Case Law Update April 2022
| DSK Group, Inc./Zurich v. Hernandez, ___ So.3d____ (Fla. 1st DCA 4/27/22) Compensability/Going and Coming The DCA reversed the JCC’s decision that the claimant’s MVA and injuries were compensable. The claimant argued he was a traveling employee and thus not subject to the going and coming rule. The JCC disagreed, but found the claimant’s travel from job to job, even though he was required to clock in and clock out on his phone as an hourly employee, rendered the accident compensable as he was a “field employee,” traveling to various job sites and not a single, employer-owned site. However, the DCA found this was not a qualifying exception to going and coming, and the JCC failed to identify any other legitimate exception. They also found prior case law (Schoenfelder, Garabedian and McCormick) inapplicable to the instant facts, noting that precedent requires the accident to occur in some realm of “compensation status,” and that here the employee had clocked out. They also rejected the claimant’s “special errand” argument and noted that merely carrying tools or employment-related paraphernalia in the car (but not working) does not render a going and coming accident compensable. Click here to view Opinion |