Travel Injuries:
When Are You Covered?

One of the most misunderstood areas of Ohio workers’ compensation is whether an injury that occurs while traveling is covered. The answer is almost never a simple yes or no — it depends on where you were, what you were doing, and why you were there. The “Coming and Going” rule is the starting point, but it’s the exceptions to that rule that actually determine most travel-related claims. Attorney Mike Gruhin has successfully argued travel injury cases involving parking lots, highway accidents, hotel stays, and employer-directed errands — and he understands the factual details that make or break these claims.

The Coming and Going rule

Ohio’s Coming and Going rule establishes the baseline: injuries sustained during your ordinary commute to and from a fixed place of employment are not compensable under workers’ compensation. The legal reasoning is straightforward — your daily commute is a personal activity, and the risks of travel are not created by your employment.

Under this rule, a factory worker rear-ended on I-77 during the morning commute does not have a workers’ compensation claim. A nurse injured in a car accident driving to the hospital for a normal shift does not have a claim. The commute is your responsibility, not your employer’s.

But the Coming and Going rule is not absolute. Ohio courts have carved out several well-established exceptions, and these exceptions swallow the rule in many real-world situations. Understanding which exception applies — and gathering the evidence to prove it — is the difference between a denied claim and a winning one.

Exception #1: The traveling employee doctrine

The most important exception to the Coming and Going rule is the traveling employee doctrine. If your job inherently requires you to travel — you have no fixed workplace, or your duties take you to multiple locations throughout the day — then you are considered to be in the course of employment during all of your work-related travel.

Traveling employees include:

For a traveling employee, coverage extends from the moment they leave their home for a work trip until they return. This includes highway accidents, injuries at hotels during overnight work trips, and even some off-duty activities during travel that are reasonable and foreseeable (such as getting dinner while on an out-of-town assignment).

The key legal question is whether the employee is a fixed situs employee (works at one regular location) or a traveling employee (moves between locations as a condition of employment). The distinction is determined by the nature of the job, not the employee’s title. A marketing manager who works in the same office every day is fixed situs. The same marketing manager who travels three days a week to client sites may be a traveling employee.

Exception #2: The special mission exception

The special mission exception applies when an employer specifically directs an employee to perform a task that takes them outside their normal commute pattern. If the employer’s specific request is the reason the employee is on the road, the trip is in the course of employment.

Common special mission scenarios:

Exception #3: Employer-controlled premises (parking lot doctrine)

The Coming and Going rule ends — and employer liability begins — at the boundary of employer-controlled property. Under Ohio’s parking lot doctrine, injuries sustained in parking lots owned, maintained, or controlled by the employer are generally compensable. This includes:

The critical factor is employer control over the premises. A parking lot owned outright by the employer is clearly covered. A leased lot in a strip mall shared with other businesses may or may not be covered depending on the lease terms and the degree of employer control. A public street or sidewalk is generally not employer-controlled premises — but the analysis depends on the specific facts.

Exception #4: Employer-sponsored events

Injuries at employer-sponsored events — company picnics, holiday parties, team-building activities, softball leagues — present a gray area. Ohio courts evaluate several factors to determine whether the injury arose in the course of employment:

The totality of the circumstances test means no single factor is dispositive. An employee who breaks an ankle playing in the company softball league — organized by the employer, played during work hours, with employer-provided uniforms — has a strong claim. The same injury at a voluntary weekend barbecue organized by coworkers is likely not covered.

The “zone of employment” concept

Ohio courts sometimes use the zone of employment concept to analyze borderline travel cases. The zone of employment encompasses the physical area where an employee is expected to be during work — the workplace itself plus any adjacent areas the employee must traverse to enter, exit, or perform duties. The concept is broader than just the building and includes:

The zone of employment analysis is fact-intensive and often contested. Mike Gruhin’s approach involves documenting the specific location of the injury, the employer’s control over the area, the employee’s reason for being there, and whether the employer directed or expected the employee to use that route or area.

When a third party caused the travel injury

If you were injured in a car accident while traveling for work and another driver was at fault, you may have both a workers’ compensation claim and a third-party personal injury lawsuit against the at-fault driver. These are separate legal actions that can be pursued simultaneously.

The workers’ compensation claim provides medical coverage and wage replacement regardless of fault. The third-party lawsuit provides additional compensation including pain and suffering — damages not available through workers’ comp. The BWC has a statutory subrogation right (O.R.C. § 4123.93) to recover some of the benefits it paid from your third-party recovery, but this is negotiable and an experienced attorney can minimize the BWC’s lien.