Opinion ID: 1752811
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 3

Heading: return trip from seminar was within course of employment prior to deviation

Text: As a prelude to our discussion of the above issue, it might be helpful to review briefly the undisputed facts and establish a legal focal point from which to begin our analysis. As a probate and estate attorney, Bush occasionally found it necessary to attend estate and trust seminars. Defendant law firm encouraged its specialists to attend such seminars and paid for all of the expenses incurred. [5] Defendant received a special benefit from the attendance by its attorneys at these seminars: a work force which was informed of the most recent changes in their specialty and kept up to date on the legal service provided by banks, as well as advertising of the firm's competence and interest in the specialty. By encouraging its attorneys to attend these employment-related, educational seminars, defendant was in effect sending Bush on a special mission. See LeVasseur v Allen Electric Co, 338 Mich 121; 61 NW2d 93 (1953); Stockley v School Dist No 1 of Portage Twp, 231 Mich 523; 204 NW 715 (1925). Cf. Mann v Board of Education of City of Detroit, 266 Mich 271, 273; 253 NW 294 (1934). Although the general rule of law is that injuries sustained by employees going to and coming from work are not compensable, Thomas v Certified Refrigeration, Inc, 392 Mich 623, 631, fn 3; 221 NW2d 378 (1974); Dent v Ford Motor Co, 275 Mich 39, 41-42; 265 NW 518 (1936); Hills v Blair, 182 Mich 20, 26; 148 NW 243 (1914), this is not the ordinary case of an employee going to and from his work but one where the employee was engaged in a special mission in the interest of and at the direction of his employer, LeVasseur, supra, 123 (emphasis added). [6] Travel to and from the special mission is in the course of employment and would normally come within the protection of the Worker's Disability Compensation Act. As Professor Larson noted: When an employee, having identifiable time and space limits on his employment, makes an off-premises journey which would normally not be covered under the usual going and coming rule, the journey may be brought within the course of employment by the fact that the trouble and time of making the journey, or the special inconvenience, hazard, or urgency of making it in the particular circumstances, is itself sufficiently substantial to be viewed as an integral part of the service itself. 1 Larson, Workmen's Compensation Law, § 16.10, p 4-123 (footnotes omitted). Therefore, it is undisputed that decedent was within the course of his employment traveling to, attending and returning from the Grand Rapids seminar. The question remains, however, whether decedent was still in the course of his employment after completing a seven- to eight-hour deviation within a few miles of his home.