Opinion ID: 1752811
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 4

Heading: the employment nexus may be broken

Text: In reversing the original WCAB ruling denying benefits, the Court of Appeals held: [U]nder the circumstances of this case the nature of the deviation has no relevant connection with decedent's untimely demise. Whether decedent spent eight hours, from the end of the seminar until resuming his trip home, in pursuit of `Bacchanalian pleasures', or instead spent those hours engaged in more laudable conduct, such as by improving his mind in the public library or redeeming his soul at a religious institution of his choice, has no relationship to the circumstances or cause of his death. Our decision might, of necessity, be different if decedent died as a result of drunk driving, for then his arguably wrongful conduct, becoming drunk in the service of his employer, would be the proximate cause of his death and it is well established that under such circumstances compensation may be denied. Crilly v Ballou, 353 Mich 303, 327; 91 NW2d 493 (1958). Nor do we find the mere passage of time controlling or even particularly relevant. Except in unusual circumstances not here present, the timing of the trip bears no relationship to its hazards, and it is the general hazards which allow liability for injury to be imposed on the employer in the first place. Stark v L E Myers Co, 58 Mich App 439, 443; 228 NW2d 411 (1975), lv den 394 Mich 814. Under the rule of Stark, supra, because decedent was engaged in a trip of special benefit to his employer, it is his employer who must bear the risk for one complete round trip. Deviations from the business route may or may not be covered, a question we do not here decide, but upon resumption of the trip out or the return trip the employer's liability recommences. (Emphasis added.) 79 Mich App 53. We agree that the character of the deviation, except in its relation to business or to the increase in risk of injury, is immaterial. [7] However, to the extent that the deviation either increased the exposure or the likelihood of injury to the worker or departed from the nature of the employment, the nature and length of the deviation is relevant. The Court of Appeals appears to be relying on a strict and rigid rule: because decedent was engaged in a trip of special benefit to his employer, it is his employer who must bear the risk for one complete round trip.    [U]pon resumption of the    return trip the employer's liability recommences. Id. The length and nature of the deviation is immaterial, the Court of Appeals stated, so long as the employee has returned to the path leading to the original destination. If claimant has ended his deviation and is subsequently injured, that Court would ipso facto hold the employer liable. This Court rejected such a rigid analysis in Thomas v Certified Refrigeration, Inc, supra, 392 Mich 633, fn 4, where we noted: [T]his Court will not follow the path taken by some courts in other jurisdictions which have granted or denied compensation based on rigid rules such as whether the personal mission was completed and the employee was returning to the business route. While the example given to illustrate this principle was a situation where this Court affirmed compensation for a delivery boy even though he was injured while on an insubstantial detour, Beaudry v Watkins, 191 Mich 445; 158 NW 16 (1916), the principle works equally well in avoiding a rigid rule in favor of compensation. Indeed, we so held in the following paragraph of Thomas, supra, 634-635: We do not suggest that every authorized use of a company-owned vehicle or deviation from a business route will fall within this triad of cases. [ Burchett v Delton-Kellogg Schools, 378 Mich 231; 144 NW2d 337 (1966); Howard v Detroit, 377 Mich 102; 139 NW2d 677 (1966); and Beaudry, supra .] An authorized but totally private excursion such as using the company vehicle for weekend personal errands certainly is not covered because such trips lack a dual purpose required by Burchett or `a sufficient nexus between the employment and the injury' required by Nemeth. If a personal business detour is so great that the deviation dwarfs the business portion of the trip, it no longer can be said that it is `a circumstance of [the] employment' as required by Howard. Nor is this view unique to Michigan. See, e.g., Alford v Quality Chevrolet Co, 246 NC 214, 217; 97 SE2d 869 (1957) (five-hour night on the town after work by employee furnished with company car shows abandonment of employment rather than deviation); Calloway v State Workmen's Compensation Comm'r, 268 SE2d 132 (W Va, 1980) (salesman's tavern hopping following several business-related calls held to be a substantial deviation ending course of employment); Johnson v McGehee Brothers Furniture Co, 256 So 2d 741 (La App, 1972) (salesman, who had no fixed work hours, killed in company car at 1 a.m. while driving home after five hours at a cafe and bar held outside course of employment), writ refused 260 La 1132; 258 So 2d 380 (1972); Hebrank v Parsons, Brinckerhoff, Hall & MacDonald, 88 NJ Super 406, 420; 212 A2d 579 (1965) (11-hour deviation with supervisor in employer's car 25 miles away from job site held to be total abandonment of employment; returning from deviation when injured held immaterial); Carter v Burn Construction Co, Inc, 85 NM 27; 508 P2d 1324 (Ct App, 1973) (grease monkey killed while driving employer's truck after 4-1/2-hour deviation drinking beer and playing pool; held to be so major a deviation that subsequent return to homeward journey failed to return him to scope of employment), cert den 85 NM 5; 508 P2d 1302 (1973); Owen v Oneida, Ltd, 16 AD2d 1005; 229 NYS2d 325 (1962) (sociable drinking until 2:30 a.m. following a chance dinner meeting with a customer noncompensable); and O'Connell v State Accident Ins Fund, 19 Or App 735; 528 P2d 1064 (1974) (14-hour evening out on the town following completion of business portion of a trip held outside course of employment). The majority view is summarized by Professor Larson: Any business mission that begins as such from a particular base, such as the employee's home or office, must contemplate both an outgoing and a returning trip. However, the fact that the employee frequently is indeed free to go where he pleases and [d]o what he pleases after the last business chore is completed gives rise to a class of exasperating, complicated and sometimes picturesque fact problems involving employees who, had they gone straight home, would have been entitled to have their homeward journey covered, but who interpolated so many personal diversions between the last business act and the journey home that the ultimate journey home has often been held to have lost its business character somewhere along the line. The case of Mr. Dooley is typical. [ Dooley v Smith's Transfer Co, 26 NJ Misc 129; 57 A2d 554 (NJ Workmen's Compensation Bureau, 1948)]. Having the right to travel to and from work at company expense in his own car, he left work at 4:30 p.m., had a few beers, went to the movies, and then was not heard from until he struck a traffic island on his way home at 2 a.m. Although there was no evidence that the accident was due to intoxication, compensation was denied because of the `unreasonable interval'. This kind of case does not generate a set of clear and profound workmen's compensation principles to explain why compensation is denied in some such cases and awarded in others. One thing seems reasonably certain. An employee who has the right to have his homeward journey covered cannot, so to speak, put that right in the bank indefinitely and cash it at whatever future time suits his convenience. The sheer amount of time elapsed is bound to influence courts in these cases.    Other factors    include the amount of risk added by the personal activities, such as drinking, the nature of the job, and the extent to which there may be found an identifiable moment in time at which work duties end and the clock begins to run on the deviation. 1 Larson, Workmen's Compensation Law, § 19.29, pp 4-310  4-320 (footnotes omitted and emphasis added). Thus, merely because Bush was killed after ending his all-night detour does not necessarily mean that he is entitled to benefit. It is possible to break the employment nexus and end the special mission prior to the completion of the round trip. We must therefore examine the facts to determine whether the business purpose of the return trip was destroyed by the nature and extent of Bush's deviation.