Successful Reversal of Workers’ Compensation Appeal Board Decision

We convinced the Commonwealth Court to reverse the decisions of the Workers’ Compensation Appeal Board and Workers’ Compensation Judge granting a claim petition in a “special mission” case. We represented the employer – a landscaping company – in this workers’ compensation matter. The claimant borrowed the company’s truck to drive home for his own convenience and offered to drop off his co-employee in Hagerstown, Maryland on his way home to Chambersburg, Pennsylvania. After leaving the co-employee’s home, the truck ran out of gas, and the claimant was struck by another vehicle while he was on the side of the road. The court held that the Appeal Board and Workers’ Compensation Judge erred by finding that the claimant was in the course and scope of his employment. The court reasoned that, even assuming the claimant was on a special mission for his employer, as the judge found, that mission ended when the claimant left his co-worker in Hagerstown; therefore, the claimant was not on a special mission at the time of his injury. The court also found that the evidence did not support application of other exceptions to the “coming and going rule” as the claimant failed to develop arguments in his brief that he was a traveling employee. Therefore, the claimant could not successfully assert a workers’ compensation claim against our client.