Opinion ID: 2552849
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 5

Heading: Giovanelli Is a Traveling Employee

Text: ¶ 21 Applying the traveling employee doctrine to the facts of this case, we must first determine whether Giovanelli falls within the category of traveling employee. There are two widely recognized definitions of a traveling employee. Under Larson's formulation of the rule, a traveling employee is one whose work entails travel away from the employer's premises. 2 LARSON & LARSON, supra, § 25.01. An alternate definition provides: A traveling employee is one whose job requires travel from place to place or to a place away from a permanent residence or the employee's place of business. 2 JOHN P. LUDINGTON, MODERN WORKERS COMPENSATION § 111:15 (Matthew J. Canavan ed., 1993). ¶ 22 The traveling salesperson and the long-haul truck driver are prototypical examples of traveling employees. However, workers who have no fixed site of employment or whose business is travel are not the only categories of employees who fall within the definition. Traveling employees also include those on temporary assignment at a fixed location. ¶ 23 Courts routinely apply the traveling employee doctrine to hourly wage workers who travel to a fixed site to perform a job assignment of temporary duration. This scenario frequently arises in the context of construction workers sent to work on a discrete project. See, e.g., Brown v. Palmer Constr. Co., 295 A.2d 263 (Me.1972). Courts have little difficulty treating itinerant construction workers as traveling employees when the worker is required, as a condition of the employment, to travel to a distant jobsite, away from home, and find overnight lodging, particularly when the employer provides compensation for the worker's travel expenses. ¶ 24 For example, in Olinger Construction Co. v. Mosbey, 427 N.E.2d 910 (Ind.App. 1981), a construction worker was assigned to a jobsite 150 miles from his home. He lived in a motel while working on the project where, one night, a former co-worker entered his room and stabbed him. The Indiana court held that his death was compensable. The court rejected the employer's argument that the traveling employee rule was inapplicable to a worker assigned to a fixed jobsite for a job of temporary duration, stating, because of his job . . . his activities, such as eating and sleeping in a distant location, are done for the benefit of the employer. Olinger, 427 N.E.2d at 915. ¶ 25 St. Gobain contends that Giovanelli should be treated as a local hire rather than as a traveling employee. They contrast his situation with that of Ernie Peters, a permanent St. Gobain employee who traveled from the corporate headquarters in Muncie, Indiana to oversee the furnace rebuild. Unlike Peters, St. Gobain argues, Giovanelli was not required to accept the work assignment in Seattle, but could have elected to stay home. ¶ 26 A distinction based on whether an employee had the option to decline a work assignment that entails travel would resurrect the assumption of risk doctrine, a tort concept that is inapt in evaluating the compensability of a work-related injury. Workers' compensation acts were in great part necessitated by the judicial foreclosure of common law remedies for injured workers through application of the assumption of risk doctrine. The adoption of the IIA represents the rejection of the assumption of risk doctrine in favor of no fault insurance for work-related injuries. No distinction may be drawn between an employee who volunteers for a job that entails travel and one who is required by the employer to do so. The question is whether the job assignment entails travel such that the risks of travel become part of the risks of employment. ¶ 27 A more difficult issue is whether a worker who accepts a series of temporary assignments, with breaks in between, can be viewed as a traveling employee. As noted, there are two definitions of a traveling employee. Giovanelli clearly qualifies under the first definition, as one whose job requires travel from place to place or to a place away from a permanent residence or the employee's place of business. 2 MODERN WORKERS COMPENSATION, supra, § 111:15. Giovanelli's job assignment to Seattle required him to travel to a place away from his permanent residence. In recognition of that fact, St. Gobain agreed not only to reimburse him for his travel expenses, but also to compensate him for making the journey itself. It paid him for his travel time to and from Seattle and a per diem during his entire stay in Seattle, including his days off. ¶ 28 Under Larson's formulation, which is more widely relied upon by courts, a traveling employee is one who travels away from an employer's premises. 2 LARSON & LARSON, supra, § 25.01. Viewing Giovanelli's Seattle-based job assignment in isolation, he was hired to travel to, not away from, the employer's premises, and thus falls outside the definition. However, considering the nature and history of Giovanelli's employment relationship with St. Gobain, he qualifies as a traveling employee even under Larson's more restrictive test. ¶ 29 Chicago Bridge & Iron v. Industrial Commission, 248 Ill.App.3d 687, 618 N.E.2d 1143, 188 Ill.Dec. 573 (1993) involved an employee, like Giovanelli, who worked at different jobsites on behalf of his employer to complete short-term projects requiring his expertise. While en route to a job assignment, he was injured in a traffic accident. In concluding the worker was entitled to coverage as a traveling employee, the Illinois court considered the nature of the employment relationship as a whole, rather than focusing narrowly on the particular job assignment. In, view of the worker's ongoing and exclusive relationship with the employer, the court concluded that he qualified as a traveling employee, notwithstanding the breaks in employment between job assignments. ¶ 30 Similarly, Atkins v. Workmen's Compensation Appeal Board, 651 A.2d 694 (Pa. Commw.1994), involved a construction worker who was sent to jobsites in different states to work on projects of limited duration. Based on a claim filed in Pennsylvania for an injury while on a job in Georgia, the court concluded that the worker's job was not principally localized anywhere in view of the worker's ongoing relationship with his employer. ¶ 31 What Chicago Bridge and Atkins demonstrate is that in the context of determining an injured worker's eligibility for workers' compensation, courts should examine the nature of the employment relationship with a wide angle lens, rather than narrowly focusing on a discrete job assignment or period of employment. ¶ 32 Accordingly, in evaluating whether Giovanelli is a traveling employee, the proper focus is not Giovanelli's particular job assignment to St. Gobain's Seattle plant, but his ongoing employment relationship with St. Gobain, the multinational corporation, which has 18 glass manufacturing plants nationwide. Like the workers in Chicago Bridge and Atkins, Giovanelli had an ongoing and exclusive employment relationship with his employer. Giovanelli worked for St. Gobain more than 15 years, exclusively for the previous five years. His job assignments were coordinated and travel expenses were authorized and reimbursed through St. Gobain's headquarters in Muncie, Indiana. St. Gobain contemplated that Giovanelli would return home after the Seattle job was finished, until it was time to travel to the next scheduled furnace rebuild. For all of its furnace rebuilds, St. Gobain relied on Giovanelli's skill and expertise to help ensure the expeditious completion of each project. Failing to recognize Giovanelli as a traveling employee under the facts of this case would be to elevate form over substance, contrary to the remedial purpose of our IIA. ¶ 33 The record is clear: Giovanelli did not merely leave home to seek out better employment. Rather, St. Gobain, through its agent, Sonny Champ, sought him out at his Pennsylvania home and offered him a temporary assignment in Seattle just as it had done numerous times over many years. The terms of the offer were that Giovanelli would fly to Seattle on a specified date, after arranging his flight through the corporate office in Indiana, receive travel pay as well as reimbursement of travel expenses, enjoy the use of a company paid rental car, and receive a per diem to defray the costs of food and lodging during his stay in Seattle. ¶ 34 St. Gobain contends that Giovanelli is not a traveling employee because it did not compensate him for his travel expenses but merely offered premium pay as an incentive to accept the Seattle job. It argues that treating Giovanelli as a traveling employee dramatically expands liability every time an employer offers relocation expenses or a housing subsidy. But this is not a case where Giovanelli was relocating for a job; both St. Gobain and Giovanelli expected he would fly home at the end of his assignment. ¶ 35 Giovanelli's willingness to travel from state to state to work on St. Gobain's furnace rebuilds clearly benefited St. Gobain and furthered its business. St. Gobain relied on Giovanelli, along with a small group of firebrick specialists, which it designated travelers, to provide the expertise necessary to allow it to expeditiously complete a furnace rebuild. It is fair and proper to provide expanded coverage commensurate with the expanded risks of employment faced by Giovanelli and similarly situated travelers and to hold St. Gobain liable for injuries related to the expanded risks of employment. ¶ 36 As a traveling employee, Giovanelli was in the course of employment continuously during his trip. The next question is whether he distinctly departed from the course of employment at the time of his injury.