Illinois Official Reports 

Appellate Court

Pryor v. Illinois Workers’ Compensation Comm’n, 2015 IL App (2d) 130874WC

Appellate Court 

Caption

LANYON PRYOR, Appellant, v. ILLINOIS WORKERS’

COMPENSATION COMMISSION et al. (Cassen Transport, 

Appellee).

District & No. Second District

Docket No. 2-13-0874WC

Filed February 20, 2015

Held

(Note: This syllabus 

constitutes no part of the 

opinion of the court but 

has been prepared by the 

Reporter of Decisions 

for the convenience of 

the reader.)

In proceedings on a claim for the lower back injury a truck hauler 

suffered while loading his personal suitcase into his private car in 

preparation for his drive to his employer’s terminal to pick up his 

car-hauling truck to start delivering cars to various dealerships, the 

arbitrator’s findings that claimant failed to prove that he suffered an 

accident that arose out of and in the course of his employment, that he 

was not acting as a “traveling employee” when he was injured, and 

that his injuries were not causally connected to his employment were 

affirmed by the Workers’ Compensation Commission based on the 

conclusions that the risk resulting in claimant’s injury was a personal 

risk, not a risk peculiar to his work, and that claimant had not started 

his travel for work when he was injured, and the appellate court upheld 

the Commission’s decision on the ground that the finding that 

claimant’s injury did not arise out of or in the course of his injury was 

not against the manifest weight of the evidence.

Decision Under 

Review

Appeal from the Circuit Court of Winnebago County, No. 

12-MR-821; the Hon. J. Edward Prochaska, Judge, presiding.

Judgment Affirmed.
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Counsel on

Appeal

Brad A. Reynolds, of Gesmer Law Offices, P.C., of Rockford, for 

appellant.

Sam J. Cerniglia and Maria Merman, both of Roddy, Leahy, Guill & 

Zima, Ltd., of Chicago, for appellee.

Panel PRESIDING JUSTICE HOLDRIDGE delivered the judgment of the 

court, with opinion.

Justices Hoffman, Hudson, Harris, and Stewart concurred in the 

judgment and opinion.

 OPINION 

¶ 1 The claimant, Lanyon Pryor, filed an application for adjustment of claim under the 

Workers’ Compensation Act (Act) (820 ILCS 305/1 et seq. (West 2008)), seeking benefits 

for an injury to his lower back which he sustained on July 21, 2008, while he was employed 

by Cassen Transport (employer). After conducting a hearing, an arbitrator found that the 

claimant had failed to prove that he sustained an accident that arose out of and in the course 

of his employment. In so ruling, the arbitrator rejected the claimant’s argument that he was 

acting as a “traveling employee” at the time he was injured. The arbitrator also found that the 

claimant failed to prove that the injuries he sustained, if any, were causally connected to his 

employment. 

¶ 2 The claimant appealed the arbitrator’s decision to the Illinois Workers’ Compensation 

Commission (Commission), which unanimously affirmed and adopted the arbitrator’s 

decision. The Commission found that the risk which resulted in the claimant’s alleged injury 

was a personal risk that was “not sufficiently connected to [his] employment in order to be a 

risk peculiar to his work.” Moreover, like the arbitrator, the Commission also found that the 

claimant’s “travel for work had not yet begun when the accident occurred.”

¶ 3 The claimant then sought judicial review of the Commission’s decision in the circuit 

court of Winnebago County, which confirmed the Commission’s decision. This appeal 

followed.

¶ 4 FACTS 

¶ 5 The employer delivers new automobiles to various car dealerships for Chrysler. The 

claimant works for the employer as a car hauler. His responsibilities include loading 

automobiles onto an 18-wheel car-hauling truck at the employer’s terminal in Belvidere, 

Illinois, driving the truck to various dealerships, and unloading the cars at those dealerships. 

Sometimes the claimant picks up vehicles on his return trip, loads them on the truck, and 

delivers them to another location on his way back to Belvidere. The claimant usually drives 

his personal vehicle from his home to the employer’s Belvidere terminal and back. 
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¶ 6 One to two nights per week, the claimant spends the night at a hotel while he is on the 

road delivering cars to dealerships. The employer provides each car hauler with a list of 

motels so he can book an overnight stay at one of those hotels while he is on the road. When 

the claimant anticipates that he will be staying overnight at a hotel, he packs a suitcase with a 

change of clothes. The claimant usually drives to the employer’s terminal in his personal 

vehicle, takes the suitcase out of his vehicle, and puts it into an 18-wheeler. He then loads the 

18-wheeler with cars and drives it to the various dealerships where he delivers the cars. 

¶ 7 On July 21, 2008, the claimant arose at 4 a.m. to get ready for work. He testified that he 

planned to drive to the Belvidere terminal that morning to “start [his] work.” Because he 

anticipated being out of town overnight for work that evening, the claimant packed a suitcase 

with a change of clothes and other items for the trip. The claimant carried the packed suitcase 

to his personal car, opened the car door, reached down to pick up the suitcase, and “bent and 

turned to the back seat of the car.” At that moment, the claimant felt an “unbearable” pain 

through his back and down his legs which caused him to drop to his knees. The claimant 

stated that he had to “crawl into [his] house screaming for [his] wife” because he “thought 

[he] was paralyzed.”

¶ 8 Later that day, the claimant’s wife drove the claimant to his chiropractor, Dr. Irshad 

Kassim. Dr. Kassim’s July 21, 2008, treatment record reflects that the claimant reported 

“severe,” “sharp,” and “burning” pain in his lower back radiating into his right leg. The 

claimant rated the pain as a 10 on a scale of 0 to 10. Dr. Kassim’s treatment record notes that 

“since his last visit, [the claimant’s] lower back pain has been worse.”

1

 The claimant 

reported feeling a sharp burning pain in his lower back “while he was picking up a suitcase to 

go to work.” Dr. Kassim noted that the claimant was “acutely inflamed and needed assistance 

to walk.” The doctor recommended that the claimant go to the emergency room. He also 

noted that the claimant should “continue with the prescribed home care.”

¶ 9 The claimant’s wife then drove him to the emergency room at St. Alexis Hospital. At the 

emergency room, the claimant was given an injection for pain relief and told to follow up 

with his family doctor, Dr. Pocholo Florentino. On July 23, 2008, Dr. Florentino examined 

the claimant and ordered an MRI, which revealed disc bulging at L2-L5. The following day, 

Dr. Florentino reexamined the claimant and prescribed medication and physical therapy. 

During the initial physical therapy session, the therapist instructed the claimant in a home 

exercise program.2

 After performing these exercises at home, the claimant returned to Dr. 

Florentino, who released the claimant for work as of August 18, 2008. The claimant returned 

 

1The claimant had been treating with Dr. Kassim for lower back pain beginning on July 15, 2008. 

The claimant testified that this pain was triggered when he strained his back at work on July 10, 2008, 

while chaining a car onto a car-hauling truck. However, Dr. Kassim’s July 15 and 17 medical records 

do not make any note of a work-related accident, and the claimant did not report a work-related injury 

to the employer until July 25, 2008. The claimant testified that he did not think that the July 10, 2008, 

work injury was serious and he was hoping to resolve it without involving the employer and without 

missing time at work. The claimant’s alleged July 10, 2008, work injury was the subject of a separate 

claim. Although that claim was consolidated with the instant claim, the arbitrator issued a separate 

decision addressing the former claim which is not included in the record. 

2The claimant did not undergo any additional physical therapy sessions because he was denied 

insurance coverage for those sessions. 
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to work on that date. During the arbitration hearing on March 14, 2011, the claimant testified 

that his lower back was “fine.”

¶ 10 The claimant testified that he never had lower back pain before July of 2008. However, 

Dr. Kassim’s June 4, 2005, medical record indicates that, “[o]n this visit, [the claimant] 

stated that he was experiencing constant mild to moderate lower back pain which was sharp 

in quality.” According to Dr. Kassim’s June 4, 2005, medical record, the claimant’s pain was 

radiating into his left leg, and the claimant rated the pain as a 5 on a scale of 0 to 10. Dr. 

Kassim diagnosed the claimant with “lumbar somatic dysfunction” and sciatica and 

prescribed biweekly chiropractic treatments. Dr. Kassim’s June 10, 2005, medical record 

reflects that, although the claimant’s lower back pain was getting better, the claimant was 

still experiencing “constant mild to moderate diffuse lower back pain which was sharp and 

tingling in quality.” Dr. Kassim’s June 24, 2005, medical record notes that the claimant’s 

“lower back pain has remained unchanged.”

¶ 11 The employer presented the evidence deposition of Charles Anderson, the employer’s 

operations manager. Anderson testified that the claimant called in sick on July 14, 15, and 16 

2008, and left a message stating that he was having “sciatic nerve problems due to a 

motorcycle ride.” The claimant testified that he spoke with his employer on July 16, 2008, 

and reported that he had hurt his back while loading cars at work. However, when asked on 

cross-examination “[i]f the note or Mr. Anderson *** would testify that you called him and 

told him you were having sciatic nerve problems due to a motorcycle ride and you need to be 

off a couple days[,] would that be incorrect?” the claimant responded “I am not—I don’t 

recall that. It could be and I don’t remember because we are talking two and a half or three 

years ago.” The claimant admitted that he rode his motorcycle approximately 250 miles to 

Wisconsin and back on July 12, 2008. 

¶ 12 The arbitrator found that the claimant had failed to prove that he sustained an accident 

that arose out of and in the course of his employment on July 21, 2008. The arbitrator 

concluded that the claimant “would be considered a traveling employee from when he arrives 

at [the employer’s] terminal, loads his vehicle, delivers his vehicles to a destination, and 

returns to the terminal.” However, the arbitrator found that “lifting an overnight bag is not 

sufficient to put [the claimant] in the course of his employment.” In support of this finding, 

the arbitrator cited our supreme court’s decision in Orsini v. Industrial Comm’n, 117 Ill. 2d 

38 (1987). Summarizing the supreme court’s holding in Orsini, the arbitrator noted that (1) 

“[f]or an injury to have arisen out of the employment, the risk of injury must be a risk 

peculiar to the work or a risk to which the employee is exposed to a greater degree than the 

general public by reason of his employment”; and (2) “[i]f the injury results from a hazard to 

which the employee would have been equally exposed apart from the employment, then it 

does not arise out of [the employment].”

¶ 13 The arbitrator also found that, “[e]ven arguing that the [claimant’s] activity was ‘arising 

out of’ [his employment], *** the [claimant] failed to prove that the low back condition at 

the time of this alleged injury was causally connected to a lifting incident on July 21, 2008.” 

The arbitrator noted that “the medical records, the [claimant’s] testimony, and the testimony 

of Chuck Anderson persuade the Arbitrator to find that [the claimant’s] low back symptoms 

were causally connected to activities outside of his employment.” Accordingly, in addition to 

his finding that the injuries the claimant suffered on July 21, 2008, did not arise out of and in 

the course of his employment, the arbitrator also specifically found that “the [claimant] failed 
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to prove that the injuries he sustained on July 21, 2008, if any, were causally connected to his 

employment with [the employer].” The arbitrator denied benefits. 

¶ 14 The claimant appealed the arbitrator’s decision to the Commission. The claimant disputed 

both the arbitrator’s finding that he failed to prove an accident arising out of and in the 

course of his employment and the arbitrator’s finding of no causal connection. Regarding the 

accident issue, the claimant argued that he was a “traveling employee” because his job 

required him to travel. Accordingly, he was acting in the course of his employment from the 

moment he left his house, not merely from the time he arrived at the employer’s Belvidere 

terminal. Moreover, the claimant argued that his injury arose out of his employment under a 

traveling employee analysis because it was reasonable and foreseeable that he would load a 

bag into his car in preparation for his upcoming work trip. Regarding the causation issue, the 

claimant argued that: (1) the employer had stipulated that the claimant’s current condition of 

ill-being is causally connected to the injury he suffered on July 21, 2008; and (2) the claimant 

“established his burden of proof regarding causation based upon a chain of events theory.”

¶ 15 The Commission unanimously affirmed and adopted the arbitrator’s decision. The 

Commission expressly noted that it had considered the issues of “accident” and “causal 

connection,” among other issues. Although the Commission did not separately comment on 

the arbitrator’s causation finding, it explained its finding on the accident issue as follows: 

“The Commission separately notes that *** [the claimant] admits that his accident 

occurred when he lifted his personal suitcase into his personal vehicle–[the claimant] 

had not left his home at the time of the accident. The risk of injury in this case was a 

personal risk, and was not sufficiently connected with the employment in order to be 

a risk peculiar to his work. [The claimant’s] travel for work had not yet begun when 

the accident occurred.”

¶ 16 The claimant then sought judicial review of the Commission’s decision in the circuit 

court of Winnebago County. Although the claimant asked the circuit court to reverse the 

Commission’s decision “in its entirety,” his petition for administrative review expressly 

referenced only the Commission’s finding that the accident did not arise out of and in the 

course of his employment. The employer’s response brief in the circuit court addresses that 

issue only and does not ask the court to affirm the Commission’s finding of no causal 

connection. The circuit court affirmed the Commission’s decision. The circuit court’s order 

discusses only the traveling employee issue (i.e., the “arising out of” issue) and does not 

address the causation issue. This appeal followed.

¶ 17 ANALYSIS 

¶ 18 The issue raised by the parties to this appeal is whether the lower back injury that the 

claimant suffered on July 21, 2008, arose out of and in the course of his employment. 

Whether a claimant’s injury arose out of or in the course of his employment is typically a 

question of fact to be resolved by the Commission, and the Commission’s determination will 

not be reversed unless it is against the manifest weight of the evidence. Kertis v. Illinois 

Workers’ Compensation Comm’n, 2013 IL App (2d) 120252WC, ¶ 13; Cox v. Illinois 

Workers’ Compensation Comm’n, 406 Ill. App. 3d 541, 546 (2010). However, when the facts 

are undisputed and susceptible of but a single inference, as in this case, the question is one of 

law subject to de novo review. Kertis, 2013 IL App (2d) 120252WC, ¶ 13; Joiner v. 

Industrial Comm’n, 337 Ill. App. 3d 812, 815 (2003). 
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¶ 19 An employee’s injury is compensable under the Act only if it arises out of and in the 

course of the employment. 820 ILCS 305/2 (West 2008). “ ‘The general rule is that an injury 

incurred by an employee in going to or returning from the place of employment does not 

arise out of or in the course of the employment and, hence, is not compensable.’ ” The 

Venture—Newberg-Perini, Stone & Webster v. Illinois Workers’ Compensation Comm’n, 

2013 IL 115728, ¶ 16 (quoting Commonwealth Edison Co. v. Industrial Comm’n, 86 Ill. 2d 

534, 537 (1981)). The rationale for this rule is that that the employee’s trip to and from work 

is the product of his own decision as to where he wants to live, a matter in which his 

employer ordinarily has no interest. The Venture—Newberg-Perini, Stone & Webster, 2013 

IL 115728, ¶ 16. 

¶ 20 An exception applies, however, when the employee is a “traveling employee.” Id. ¶ 17. A 

“traveling employee” is one whose work duties require him to travel away from his 

employer’s premises. Id.; see also Kertis, 2013 IL App (2d) 120252WC, ¶ 16. Courts 

generally regard traveling employees differently from other employees when considering 

whether an injury arose out of and in the course of employment. The 

Venture—Newberg-Perini, Stone & Webster, 2013 IL 115728, ¶ 17; Hoffman v. Industrial 

Comm’n, 109 Ill. 2d 194, 199 (1985). A traveling employee is deemed to be in the course of 

his employment from the time that he leaves home until he returns. Kertis, 2013 IL App (2d) 

120252WC, ¶ 16; Mlynarczyk v. Illinois Workers’ Compensation Comm’n, 2013 IL App (3d) 

120411WC, ¶ 14; Cox, 406 Ill. App. 3d at 545. An injury sustained by a traveling employee 

arises out of his employment if he was injured while engaging in conduct that was reasonable 

and foreseeable, i.e., conduct that “might normally be anticipated or foreseen by the 

employer.” (Internal quotation marks omitted.) Robinson v. Industrial Comm’n, 96 Ill. 2d 87, 

92 (1983); see also Kertis, 2013 IL App (2d) 120252WC, ¶ 16; Cox, 406 Ill. App. 3d at 

545-46. 

¶ 21 Whether a traveling employee was injured while engaging in conduct that was reasonable 

and foreseeable to his employer is normally a factual question to be resolved by the 

Commission, and where the facts or inferences are in dispute, we should affirm the 

Commission’s determination unless it is against the manifest weight of the evidence. Kertis, 

2013 IL App (2d) 120252WC, ¶ 17. However, where the relevant facts and inferences are 

undisputed, as here, we review this issue de novo. Id.; see generally Joiner, 337 Ill. App. 3d 

at 815. 

¶ 22 In this case, the claimant argues that he is a traveling employee. It is undisputed that his 

job duties required him to travel away from his employer’s premises at the Belvidere 

terminal to deliver cars to various dealerships and that he typically stayed overnight at a 

motel from one to two nights per week while he was traveling for work. What is less clear is 

whether the claimant was traveling for work at the time of his injury. An injury suffered by a 

traveling employee is compensable under the Act if the injury occurs while the employee is 

traveling for work, i.e., during a work-related trip. However, the work-related trip at issue 

must be more than a regular commute from the employee’s home to the employer’s premises. 

Otherwise, every employee who commutes from his home to a fixed workplace owned or 

controlled by his employer on a daily basis would be deemed a “traveling employee,” and the 

exception for traveling employees would swallow the rule barring recovery for injuries 

incurred while traveling to and from work. Thus, the threshold question in this case is: had 
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the claimant embarked on a work-related trip at the time he was injured on July 21, 2008, or 

was he merely beginning his regular commute to his employer’s premises at that time? 

¶ 23 The claimant argues that his work accident occurred in the course of his employment 

because he was injured after he had left his home and begun his work-related trip. In support 

of this argument, the claimant relies principally on our decisions in Mlynarczyk and in 

Complete Vending Services, Inc. v. Industrial Comm’n, 305 Ill. App. 3d 1047 (1999). We 

will address each of these cases in turn. 

¶ 24 In Mlynarczyk, the employer operated a cleaning service. The claimant and her husband 

worked for the employer cleaning churches, homes, and offices in various locations. The 

claimant “did not work at a fixed jobsite.” Mlynarczyk, 2013 IL App (3d) 120411WC, ¶ 16. 

The employer gave the claimant and her husband a minivan to use while driving to various 

jobs and for personal purposes. Id. ¶ 4. On the date of the claimant’s injury, the claimant and 

her husband drove the minivan to clean a church and two homes. After they finished (at 

approximately 2:30 p.m.), the employer told them that, if they were interested in assisting the 

evening crew on another job, they should return to the church at approximately 4:30 p.m. 

Id. ¶ 5. The claimant and her husband returned home and had lunch. Shortly after 4 p.m., the 

claimant left her house to return to work. As she walked around the rear of the minivan, 

which was parked in the driveway of the home where she and her husband resided, the 

claimant slipped and fell, fracturing her wrist. The claimant testified that the accident 

occurred adjacent to the driveway on a “ ‘public sidewalk’ ” leading from the house to the 

driveway. Id. ¶ 6. The employer did not rebut this testimony. We held that the claimant was a 

traveling employee. Id. ¶ 16. Applying the special rules applicable to traveling employees, 

we held that the claimant’s injury occurred in the course of her employment because the 

injury occurred “after she left home, while walking to a vehicle used to transport her to 

work.” Id. ¶ 19. Moreover, we held that the conduct leading to the injury was “reasonable 

and foreseeable” because: (1) the claimant testified that the accident occurred “as she was 

walking to the vehicle used to transport her to a work assignment for [the employer]”; and (2) 

the claimant’s walk to the minivan “constituted the initial part of her journey to her work 

assignment.” Id.

¶ 25 The employer argued that, even if the claimant was a traveling employee, her injury was 

not compensable “because she had not left her private property when the injury occurred and 

therefore had not yet been subjected to the hazards of the street or an automobile.” Id. ¶ 20. 

In rejecting this argument, we held that “the evidence does not support the premise that 

claimant’s fall occurred on private property” because the claimant’s unrebutted testimony 

established that the accident occurred on a “ ‘public sidewalk.’ ” We found this testimony 

sufficient to establish that the accident “exposed [the] claimant to the hazards of the street.” 

Id. Moreover, we noted that the employer had cited no authority in support of its claim that a 

traveling employee who has “left the physical confines of his or her home on the way to a job 

assignment” and sustained an accident on private property cannot be subject to the hazards of 

the street. Id.

¶ 26 In Complete Vending Services, we held that an employee who was injured while driving 

from his home to his employer’s office en route to an off-site service call was a traveling 

employee whose injury arose out of and in the course of his employment. Complete Vending 

Services, 305 Ill. App. 3d at 1050. The claimant worked for the employer as a service 

technician. He was on call 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, 365 days a year to repair the 
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employer’s vending machines in his designated service area. Id. at 1048. When he was not 

out on service calls, his duties included repairing vending machines and rebuilding 

equipment in one of the employer’s shops. Id. The claimant drove a company vehicle to and 

from work and for all service calls. The employer paid for gas and the claimant was not 

allowed to use the vehicle for any personal uses. Id. The night before the accident, the 

employer’s answering service contacted the claimant and informed him that Central Du Page 

Hospital needed a machine fixed. Id. The next morning, the claimant left home in the 

company vehicle. His intention was to “stop in at the [employer’s] office on the way to Du 

Page Hospital to tell [the employer] where he was going and to see if any other service calls 

had come in that he could make while [he was] out.” Id. at 1048-49. The office was directly 

on the route to the hospital. On the way to the office, the claimant rear-ended a garbage truck 

and suffered injuries. 

¶ 27 We held that the Commission’s finding that the claimant’s injuries arose out of and in the 

course of his employment was not against the manifest weight of the evidence for two 

separate and independent reasons: (1) the claimant was a traveling employee who was 

injured after he left his home “with the intention of making the service call” even though he 

had decided to “stop in” at the office first, which was on the way to the service call, for the 

employer’s benefit; and (2) the employer provided the claimant with a means of 

transportation to or from work for the employer’s own benefit. Id. at 1049-50. In so holding, 

we rejected the dissenting commissioner’s opinion that the claimant was not a traveling 

employee at the time of the accident because the claimant’s commute to the office the 

morning of the accident was “no different from any other employee’s commute to work or, 

for that matter, the claimant’s regular commute to work” and the claimant therefore 

“encountered *** risks which were no greater than those encountered by the general public 

each day traveling to and from work.” Id. at 1050-51. 

¶ 28 The claimant argues that Mlynarczyk and Complete Vending Services support his claim in 

this case. He contends that, like the claimant in Mlynarczyk, he had left his home and was 

injured while approaching the vehicle that he would use to drive to work. Moreover, like the 

claimant in Complete Vending Services, the claimant planned to stop at the employer’s 

premises (the Belvidere terminal) en route to a job at a different location. In essence, the 

claimant argues that, like the injuries at issue in Mlynarczyk and Complete Vending Services, 

his injury occurred during the first leg of a continuous work trip to a distant job location 

away from the employer’s premises. Moreover, because he was a traveling employee, the 

claimant argues that he was acting in the course of his employment from the time he left his 

home until the time he returned home, regardless of whether he stopped at the employer’s 

premises in the interim. He notes, correctly, that the fact that he was injured while loading his 

personal car, rather than a company car, is irrelevant to the traveling employee analysis.3

 

3

The fact that an employer provides an employee with a company car demonstrates that the 

employer “provide[d] [the claimant with] a means of transportation to or from work for the employer’s 

own benefit.” Complete Vending Services, 305 Ill. App. 3d at 1049. That constitutes a separate 

exception to the general rule that an accident occurring while an employee is traveling to or from work 

does not arise out of or in the course of his employment. Id. By contrast, the “traveling employee”

exception is predicated on entirely different facts, namely, facts demonstrating that the employee’s job 

duties required him to travel away from the employer’s premises. See, e.g., The 

Venture—Newberg-Perini, Stone & Webster, 2013 IL 115728, ¶ 16.
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Thus, the claimant argues that the Commission erred as a matter of law in finding that his 

injury did not occur in the course of his employment. 

¶ 29 We disagree. Even assuming that the claimant had “left home” at the time of his injury, 

(which is not entirely clear), he was preparing to begin his regular commute to his 

employer’s premises at that time. Unlike the claimants in Mlynarczyk and Complete Vending 

Services, the claimant in this case did not drive to his various work locations directly from 

his home; rather, he was required to drive to the employer’s Belvidere facility first, load an 

18-wheeler truck with cars located at the employer’s facility, and then drive the truck to 

various dealerships from there. Thus, when he drove to the Belvidere terminal, he was not 

making a brief and unnecessary stop at his employer’s premises that was directly en route to 

his ultimate work destination (as was the claimant in Complete Vending Services). Rather, he 

was making a regular commute to a fixed jobsite as a necessary precondition to any 

subsequent work-related travel. This fact also distinguishes the claimant in this case from the 

claimant in Mlynarczyk, who had “no fixed job site” and who traveled directly from her 

home to the various homes and churches that she cleaned. Unlike the claimants in 

Mlynarczyk and Complete Vending Services, the claimant’s trip to the Belvidere facility was 

not part of a continuous trip from his home to a jobsite away from the employer’s premises.4

Nor was the claimant injured during a trip from his employer’s premises to a distant work 

location (as in Kertis and other cases) or during a trip from a remote jobsite to his home (as 

in Cox). Rather, the claimant was injured during a regular commute from his home to his 

employer’s premises, before he embarked upon a work trip away from his employer’s 

premises. Thus, the Commission’s finding that the claimant’s injury did not arise out of or in 

the course of his employment was not against the manifest weight of the evidence. 

¶ 30 Because we uphold the Commission’s decision on this basis, we do not need to address 

whether the action the claimant was performing while he was injured was reasonable and 

foreseeable to the employer or whether the Commission erred in finding that the claimant 

failed to prove causation. 

¶ 31 CONCLUSION 

¶ 32 For the foregoing reasons, we affirm the judgment of the circuit court of Winnebago 

County, which confirmed the Commission’s decision. 

¶ 33 Affirmed. 

 

4Moreover, Mlynarczyk is distinguishable for the additional reason that the injury in Mlynarczyk

occurred on a “ ‘public sidewalk’ ” in front of the claimant’s house, thereby exposing the claimant to 

the “hazards of the street.” Mlynarczyk, 2013 IL App (3d) 120411WC, ¶ 20. Further, we note that our 

holding in Mlynarczyk was based on a unique set of facts that is unlikely to recur.