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In Town of Cicero v. Illinois Workers’ Compensation Commission, 2024 Ill. App. (1st) 230609WC, Petitioner was employed as a blight inspector for Cicero. His duties included going on-site to different properties and checking on the condition of windows, paint, garages, etc. He testified he was required to go to Cicero’s town hall at 7:30 a.m., go into his office via the stairwell, retrieve his work phone, and download his assignments for the day. Afterwards, he would descend the stairwell again, exit the building and go into his Cicero-provided vehicle.
On July 2, 2018, Petitioner was descending the stairs in the stairwell after retrieving his work phone when he slipped and fell on the stairs. The stairs were not defective. He sustained injuries to his left shoulder, right shoulder, right knee and complained of headaches.
The Arbitrator found that Petitioner failed to meet his burden of proof that he sustained a compensable accident, and that he was not a traveling employee at the time of his fall. The Commission reversed the Arbitrator’s decision, concluding that Petitioner was indeed a traveling employee. The Commission explained that Petitioner did not lose his traveling employee status merely because his accident occurred on the stairs located in Cicero’s facility. The Circuit Court confirmed the Commission’s decision.
Respondent’s argument was premised on the fact that Petitioner was not a traveling employee at the time he fell on the stairs. According to Respondent, Petitioner would not qualify as a traveling employee before he entered his assigned vehicle and commenced his workday. In support of this argument, Respondent relied on Pryor v. Illinois Workers’ Compensation Commission, 2015 Ill. App. 2d 130874 WC. Respondent argued that Petitioner was a commuter traveling to his normal place of business in Cicero town hall to retrieve his assignments and that it was not until he left the town hall and commenced traveling that he would be considered a traveling employee.
The Appellate Court rejected Respondent’s argument and distinguished Pryor from the case at hand. In Pryor, the claimant was injured when he bent down to pick up his suitcase in his personal car before he was to go to his employer’s facility to commence his workday. In Pryor, the court found that claimant had not yet embarked on a work-related trip at the time of injury but was rather injured while preparing for a regular commute from his home to his employer’s premises. In the instant case, the Appellate Court highlighted the fact that Petitioner was not injured during, or in preparation for, his regular commute from his home to Cicero’s premises. Rather, he was injured after he already arrived at work. Petitioner had already retrieved his assignments and was on his way to his Cicero-provided vehicle.
The Appellate Court highlighted the fact that Petitioner was required by Respondent to go into the town hall, retrieve his work phone, and download his assignments prior to embarking in his “travels” outside the Cicero premises.
This Court previously defined in Pryor that a “traveling employee is one whose work duties require him to travel away from his employer’s premises.” (emphasis added) This terminology suggests that petitioner needed to leave the Cicero facility in order to be considered a “traveling employee”, and he did not leave the facility. The only consistent way to resolve the case at hand with the already existing law is that Petitioner must have actually left Cicero’s premises, which he did not do. From Respondent’s perspective, Petitioner was simply a commuter, like any other employee commuting to work, and did not have traveling employee status.
The case would have benefitted from better facts stressing the dichotomy between commuting to the main office and then being dispatched to different inspection sites, like police officers who go to police headquarters for roll call before driving their beat. Unfortunately for Respondent, the Appellate Court did not see that delineation with the facts laid out in this case with the blight inspector.
The body of law on traveling employees is ever evolving. We will closely monitor how the Courts resolve these disputes, and how the case law affects employers in Illinois.