Pitkin v. Western Const., 16366

• Decision Date: 18 February 1987
• Docket Number: No. 16366,16366
• Parties: Jim PITKIN, Claimant-Respondent, v. WESTERN CONSTRUCTION, Employer, and Employers' Insurance of Wausau, Surety, Defendants-Appellants.
• Court: Idaho Supreme Court

Page 727

733 P.2d 727

112 Idaho 506

Jim PITKIN, Claimant-Respondent, v. WESTERN CONSTRUCTION, Employer and Employers' Insurance of Wausau, Surety, Defendants-Appellants.

No. 16366.

Supreme Court of Idaho Feb. 18, 1987.

David W. Cantrill, Cantrill, Skinner, Sullivan & King, Boise, for defendants-appellants.

Louis L. Uranga, Boise, for claimant-respondent.

SHEPARD, Chief Justice.

This is an appeal from a determination of the Industrial Commission that claimant's injuries and disability arose out of the course of his employment. We affirm.

Claimant Pitkin was employed by Western Construction. Relevant here are two mining operations conducted by Western at remote locations in Valley County, Idaho, one at Stibnite, and the other at Thunder Mountain. Western's main office is in Boise. Prior to June 1985, Pitkin worked primarily at the Stibnite location, but thereafter when Western began to move equipment to the Thunder Mountain site, Pitkin was involved in transporting equipment to, and setting equipment up, at Thunder Mountain. At the completion of the move Pitkin was to be employed at Thunder Mountain.

On July 15, 1985, Pitkin drove a truck loaded with a rock crusher from Boise to Thunder Mountain, where he remained until July 21, 1985. On that date, at approximately 5:00 p.m., Pitkin was instructed to drive a truck loaded with a compressor, a diesel engine, and other equipment, to Western's office in Boise. Pitkin was then to return in his own vehicle to Thunder Mountain, bringing with him the chains used to tie down the truck load to Boise. Pitkin worked a schedule of ten days on and four days off, and he asserts that he was to return to Thunder Mountain by 10:00 a.m., July 22, since that date was a regular work day. That assertion is contraverted by the employer, but we deem the conflict to be immaterial.

Pitkin left Thunder Mountain with the truck load and arrived in Boise at approximately 4:00 a.m., July 22. He left the truck at the Western Boise office, and obtained his own vehicle, after which he dropped off a rider from the Thunder Mountain site, and a crusher sample. Pitkin then ran two personal errands, returned to the Boise office to pick up the chains, and started back to Thunder Mountain at approximately 6:00 a.m. On the trip he apparently fell asleep while south of Cascade, collided with a logging truck, and suffered substantial injuries and was hospitalized.

As herein stated, Pitkin was working a ten day on/four day off shift, and was being paid on an hourly basis. He was being paid by the hour for the trip from Thunder Mountain to Boise. However, the employer has refused to pay mileage travel reimbursement for the return trip from Boise to Thunder Mountain.

After a hearing, the Industrial Commission held that claimant's injuries arose out of and in the course of his employment, under the "special errand" rule. The Commission reasoned that Pitkin was not leaving the Thunder Mountain site to return home for his own purposes, but rather was traveling to Boise on a special errand of the employer.

Generally, compensation is not allowed to workers for injuries occurring on the way to or from work, based on the perception that such injuries are not sufficiently causally linked to employment. Diffendaffer v. Clifton, 91 Idaho 751, 430 P.2d 497 (1967); In re South, 91 Idaho 786, 430 P.2d 677 (1967); In re Croxen, 69 Idaho 391, 207 P.2d 537 (1949); see 1 Larson, Workmen's Compensation, § 15.11 (1966).

Exceptions to that general rule arise when there appears a causal...