Opinion ID: 2639255
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: facts

Text: The following facts were found by the Commission. Leanne Cheung, an electrical engineer, became employed by Wasatch Electric in July of 1995. She worked as project manager at the Minidoka Dam rehabilitation project near Rupert, Idaho, and resided in Rupert. In April of 1997, the Minidoka project was winding down, and Cheung was assigned new responsibilities at the AMI project in Pocatello, some seventy miles from Rupert. Cheung thereafter worked at both projects as needed during the transition period and traveled between the two project sites in her personal vehicle. As of May 9, 1997, when she first went to work at the AMI site, she was paid in addition to her salary $100 a week for travel time and expenses and was given a company credit card to use to pay for her gas and oil to drive to and from the two job sites. On May 12, 1997, Cheung picked up some fire-alarm equipment at the AMI site and transported it to Minidoka at about 6:00 p.m. While at the Minidoka site, she loaded a wooden stool that the AMI project engineer had requested into her car to transport to Pocatello and then went to her home for the evening. On the next morning, May 13, she drove on Interstate 86 from her home in Rupert toward Pocatello. Along the way, at about 7:30 a.m. Cheung stopped her vehicle on the shoulder, evidently to put on her sunglasses, and her automobile was struck from behind by another vehicle. Cheung's car was demolished and she suffered severe injuries including concussion, fractured vertebrae and a lacerated liver, which precluded her from returning to work until July 28, 1997, part time. She returned to full time work on October 1, 1997. Cheung filed a complaint for worker's compensation benefits on November 7, 1997. After a hearing, the Industrial Commission issued its findings, conclusion and order holding that Cheung was a traveling employee within the exception to the coming and going rule and therefore she was entitled to worker's compensation benefits. The employer and the surety sought reconsideration of the decision. In its decision on reconsideration, the Commission explained that notwithstanding the fact that Cheung was going directly from her home to work in Pocatello on the morning of the accident, she was a traveling employee even though her travel between the two project sites was interrupted by a night's stay at home. The parties entered a stipulation of facts and an agreement to bifurcate the issues. On May 5, 2000, the Commission entered findings, conclusions and an order awarding Cheung twenty-eight percent whole man permanent partial disability. From this final decision, the employer and the surety filed this appeal, seeking reversal of the finding that Cheung was a traveling employee and the conclusion that Cheung's injuries had arisen from and were in the course of her employment.