Title: Matter of Van Matre

State: wyoming

Issuer: Wyoming Supreme Court

Document:

Matter of Van Matre1983 WY 8657 P.2d 815Case Number: 5789Case Number: 5789Decided: 02/02/1983Supreme Court of Wyoming
IN 
THE MATTER OF THE WORKER'S COMPENSATION CLAIM OF DONALD G. VAN MATRE. WESTERN 
POWER SERVICE & CONSTRUCTION, APPELLANT (DEFENDANT),

v.

DONALD G. VAN MATRE, 
APPELLEE (CLAIMANT). No. 5789

Appeal from the District Court,SweetwaterCounty, Kenneth G. Hamm, 
J.

Frederic C. 
Reed, Cheyenne, 
for appellant.

Marvin L. Tyler, 
Bath & Tyler, 
Rock 
Springs, for appellee.

Before ROONEY, C.J.,* and RAPER, THOMAS, ROSE[fn**] and BROWN, JJ.

* Became Chief Justice on 
January 1, 1983.

[fn**] Chief 
Justice at time of oral argument.

BROWN, 
Justice.

[¶1.]     Appellant employer 
Western Power Service and Construction Company, Inc. is appealing from a 
district court order awarding worker's compensation benefits to appellee Donald 
G. Van Matre for an injury which occurred while appellee was driving to work, a 
round trip of approximately 70 miles. Appellant contends that the evidence was 
insufficient to prove that appellee was within the course of his employment. 

[¶2.]     We 
reverse.

[¶3.]     Section 
27-12-102(a)(xii), W.S. 1977, provides:

"`Injury' means any 
harmful change in the human organism other than normal aging * * * arising out 
of and in the course of employment while at work in or about the premises 
occupied, used or controlled by the employer, incurred while at work in places 
where the employer's business requires an employee's presence and which subjects 
the employee to extrahazardous duties incident to the business. * * 
*"

[¶4.]     The rule is that 
ordinarily an employee is not within the course of employment when he is injured 
going to or coming from work. Matter of 
Willey, Wyo., 571 P.2d 248 (1977); and Wyoming State Treasurer ex rel. Workmen's 
Compensation Department v. Boston, Wyo., 445 P.2d 548 (1968). However, when 
an employer supplies transportation or pays to defray travel expenses, the 
coming-and-going rule does not apply and workers injured while traveling 
directly to or from work are considered to be within the course of their 
employment. Matter of Willey, 
supra.

[¶5.]     Appellee urges that an 
exception to the coming-and-going rule applies here, in that the record supports 
a conclusion that a $7.00 a day payment from appellant to its employees showed 
an intention to include travel time as part of the course of 
employment.

[¶6.]     Whether an injury 
arises out of and in the course of employment is a question for the trier of 
fact in a worker's compensation case. The burden is on the worker to prove that 
his injury arose in the course of employment. There must be some substantial 
competent evidence to warrant the trier of fact drawing such an inference. Standard Oil Co. of Indiana v. Sullivan, 
33 Wyo. 223, 
237 P. 253 (1925).

"`* * * Payment of a per 
diem allowance for travel may evidence an intention to include travel time as 
part of the course of employment. [Citations.] However, determining whether the 
per diem was a subsidy for travel or merely a different form of compensation is 
a fact question * * * and the conclusions drawn will not be set aside unless 
there is no reasonable basis for the determination. [Citations.]" Matter of 
Willey, supra, at 251-252.

These cases, 
then, rest on a factual determination as to whether travel expenses were paid as 
a contractual obligation of the employer.

[¶7.]     The evidence in this 
case is not in conflict. The appeal was submitted to this court on a statement 
of evidence agreed to by both parties and approved by the trial court. A summary 
of the pertinent facts set out in the statement of evidence 
follows.

[¶8.]     Appellee, in addition 
to his regular hourly pay, received $7.00 for each day he worked. This pay was 
designated in the master labor contract, which was in effect on the day of his 
injury, as subsistence pay. As initially prepared, the master labor contract had 
provided that there would be no payment by appellant to its employees for 
mileage allowances, travel pay, or subsistence pay. The statement of evidence 
further said that appellant paid its workers on the Jim Bridger Power Plant 
subsistence to allow the workers to maintain a second residence and to offset 
the higher cost of living in SweetwaterCounty. Appellant paid the $7.00 a day to 
appellee because the union insisted that all employees receive subsistence pay 
regardless of where they lived. Only one payment of $7.00 per day was paid, even 
though a worker might be called out to the plant more than once in a 24-hour 
period. The payroll check stubs carried a code explanation that an "S" 
designated subsistence pay and that a "T" designated travel pay. All of 
appellee's payroll checks showed an "S" code; none of them showed a "T" code. 
Appellant did not pay appellee any money designated as travel pay or as mileage 
allowance. Appellant placed no restrictions on the use of any pay received by 
its employees, and any subsistence pay received by the appellant could have been 
used by appellee for his travel expenses, or for anything else. 

[¶9.]     We will reverse a 
factual determination if there is little or no evidence to support the judgment. 
Alco of   Wyoming v. Baker, Wyo., 651 P.2d 266 (1982). This is especially 
true when the evidence is not in conflict.

"We think that the 
nonconflicting evidence here admits of only one conclusion, and a contrary 
conclusion cannot stand. [Citation.] Even if the evidence here did justify 
either of two reasonable inferences, this court will reverse the finding if it 
can say, as a matter of law, that the inference in favor of the party which did 
not have the burden of proof was more, or at least equally, probable. 
[Citation.] * * *" Murphy v. Stevens, 
Wyo., 645 P.2d 82, 93 (1982).

[¶10.]  The claimant in a worker's compensation 
case, appellee here, bore the burden of proof. Alco of Wyoming v. Baker, supra. We find 
the inference here that appellant did not intend to reimburse its employees for 
travel at least equally as probable as the inference that it did. If we were to 
hold otherwise, then any time an employee received subsistence pay, he would be 
entitled to coverage under the worker's compensation laws, regardless of whether 
the employer or the worker intended it to or actually used it to defray travel 
expenses.

[¶11.]  Other cases which have considered factual 
determinations that the employer was helping to defray or to pay for travel 
expenses have had some evidence to show that there was an intent to make an 
employee's travel part of the course of employment. In Cottonwood Steel Corporation v. Hansen, 
655 P.2d 1226 (Wyo. 1982), it was agreed that all of the 
occupants in a vehicle were within the scope of employment because they were 
being paid travel expenses by their employer. The record showed that the driver 
Hansen had five passengers, each of whom paid him $6.00 a day in exchange for a 
ride to and from work. The employer paid a daily vehicle maintenance allowance 
to each of its employees based on distance from the employee's residence from 
the mine.

[¶12.]  In Matter of Willey, supra, there was 
evidence that the employee was told by the union that the extra money was only 
for "`upkeep of the car and for gas, anything your car needed.'" There was also 
evidence that the amount of money paid, $12.00 daily, was based on a mileage 
chart contained in the local union agreement, and that the money was paid where 
the worksite was remote from the union hiring hall. The record also showed that 
substantial travel was necessary regardless of the employee's residence, a fact 
which was not in the record here. Based on those facts, this court held that the 
record was sufficient to reach the conclusion that at least a portion of the 
payment was intended to defray travel expenses.

[¶13.]  In In re Jensen, 63 Wyo. 88, 178 P.2d 897 
(1947), the treasurer of the company testified that the company had decided to 
inaugurate a plan to pay a travel allowance to one man on each crew who provided 
transportation for the crew. The testimony stated that the company would "more 
or less reimburse the employees for the additional expense which they were being 
put to travel to work and having to have their cars repaired from time to time." 
In re Jensen, 178 P.2d  at 898. Based 
on those facts, this court decided that the employer was supplying the workers 
with free transportation to and from their homes. It also decided that both the 
company and the employees contemplated that free carriage to and from their 
homes was to be furnished them. This court therefore reversed a lower court 
finding that the injuries were not compensible.

[¶14.]  There is no evidence here that appellee 
thought the subsistence pay was travel pay, or that he used it for such. There 
is no evidence that he intended that the subsistence pay be used to defray 
travel expenses. There is evidence that appellant intended that the subsistence 
money be used for two purposes, neither of which was to defray travel expenses. 
The statement that appellee could use his pay any way he wanted only implies 
that if appellee did not use the money for subsistence to either help maintain a 
second home or to defray the cost of living in Rock Springs, then he could spend 
it in any way he desired. One cannot reasonably draw the inference from the 
statement of evidence that either party intended the money to be used for travel 
if it was not used for subsistence.

[¶15.]  There was, then, no reasonable basis for 
the conclusion that appellee was entitled to recover. Worker's compensation 
statutes are to be interpreted liberally, but

"`* * * [t]he courts are 
not free under the guise of construction to extend the beneficent purpose of the 
law to injuries that do not reasonably fall within the reach of the language 
used.' * * * [Citation.]" Alco of Wyoming 
v. Baker, supra, at 268.

[¶16.]  Reversed and remanded for entry of an 
order consistent with this opinion.