented a question of fact and,
accordingly, affirmed a judgment entered on a jury verdict in favor of the claimant. 
The Court in Weston-Dodson found that courts generally had accepted the language of
a Massachusetts case, reading in part:
"'[A]n injury ... "arises out of" the employment when there is apparent to the
rational mind, upon consideration of all the circumstances, a causal connection
between the conditions under which the work is required to be performed and
the resulting injury.  Under this test, if the injury can be seen to have followed
as a natural incident of the work and to have been contemplated by a reasonable
person familiar with the whole situation as a result of the exposure occasioned
by the employment, then it arises "out of" the employment.  But it excludes an
injury which cannot fairly be traced to the employment as a contributing
proximate cause, and which comes from a hazard to which the workman would
have been equally exposed apart from the employment.'"
Id. at 538, 144 A. at 709 (quoting In re Employers' Liab. Assurance Corp., 102 N.E. 697
(Mass. 1913) (McNicol's Case)). 
Weston-Dodson was decided at a time when the Act specifically listed so-called extra
hazardous employments, and salesmen had been added to that list.  A motion for
reconsideration was filed by the employer in Weston-Dodson pointing out that the employer
had requested an instruction that the verdict must be for the employer "if it should be found that
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[the claimant's] injury came from a danger which was not peculiar to his work, but common to
all persons who might have occasion to use the roads ...."  Id. at 541, 144 A. at 710.  In
response to that motion the Court said that, since the claimant was acting in the course of his
employment and was injured in an ordinary street accident, the injury was compensable
because the amendment adding salesmen to the Act "necessarily included, within the risks
covered, dangers of traffic accidents which might equally be incurred by others on the roads,
without relation to their employment."  Id.  
An "arising out of" issue was also presented in Knoche v. Cox, 282 Md. 447, 385 A.2d
1179 (1978), where the Court held, as a matter of law, that a dental hygienist's fatal injury
arose out of her employment.  She had been killed when the dentist for whom she worked
accidentally fired a gun that he had been showing to a patient.  The bullet passed through a wall
and struck the hygienist as she was cleaning up dental powder spilled on the floor.  Id. at 449,
385 A.2d at 1180.  Surveying Maryland cases on the meaning of "arising out of," the Court
explained that 
"'it is not necessary that there should exist a direct, active, or physical
connection between the act causing the accident and the employment, but it is
sufficient if the accident ... arises directly out of circumstances which the
servant had to encounter because of his special exposure to the risks that,
although external, were incidental to his employment.'"
Id. at 456, 385 A.2d at 1183 (quoting Boteler v. Gardiner-Buick Co., 164 Md. 478, 482, 165
A. 611, 613 (1933)).  Answers to the questions "[w]hy [the dentist] had the pistol in his office,
why he was handling it at that particular time, the knowledge or lack of knowledge of [the
hygienist] of the pistol's presence in the office, [and the dentist's] admitted negligence in its
- 5 -
discharge" were immaterial.  Id. at 456-57, 385 A.2d at 1184.  Instead, the relevant facts were
that the hygienist "had not stepped aside from her employment; she was not guilty of any
deviation from her duties; she was exposed to the injury she suffered by reason of her
employment."  Id. at 457, 385 A.2d at 1184.
Thus, Knoche indicates that the term "arises out of" requires, not that the performance
of an employment-related task be the direct or physical cause of the injury, but, more broadly,
that the injury be incidental to the employment, such that it was by reason of the employment
that the employee was exposed to the risk resulting in the injury.  See also Sica v. Retail
Credit Co., 245 Md. 606, 227 A.2d 33 (1967) (injuries sustained by diving into shallow water
during an employer-sponsored outing held compensable).  
As noted, the Court of Special Appeals in the instant case relied on Klein, 14 Md. App.
172, 286 A.2d 568, in affirming summary judgment in favor of the Employer.  In this Court,
the Employer likewise bottoms its argument on Klein.  Mulready, on the other hand, looks to
out-of-state cases holding that injuries suffered by employees in hotels while traveling on
business are compensable.
The employee in Klein worked as a consultant for a chemical company.  His job
included attending, at the employer's expense, conferences and conventions in order to develop
business.  One evening during a conference Klein was dining in a public restaurant with
representatives of two potential customers.  Klein choked on his food, suffered cardio-
respiratory arrest, and died.  The workers' compensation claim came to the Court of Special
- 6 -
Appeals on an appeal from a judgment, rendered as a matter of law by a circuit court, which
reversed a Commission award.  Klein affirmed that reversal.
The Court of Special Appeals held that the injury lacked the requisite causal connection
to Klein's employment.  This was because the "risk he encountered in the public restaurant of
choking on a piece of meat was no greater or different in degree because of his employment
than the risk experienced by all persons engaged in the process of eating a meal, whether in a
restaurant or at home," despite the fact that "his employment necessitated his eating in a public
restaurant."  Id. at 176-77, 286 A.2d at 570-71.  The court rejected the argument that, because
traveling "create[s] ... the necessity of eating in public restaurants," Klein's injury was
compensable.  Id. at 177, 286 A.2d at 571.  The court reasoned that:
"To accept such generalizations would be to ignore the clear and meaningful
distinction between the essential factors of 'arising out of' and 'in the course of'
employment, and to accord traveling employees more favorable treatment than
other employees.  More than that, it would do violence to the general
proposition that workmen, like other members of the general public, are not
insured against the common perils of life."
Id. at 177-78, 286 A.2d at 571.
On this basis, the Klein court rejected a test used in other jurisdictions and proposed
by the employee according to which "an injury is compensable if it would not have happened
but for the fact that the conditions or obligations of the employment placed the workman in
the position where he was injured."  Id. at 179, 286 A.2d at 572.  According to the Klein court,
this rejected test encompassed only the requirement that an injury occur in the course of
employment, whereas exposure to some risk that is not "common to the public" is necessary
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to satisfy the requirement that the injury arise out of employment.  Id.  Finally, the court
rejected the applicability of cases such as Weston-Dodson, 156 Md. 535, 144 A. 708, in which
injuries suffered by salesmen in car accidents were held to arise out of their employment.  The
Klein court believed the rationale of such cases to be that these employees "are overexposed
or exposed to a peculiar and abnormal degree to traffic hazards distinct from and beyond that
to which the general public is exposed."  Klein, 14 Md. App. at 178, 286 A.2d at 571.
Applying Klein to the instant case, the Court of Special Appeals likewise determined
that "there was no unusual or extraordinary condition of [Mulready's] employment that caused
her to bathe or to expose herself to the hazards of bathing differently than most people
concerned about their appearance and hygiene."  Mulready, 128 Md. App. at 397, 738 A.2d at
334.  The court likewise rejected out-of-state cases cited by Mulready and holding that bathtub
injuries suffered by traveling employees arise out of employment, on the ground that 
"[t]he courts in those decisions, in essence, treated the concept of 'arising out
of' essentially the same as the concept of 'in the course of.'  The courts required
only that, in the course of work, the claimant was brought within range of the
particular peril.  As discussed in Klein, in our view, that is not the law of
Maryland."
Id. at 398, 738 A.2d at 334.
Klein is contrary to the majority, "traveling employee" rule.  See Larson's § 25.01,
quoted supra.  Larson's adds, however, that "[t]he greatest difficulty arises when the question
is whether a traveling employee should receive compensation for injuries due to slipping in
the bathtub in a hotel, cutting oneself with a razor, or being hurt while getting a haircut or
calling for one's laundry."  Id. § 25.04, at 6.  In our view the difficulty arises because there are,
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The dissent argued that the majority holding struck the term "out of" from Indiana's
2
compensation statute by eliminating the causation requirement.  Olinger Constr. Co., 427
N.E.2d at 918 (Sullivan, J., dissenting).  This argument is essentially similar to the Klein
court's rejection of the positional-risk theory.
For other cases holding that injuries suffered by traveling employees at the hands of
3
third parties are compensable, see Arkansas Dep't of Health v. Huntley, 675 S.W.2d 845, 849
(Ark. Ct. App. 1984) (affirming award to employee attacked while returning from motel bar
(continued...)
in general, two tests for determining "arising out of" causation.  We shall refer to them by the
terminology used in Olinger Construction Co. v. Mosbey, 427 N.E.2d 910 (Ind. Ct. App.
1981), namely, the positional-risk test and the increased risk test.  
The increased risk test requires that "the employee be exposed to a quantitatively
greater degree of risk than the general public."  Id. at 913.  Under the positional-risk test, "an
injury arises out of employment if it would not have occurred if the employee's job had not
required him to be in the place where he was injured."  Id.  In Olinger Construction Co., an
employee of a construction company was staying in a motel adjacent to the job site which was
some 150 miles from the employee's home.  The employee was stabbed to death in his motel
room by a former co-worker who had been fired four days before.  The Indiana court noted that
previous decisions in that state had adopted the positional-risk test, although not explicitly
under that name, such that "the rule in Indiana [is] that an accident which befalls a traveling
employee arises out of the employment if the employee is at the place where the accident
occurs because of his employment."  Id. at 914.  On the basis that Mosbey was a traveling
employee who was required to stay in a motel and that he was there in order to discharge his
duties, the court, over a dissent,  affirmed the award of compensation.
2
3
- 9 -
(...continued)
3
to her room on basis of "traveling employee doctrine" because her activities that evening "were
a natural and probable consequence or incident of her employment," and thus satisfied the
"arising out of" requirement); Upchurch v. Industrial Comm'n, 703 P.2d 628, 630 (Colo. Ct.
App. 1985) (holding that truck driver's gunshot wound, received when he became lost during
a delivery and asked for directions, was compensable under the principle that "an employee
who is away from home on a business trip for his employer is under continuous workmen's
compensation coverage" unless departing on a personal errand); Hobgood v. Anchor Motor
Freight, 316 S.E.2d 86, 87 (N.C. Ct. App. 1984) (holding that truck driver's injury suffered
during robbery attempt while "in the employer's truck at the point of delivery, whether he was
logged on- or off-duty" arose out of and in the course of employment); Slaughter v. State
Accident Ins. Fund Corp., 654 P.2d 1123, 1126 (Or. Ct. App. 1982) (holding that truck driver's
injuries suffered in unprovoked bar fight during a forced lay over were compensable under the
"general rule of continuous coverage," i.e., that "injuries are compensable when resulting from
activities reasonably related to the claimant's travel status").
In Wiseman v. Industrial Accident Commission, 297 P.2d 649 (Cal. 1956) (in bank),
the employee was a bank vice president who traveled to New York on business at the bank's
expense.  The employee and a "woman, not his wife but registered as such" died in a fire caused
by careless smoking on the part of one or both of the room's occupants; there also was
evidence that the two had been drinking.  Id. at 650.  The employee's survivors sought workers'
compensation benefits under a statute requiring an injury that "arose out of and was
proximately caused by the employment."  Id. at 651. 
The court, speaking through Justice Traynor, concluded that the fatal injury arose out
of the employment because:  (1) injuries caused by careless smoking are not so remotely
connected with the employment as not to be an incident of it; (2) the "fact that the employee
had a guest in his room while he was off duty in no way detracted from the fact that he was also
there on his employer's business"; (3) traveling employees may entertain guests who smoke
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in their room; (4) "the risk that such a guest may start a fire and injure the employee is just as
much a risk of the employee's presence in the room on his employer's business as the risk that
he will himself start a fire by his own careless smoking"; (5) the employee's "immoral and
unlawful" purpose in entertaining the particular guest "was so unrelated and collateral to the
risk of fire that caused his death that it did not destroy the necessary causal connection
between the employment and the death."  Id.  In this regard the court noted that the connection
between employment and injury "need not be the sole cause" as long as it is "a contributory
cause" of the injury.  Id.  This test for satisfying the arising out of requirement--that a traveling
employee's injury be "incidental" to his employment and that the employment be a "contributing
cause" to the injury--amounts to the positional-risk test.
In each of the cases cited and described below workers' compensation was awarded to
or on behalf of an employee who was traveling on the employer's business.  In each case the
award was made under a statute which required that the injury arise out of the employment in
order to be compensable.  In each case the employee was not actively engaged in the
employer's business at the time of injury, but 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.  See Peterson v. Industrial Comm'n, 490 P.2d 870 (Ariz. Ct. App. 1971)
(employee suffocated in his sleep when head caught between the slats of rooming house bed);
American Airlines v. LeFevers, 674 So. 2d 940 (Fla. Dist. Ct. App. 1996) (flight attendant, on
layover, injured when diving into hotel swimming pool); Brown v. Palmer Constr. Co., 295
A.2d 263 (Me. 1972) (injury caused by gas stove explosion in rental apartment near work-site
- 11 -
while employee preparing a meal during off hours); Souza's Case, 55 N.E.2d 611 (Mass.
1944) (employee killed in hotel fire during night); Employers' Liab. Assurance Corp. v.
Warren, 112 S.W.2d 837 (Tenn. 1938) (employee fatally injured during early evening when
he tripped and fell from hotel porch); Southern Motor Lines Co. v. Alvis, 104 S.E.2d 735 (Va.
1958) (employee killed in fall from hotel window during nighttime).  
Recent cases that have considered injuries resulting from falls in hotel bathtubs or
showers have found compensability by applying the general rule that an employee is covered
by workers' compensation while traveling.  The history of these kinds of cases in New York
is illustrative.  In Davidson v. Pansy Waist Co., 148 N.E. 715 (N.Y. 1925) (per curiam), the
New York Court of Appeals denied compensation for injuries incurred in such an accident,
basically applying the increased risk test.  Then, in Miller v. F.A. Bartlett Tree Expert Co., 148
N.E.2d 296 (N.Y. 1958), the court approved the award of compensation in such a case.
Nevertheless, in Friedwald v. New York State Insurance Department, 230 N.Y.S.2d 48 (App.
Div. 1962), an intermediate appellate court denied compensation, reasoning that taking a
shower was a purely personal act.  Most recently, the Court of Appeals, in Capizzi v. Southern
District Reporters, Inc., 61 N.Y.2d 50, 459 N.E.2d 847 (N.Y. 1984), resolved the matter.
In Capizzi the claimant was a transcriber-typist who had been sent by a New York City
court reporting firm to work in Toronto during the taking of depositions there.  On the morning
following the suspension of the depositions, and in preparation for returning to New York, the
claimant stepped into the hotel bathtub, slipped, and was injured.  The New York Court of
Appeals reversed the Appellate Division which had upset a compensation award.  The reasoning
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of the Court of Appeals, although couched in terminology sounding like an increased risk test,
essentially applies the positional-risk test as demonstrated by the following passages from the
court's opinion:
"Traditionally, injuries sustained by an employee while traveling in the
business of his employer were compensable if they occurred while the
employee was actually acting in furtherance of his employer's business.  This
theory of compensability has been expanded in recognition of the fact that a
change in environment creates a greater risk of injury to the employee so that
injuries to a traveling employee may be compensable even if the employee at the
time of the accident was not engaged in the duties of his employment."
459 N.E.2d at 848 (citations omitted).
The court referred to a number of cases decided in the Appellate Division, including
Friedwald, supra, saying:
 
"In the past this principle has not been applied as liberally to cases where
traveling employees sustain injuries while dressing or bathing in preparation for
work.  The courts have viewed the injuries resulting from such activities as
noncompensable, characterizing them as purely personal acts."
Capizzi, 459 N.E.2d at 849. 
Rejecting the "purely personal acts" rationale, the court held as follows:
"Given the expanded theory of compensability with respect to injuries
sustained by traveling employees involving incidents other than dressing or
bathing, it is difficult to reconcile a compensation award to an employee who,
when returning to her hotel after dinner, slipped and fell on a sidewalk with the
denial of an award to claimant in the present matter, who slipped and fell in a
hotel bathtub in preparation for her return to her place of employment in New
York City.  Both employees sent by their employers on a business trip were
removed from their normal environments, thereby increasing the risk of injury;
and, as a result, were injured while engaged in 'personal acts' attendant to their
employment, although not participating in the actual duties of their employment.
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"Moreover, it is difficult to reconcile these cases denying compensation
with those in which awards have been made to employees who are injured while
dressing or bathing on their employer's premises, an environment with which
they are presumably familiar, and as a result less likely to be injured."
Id. (citation omitted).
Thus, inasmuch as the increased risk perceived by the New York court is an attribute of
the unfamiliar surroundings in which traveling employees find themselves, seemingly in all
bathtub cases that increased risk will produce the same result, namely, compensability, as the
positional-risk test.
Also finding compensability is Amalgamated Association of Street, Electric Railway
& Motor Coach Employees of America v. Adler, 340 F.2d 799 (D.C. Cir. 1964).  In the
District of Columbia, prior to 1982, claims made by private sector employees for workers'
compensation were governed by the Longshore and Harbor Workers' Compensation Act.
Evans Fin. Corp. v. Director, Office of Workers' Compensation Programs, 161 F.3d 30, 32
& n.1 (D.C. Cir. 1998).  That federal statute defines "injury" as an "accidental injury or death
arising out of and in the course of employment."  33 U.S.C. § 902(2).  The claimant in Adler
was a delegate to a union convention in Toronto whose expenses were paid by the union.  The
injury occurred when the claimant slipped in the bathtub in his room at the convention
headquarters hotel, as he was preparing to attend the convention banquet.  Holding that the
injury was one arising out of the employment, the court affirmed an award of compensation.
The court reasoned that the claimant was "injured while in furtherance of the purpose for which
he had been sent" and that bathing was "an activity reasonably related to and properly to have
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First, the Breland court relied on Davidson, 148 N.E. 715, discussed in the text,
4
supra.  As noted, that case was overruled by Capizzi, 459 N.E.2d 847.  Second, Breland relied
on Gibbs Steel Co. v. Industrial Commission, 10 N.W.2d 130 (Wis. 1943), which later was
abrogated by statute.  See Wis. Stat. Ann. § 102.03(1)(f) (West 1997); Wisconsin Elec. Power
Co. v. Labor & Indus. Review Comm'n, 595 N.W.2d 23, 27 (Wis. 1999) (noting the
(continued...)
been anticipated as an ordinary incident of the mission."  Adler, 340 F.2d at 800.  Then, flatly
rejecting what we are calling the increased risk test, the court said:  "Nor is the test of recovery
to be found in 'a causal relation between the nature of [the] employment of the injured person
and the accident.'"  Id. at 801 (quoting O'Leary v. Brown-Pac.-Maxon, Inc., 340 U.S. 504, 507,
71 S. Ct. 470, 472, 95 L. Ed. 483, 486 (1951)).
The Pennsylvania workers' compensation statute requires that an injury be one "arising
in the course of [a worker's] employment and related thereto."  Purdon's Pa. Stat. Ann. tit. 77,
§ 411 (West 1992).  In Lenzner Coach Lines v. Workmen's Compensation Appeal Board,
632 A.2d 947 (Pa. Cmwlth. 1993), the claimant, a charter bus driver, was on standby status
during a one day layover on a trip to Atlantic City.  He slipped while stepping into a hotel
bathtub and was injured.  The court concluded that there was substantial evidence to support the
agency's findings "that Claimant's actions at the time of his injuries furthered the business of
Employer and that he occupied himself consistently with his terms of employment in a manner
reasonably incidental thereto."  Id. at 950.
The personal act basis for rejecting compensability was relied upon in Breland &
Whitten v. Breland, 139 So. 2d 365 (Miss. 1962), where the claimant, a traveling employee,
fell while taking a shower.  This decision relied on two cases that now lack precedential value.4
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(...continued)
4
abrogation).
Relief was also denied in Harrison v. Lustra Corp. of America, 372 P.2d 397 (Idaho 1962),
where the claimant was similarly injured.  That case, however, is distinguishable from the case
before us in that Harrison apparently traveled generally, without a fixed base of operations, had
not been directed by the employer to be at the place where the accident occurred, and paid his
own expenses.  
In light of the foregoing review, we are not persuaded to distinguish the bathroom fall
and the eating cases from cases in which the injury occurs while the traveling employee is
engaged in other ordinary activity, such as sleeping, walking, and opening a window.  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
activities are compensable.  Reverting to the terminology that we have used to describe the
cases reviewed above, the rule which we adopt is substantially the positional-risk test, as
opposed to the increased risk test. 
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In view of the foregoing, the judgment of the Court of Special Appeals is reversed, and
Klein v. Terra Chemicals International, Inc., 14 Md. App. 172, 286 A.2d 568, is disapproved.
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
TO REMAND THIS CASE TO THE CIRCUIT
COURT FOR MONTGOMERY COUNTY WITH
INSTRUCTIONS TO ENTER JUDGMENT IN
FAVOR OF THE PETITIONER, PATRICIA
MULREADY.
COSTS IN THIS COURT AND IN THE COURT OF
SPECIAL APPEALS TO BE PAID BY THE
RESPONDENTS, UNIVERSITY RESEARCH
CORPORATION 
AND 
HARTFORD
UNDERWRITERS INSURANCE COMPANY.