Court Opinion

ID: 9575215
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-21 21:12:27.667825+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T12:45:03.765150
License: Public Domain

Barrow, J., with whom Benton, J., and Coleman, J.,
join, dissenting.
The commission found that Nichols’ “job was to travel to the [patients’] homes and perform nursing services” and that she “was performing her work when she was injured.” Credible evidence supports this finding which is sufficient to entitle Nichols to compensation. Therefore, I would affirm the commission.
An employee need not prove that he or she is “within an acknowledged class of employees,” as the majority holds, to be entitled to compensation for injuries sustained in an automobile accident. Such an employee need only show that the employment subjected him or her to the “hazards of the street.”
An employee’s injury in an automobile accident is compensable if “the employment subjected the employee to the hazards of the *639street.” Immer & Co. v. Brosnahan, 207 Va. 720, 725, 152 S.E.2d 254, 257 (1967). This rule applies regardless of whether the employee is subjected to these hazards “continuously or infrequently.” Id. When first expressed, this rule required that the employee be exposed to the risk of the public streets “either frequently or continuously.” Dreyfus & Co. v. Meade, 142 Va. 567, 576, 129 S.E. 336, 338 (1925). Frequent or continuous exposure is no longer necessary, and Virginia has joined a majority of the states in adopting a rule recognizing compensability regardless of frequency of exposure. Immer, 207 Va. at 725, 152 S.E.2d at 257; see also Cohen v. Cohen’s Dep’t Store, 171 Va. 106, 109, 198 S.E. 476, 477 (1938); 1 A. Larson, The Law of Workmen’s Compensation § 9.10 (1990).
The necessity to show that one is within a discrete class of employees continuously or frequently exposed to the hazards of the street is an obsolete test. Immer, 207 Va. at 725, 152 S.E.2d at 257. It is no longer material whether an employee’s “degree of exposure is increased” beyond that “common to the public generally.” Id. A single venture into the street on a mission of the employment gives rise to compensation if an employee is injured.. Cohen, 171 Va. at 109, 198 S.E. at 477. The only question is whether the employee’s duties made it necessary for him or her to be on the street.
The majority, while paying lip service to this rule, chooses to apply instead the “going to and from work” rule. This is accomplished by grafting onto the rule expressed in Immer a new set of requirements. Without precedent, the majority now requires an employee injured while on the street on the mission of her employer to show that “her salary was adjusted ... to compensate her for travel,” that she “was paid mileage expenses by her employer,” “that the particular manner in which [she] was dispatched to various job sites was actually furthering her employer’s business interest,” or “that she was required to travel among various patients’ homes during a given day.” Until today, an employee was not required to prove these facts; she was only required to show that she was on a mission of her employer.
Nichols was a licensed practical nurse whose job required her to travel to homes of ill patients and care for them in their homes. She received her work orders on a daily or weekly basis by telephone from her office or in person at her office and was told the *640number of hours she was required to be at the patients’ homes. She was not required to report to her office each day, and she drove to the patients’ homes in her personal automobile. On the morning of the accident, having received her orders three days earlier, she was on her way to a patient’s home when she was injured in an automobile accident. These undisputed facts support the commission’s finding that Nichols was employed to travel to the patients’ homes and provide nursing services and that she was in this employ when she was injured.
The “going to and from work” rule is not applicable. It was adopted to assist in determining when an injury arises in the course of employment. Provident Life & Accident Ins. Co. v. Barnard, 236 Va. 41, 45, 372 S.E.2d 369, 371 (1988). This rule denies compensation for an employee’s injuries sustained while going to or from work. Id. Usually, when an employee is going or coming from work, he or she is not “reasonably fulfilling the duties of the employment or . . . doing something reasonably incidental to it.” Briley v. Farm Fresh, Inc., 240 Va. 194, 197, 396 S.E.2d 835, 837 (1990). In contrast, the rule in Immer aids in determining when an injury “arises out of the employment.” Immer, 207 Va. at 722, 152 S.E.2d at 256 (emphasis added). Immer allows compensation for injuries on the street while in the service of the employer.
The rule in Immer and the “going to and from work” rule are mutually exclusive. The rationale underlying the “going to and from work” rule recognizes that an employee going to or from his or her place of work “is not engaged in performing any service growing out of and incidental to his employment.” Kent v. Virginia-Carolina Chem. Co., 143 Va. 62, 66, 129 S.E. 330, 331 (1925) (citation omitted). This rationale excludes on its face that employment which by its nature subjects an “employee to the hazards of the street.” Immer, 207 Va. at 725, 152 S.E.2d at 257. The commission’s finding that Nichols’ employment was of this kind distinguishes her from one who is simply going to work and not yet “engaged in performing any service growing out of and incidental to his employment.”1
*641Part of Nichols’ job was to travel to patients’ homes. She was in an automobile on a public street in the service of her employment when injured in an automobile accident, a risk of that employment. See Norfolk & Washington Steamboat Co. v. Holladay, 174 Va. 152, 159, 5 S.E.2d 486, 489 (1939); Railway Express Agency, Inc. v. Lewis, 156 Va. 800, 809-10, 159 S.E. 188, 191 (1931). I, therefore, agree with the commission that Nichols’ injury was compensable.
In addition, I agree with the commission’s conclusion that the employer is estopped from asserting that Nichols had not made reasonable efforts to market her remaining capacity for work. The employer paid compensation to Nichols for almost twenty-two months but did not file a memorandum of agreement. Thus, the commission found that Nichols’ efforts to return to work and the employer’s payment of benefits estopped the employer from asserting this non-jurisdictional defense. See National Linen Serv. v. McGuinn, 5 Va. App. 265, 272, 362 S.E.2d 187, 191 (1987).

 Even if the rationale underlying the going and coming rule did not exclude Nichols, the third enumerated exception to that rule would. LeWhite Constr. Co. v. Dunn, 211 Va. 279, 282, 176 S.E.2d 809, 813 (1970) (where the employee on his way to or from work is still charged with some duty or task in connection with his employment); Kent v. Virginia-*641Carolina Chemical Co., 143 Va. at 66, 129 S.E. at 331; see also Peterson v. Workmen's Compensation Appeal Board, 597 A.2d 1116, 1120 (Pa. 1991) (licensed practical nurse employed by nursing agency injured in automobile accident on way to work at hospital where sent by agency).