Ruckman v. Cubby Drilling, Inc.

• Decision Date: 25 February 1998
• Docket Number: 96-1790 and 96-1791,Nos. 96-1788,s. 96-1788
• Citation: 689 N.E.2d 917,81 Ohio St.3d 117
• Parties: RUCKMAN, Appellee, v. CUBBY DRILLING, INC., Appellant. RIGGS, Appellee, v. CUBBY DRILLING, INC., Appellant. BROSIUS, Appellee, v. CUBBY DRILLING, INC., Appellant.
• Court: Ohio Supreme Court

Page 117

81 Ohio St.3d 117

689 N.E.2d 917

RUCKMAN, Appellee, v. CUBBY DRILLING, INC., Appellant.

RIGGS, Appellee, v. CUBBY DRILLING, INC., Appellant.

BROSIUS, Appellee, v. CUBBY DRILLING, INC., Appellant.

Nos. 96-1788, 96-1790 and 96-1791.

Supreme Court of Ohio.

Submitted Oct. 7, 1997.

Decided Feb. 25, 1998.

SYLLABUS BY THE COURT

1. In determining whether an employee is a fixed-situs employee and therefore within the coming-and-going rule, the focus is on whether the employee commences his or her substantial employment duties only after arriving at a specific and identifiable work place designated by his employer. That focus remains the same even though the employee may be reassigned to a different work place monthly, weekly, or even daily. Despite periodic relocation of job sites, each particular job site may constitute a fixed place of employment.

2. A fixed-situs employee is entitled to workers' compensation benefits for injuries occurring while coming and going from or to his place of employment where the travel serves a function of the employer's business and creates a risk that is distinctive in nature from or quantitatively greater than risks common to the public. (Littlefield v. Pillsbury Co. [1983], 6 Ohio St.3d 389, 6 OBR 439, 453 N.E.2d 570, paragraphs one and two of the syllabus, limited and modified.)

Cubby Drilling, Inc. ("Cubby") employees John W. Riggs III, Richard T. Brosius, and Kenneth E. Ruckman, Jr. each sustained injury from traffic accidents that occurred during travel from their homes to remote locations where Riggs and Brosius worked as part of a four-man drilling crew assigned to work a shift beginning at 10:30 p.m. and ending at 6:30 a.m. at a drilling site in Champion, Ohio. On the first day of their assignment, the drilling crew met in Canton, Ohio, in order to participate in a ridesharing arrangement to the Champion drilling site. Cubby neither required nor encouraged its employees to share rides; the employees independently came to this arrangement in order to share the expenses associated with driving to remote drilling sites. Regardless of how Cubby employees got themselves to the drilling sites, Cubby paid each employee a per diem bonus based on a graduated scale set by the distance between the drilling site and Cubby's Midvale home base.

Cubby had assigned the employees to drill wells. The injuries occurred as the result of two separate traffic accidents.

The traffic accident injuring Riggs and Brosius occurred on a state route in Paris, Ohio, approximately thirty minutes before the scheduled beginning of their shift at the Champion drilling site.

Kenneth Ruckman received his injuries while participating in a similar ridesharing arrangement with two members of his Cubby drilling crew. The men met in Cadiz, Ohio, and started on their way to a drilling site near Mercer, Pennsylvania. The automobile accident causing Ruckman's injuries occurred on a state route in Portage County, Ohio, approximately one hour before the scheduled beginning of the riggers' shift at their western Pennsylvania destination.

In both instances, Cubby did not provide its employees with the automobiles involved in the accidents. Moreover, neither group was transporting tools or any other equipment needed for their job assignments when the accidents occurred.

All three injured Cubby employees filed claims to participate in the Workers' Compensation Fund, and their participation has been allowed and upheld through the administrative process and later appeals. These cases are now before this court pursuant to the allowance of discretionary appeals.

James C. Becker and James E. Wilhelm, Jr., Columbus, for appellees Kenneth E. Ruckman, Jr. and Richard T. Brosius.

Brian & Brian, Steven J. Brian, North Canton and Brian R. Mertes, Canton, for appellee John W. Riggs III.

Millisor & Nobil and Sara L. Rose, Dublin; Garvin & Hickey, L.L.C., and Michael J. Hickey, Dublin, for appellant Cubby Drilling, Inc.

Stewart Jaffy & Associates Co., L.P.A., Stewart R. Jaffy and Marc J. Jaffy, Columbus, urging affirmance for amicus curiae Ohio Academy of Trial Lawyers.

COOK, Justice.

This case presents the court with two distinct yet interrelated issues: (1) whether the Cubby employees were fixed-situs employees within the meaning of the coming-and-going rule despite the temporary nature of their work assignments and, if they were, (2) whether the employees nevertheless overcame the presumption embodied in the coming-and-going rule by specifically demonstrating that their injuries occurred "in the course of" and "arose out of" the employment. We hold that the Cubby employees were fixed-situs employees within the meaning of the coming-and-going rule, but nevertheless demonstrated that their injuries occurred in the course of and arose out of their employment, so as to permit their participation in the Workers' Compensation Fund.

The coming-and-going rule is a tool used to determine whether an injury suffered by an employee in a traffic accident occurs "in the course of" and "arise[s] out of" the employment relationship so as to constitute a compensable injury under R.C. 4123.01(C). "As a general rule, an employee with a fixed place of employment, who is injured while traveling to or from his place of employment, is not entitled to participate in the Workers' Compensation Fund because the requisite causal connection between injury and the employment does not exist." MTD Products, Inc. v. Robatin (1991), 61 Ohio St.3d 66, 68, 572 N.E.2d 661, 663, citing Bralley v. Daugherty (1980), 61 Ohio St.2d 302, 15 O.O.3d 359, 401 N.E.2d 448. The rationale supporting the coming-and-going rule is that "[t]he constitution and the statute, providing for compensation from a fund created by assessments upon the industry itself, contemplate only those hazards to be encountered by the employe[e] in the discharge of the duties of his employment, and do not embrace risks and hazards, such as those of travel to and from his place of actual employment over streets and highways, which are similarly encountered by the public generally." Indus. Comm. v. Baker (1933), 127 Ohio St. 345, 188 N.E. 560, paragraph four of the syllabus.

In determining whether an employee is a fixed-situs employee and therefore within the coming-and-going rule, the focus is on whether the employee commences his substantial employment duties only after arriving at a specific and identifiable work place designated by his employer. Indus. Comm. v. Heil (1931), 123 Ohio St. 604, 606-607, 176 N.E. 458, 459; 1 Larson's Workers' Compensation Law (1997) 4-194 to 4-200. Accordingly, this court has denied compensation for injuries sustained in the commute to work of a teacher who prepared lesson plans at her home (Indus. Comm. v. Gintert [1934], 128 Ohio St. 129, 190 N.E. 400), a police officer who, by rule, was required to serve in his official capacity whenever needed but typically started work only after checking in at a station house (Simerlink v. Young [1961], 172 Ohio St. 427, 17 O.O.2d 376, 178 N.E.2d 168), a products-control manager who occasionally took work home and remained on call twenty-four hours a day (Lohnes v. Young [1963], 175 Ohio The focus remains the same even though the employee may be reassigned to a different work place monthly, weekly, or even daily. Despite periodic relocation of job sites, each particular job site may constitute a fixed place of employment. See Demko v. Admr. of Workers' Comp. (Oct. 7, 1994), Portage App. No. 93-P-0067, unreported, at 4, 1994 WL 587963; Hawkins v. Connor (Aug. 12, 1983), Mercer App. No. 10-82-11, unreported, at 10, 1983 WL 7317.

St. 291, 25 O.O.2d 136, 194 N.E.2d 428), and a slaughterhouse superintendent whose employer provided compensation for travel from his home to the plant. (Heil, supra.)

The evidence demonstrates that the riggers here had no duties to perform away from the drilling sites to which they were assigned. The riggers' workday began and ended at the drilling sites. Accordingly, although work at each drilling site had limited duration, it was a fixed work site within the meaning of the coming-and-going rule.

Classification of the riggers as fixed-situs employees, however, does not end our inquiry. While the coming-and-going rule works well in most of its applications, a claimant may avoid its force in the rare circumstance where he can, nevertheless, demonstrate that he received an injury in the course of and arising out of his employment. See MTD Products, supra, 61 Ohio St.3d 66, 572 N.E.2d 661.

IN THE COURSE OF EMPLOYMENT

As this court stated in Fisher v. Mayfield (1990), 49 Ohio St.3d 275, 277, 551 N.E.2d 1271, 1274, the statutory requirement that an injury be in the course of employment involves the time, place, and circumstances of the injury. Time, place, and circumstance, however, are factors used to determine whether the required nexus exists between the employment relationship and the injurious activity; they are not, in themselves, the ultimate object of a course-of-employment inquiry.

The phrase "in the course of employment" limits compensable injuries to those sustained by an employee while performing a required duty in the employer's service. Indus. Comm. v. Gintert (1934), 128 Ohio St. 129, 133-134, 190 N.E. 400, 403. "To be entitled to workmen's compensation, a workman need not necessarily be injured in the actual performance of work for his employer." Sebek v. Cleveland Graphite Bronze Co. (1947), 148 Ohio St. 693, 36 O.O. 282, 76 N.E.2d 892, paragraph three of the syllabus. An injury is compensable if it is sustained by an employee while that employee engages in activity that is consistent with the contract for hire and logically related to the employer's business. Kohlmayer v. Keller (1970), 24 Ohio St.2d 10, 12, 53 O.O.2d 6, 7, 263 N.E.2d 231, 233.

In the normal context, an employee's commute to a fixed work site bears no meaningful relation to his employment...