On-Call Employees
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| Professions that may require employees to reside on the premises and be "on-call" include servants, security guards, private nurses, nannies, and the like. Continuously on-call employees who reside on their work premises are generally covered under the "course of employment" principle should they be injured. If the employee is not always on-call but, rather, has only specified hours in which he is on-call, he will only be allowed compensation if the injury was due to his living conditions as a by-product of the employer's requirement that he remain on the premises.
If the employee is continuously on-call, he will be covered by workers' compensation even when traveling to and from the premises. Additionally, these employees are covered by workers' compensation when pursuing personal comfort activities such as bathing, eating, drinking, and visiting the restroom. Likewise, injuries associated with sleeping and resting are compensable. Even injuries incurred while the employee is participating in recreational or social activities have been found compensable. Though resident employees who are continuously on-call appear to have a broad degree of workers' compensation protection, it is not unlimited. However, determining where the line is drawn between compensability and non-compensability is often hard to discern especially when it comes to personal comfort activities and going and coming from the employer's premises. Notably, it has generally been held that an injury incurred while off the employer's premises in the pursuit of a recreational or other personal activity is not compensable. Copyright 2010 LexisNexis, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. |