Scenario: In your letter, you state that an employee who does not have a fixed work site left his home and traveled approximately 300 miles to a customer site. After the employee arrived at the customer site, he checked into a hotel and conducted work activities for several days. Once the work activities at the customer site were completed, the employee traveled to a relative’s home and stayed overnight at a hotel. Both the relative’s home and hotel were located near the route the employee would have used had he traveled directly from the customer site back to his home.
After staying overnight at the hotel, the employee resumed his trip back home using the same route he would have taken had he not stopped to visit his relative. Along the way, he stopped for gas, which he paid for with his company credit card, and resumed his trip home. As he neared his home, his vehicle apparently slid on an icy road (not in a construction zone), resulting in an accident that fatally injured the employee.
Question: Is the employee’s death work-related, considering the various stops and overnight stays?
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The recordkeeping regulation includes two exceptions in which injuries or illnesses sustained by employees traveling in the interest of the employer are not considered work-related. First, section 1904.5(b)(6)(i) provides that, when an employee checks into a hotel, motel, or other temporary residence, the employee is considered to have established a “home away from home.” At this time, the status of the employee is the same as that of an employee working at an establishment who leaves work and is essentially “at home.” In other words, when an employee checks into a hotel, motel, or temporary residence, they have left the work environment, and their activities must be evaluated in the same manner as those of a non-traveling employee. In situations where the employee has established a “home away from home” and is reporting to and from a fixed worksite each day, injuries or illnesses that occur while the employee is commuting between the temporary residence and the job location are not considered work-related. These cases are similar to when an employee commutes between home and work and are not required to be recorded on the OSHA 300 log.
Second, section 1904.5(b)(6)(ii) provides that an injury or illness is not considered work-related if it occurs while the employee is on a personal detour from the route of business travel. This exception allows the employer to exclude injuries and illnesses that occur when the employee takes a side trip for personal reasons while on a business trip (e.g., a vacation or sight-seeing excursion, to visit relatives, or for some other personal purpose).
Source: https://www.osha.gov/laws-regs/standardinterpretations/2024-06-12