Part IX - Iowa Workers' Compensation - The Going and Coming Rule

Steve Lombardi

Attorney
(866) 735-1102 Ext 335

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I. Zone Of Danger Exception.

The course of employment may be extended beyond the premises if the off-premises conditions are risks of the employment. Whenever the hazards of the employment spill over the boundary-line and injure a worker on his or her way to or from work, those injuries should be compensable. 1 Larson, Sec. 15.31.

When an employee's intoxication arose out of and in the course of her employment her injuries from a car collision that took place away from the work place after she had been ordered to leave were compensable. 2800 Corp. v. Fernandez, 528 N.W. 2d 124 (Iowa 1995). Iowa's workers' compensation statute provides that injuries caused by intoxication are generally not compensable. Iowa Code Sec. 85.16 (1989). But when the employer condones the drinking of alcoholic beverages, derives a benefit, profits from the sale to patrons and employees and does little or nothing to enforce a policy against such behavior, injuries caused thereby will be found to arise out of and in the course of the employment. In discussing this exception to the going and coming rule the Fernandez Court stated: "The principle underlying some of the exceptions is that "course of employment should extend to any injury which occurred at a point where the employee was within range of dangers associated with the employment." 1 A. Larson, The Law of Workmen's Compensation Sec. 15.00 (1993) "Work-related intoxication is a hazard of the employment that follows an employee when he or she leaves work. When an employer encourages or condones excessive drinking on the job and in fact profits from an employee's drinking, as in this case, the employer ought to be held responsible for foreseeable injures suffered by the employee because of the resulting intoxication." Id. at 531.

Fo more information on this subject, please refer to our section on Worksite Injuries and Workers Compensation.