Case Law Update - Ray Bell Construction v. King
On March 26, 2007, the Georgia Supreme Court decided Ray Bell Construction v. King. The issue in the case is whether Howard King had a valid case under Georgia workers' compensation law under the continuous employment / traveling employee doctrine. Howard King was killed in a motor vehicle collision while driving a company vehicle from a storage shed back to his jobsite. It was undisputed that he went to the self storage shed for a personal reason - - he was delivering family furniture to the storage shed.
The Supreme Court upheld the Court of Appeals' decision. The legal test in the case, according to the Court, was whether the employee "turns back" and resumes the duties of the employer after the personal mission.
As the Supreme Court noted, "(T)he determination whether the injury occurred in the general proximity of the place the employee was employed to be at a time he was employed to be in that general area was a question of fact for the ALJ and the appellate division of the State Board of Workers' Compensation."
In this case, the Administrative Law Judge and the State Board of Workers' Compensation sided with the employee. A motivating factor in favor of the employee was traveling and working a long distance from home. In this case, King was a resident of Florida and worked near Fayetville, Georgia.
This case is obviously a victory for the deceased employee's family. It substantiates the notion that traveling employees should be afforded more latitude if they are injured while not working on the job site. As the Court noted, "Such an employee is, "in effect, in continuous employment, day and night, for the purposes of the [Workers'] Compensation Act" (id.), and activities performed in a reasonable and prudent manner for the health and comfort of the employee, including recreational activities, arise out of and are in the course of the employment."
