## Facts

- Soft-Play, Inc., a North Carolina corporation, employed Jamey B. Staton on an equipment-installation crew assigned to a project in Erie County, New York.
- Because the job required travel, Soft-Play paid for the crew’s lodging and provided each worker a $30 daily per diem that could be used for any purpose, including meals.
- After work one evening, Staton and his supervisor, Thomas Shanahan, drove to a restaurant/bar (the Buffalo Brute Club) in a rental vehicle obtained by Shanahan and subject to reimbursement by Soft-Play.
- They ate dinner and stayed at the bar to watch a ball game.
- Staton and Shanahan were legally intoxicated when they left the bar.
- Shanahan drove back toward the motel where Soft-Play had lodged the crew.
- About 100 yards from the motel, Shanahan made an improper left turn into oncoming traffic, and a collision occurred.
- Staton was killed as a result of the crash.
- Shanahan later pleaded guilty to criminally negligent homicide and driving while impaired.
- Elaine Cauble, Staton’s mother and administratrix of his estate, filed a claim for workers’ compensation death benefits.
- The parties submitted the matter to the Industrial Commission on stipulated facts and documents (without an evidentiary hearing). A deputy commissioner awarded benefits, and the Full Commission affirmed and adopted that award.
- Soft-Play and its carrier appealed to the North Carolina Court of Appeals, contending that staying to watch the game was a personal detour and that intoxication barred recovery.

## Issues

1. Whether Staton’s death arose out of and in the course of employment when he was killed in a crash while returning to employer-paid lodging during an out-of-town assignment after stopping at a restaurant/bar for dinner and a ball game.
2. Whether benefits were barred under N.C. Gen. Stat. § 97-12 based on intoxication, given the Commission’s findings regarding the role of a supervisor in supplying alcohol.
3. What deference the Court of Appeals owed to the Industrial Commission on the “arising out of and in the course of employment” determination made on stipulated facts.

## Decision

- The Court of Appeals affirmed the Full Commission’s award of death benefits.
- The court held that the Commission could properly conclude Staton was acting in the course of employment as a traveling employee returning to employer-funded lodging during the New York assignment.
- The court rejected the employer’s argument that remaining at the bar to watch a game was a personal detour that, as a matter of law, broke the employment connection.
- The court held the intoxication defense did not bar recovery on this record because the Commission’s findings supported application of the statutory exception where the intoxicant was supplied by the employer or its agent in a supervisory capacity.
- The court applied a limited appellate review: whether the Commission’s findings and conclusions were supported by sufficient evidence and consistent with law.

## Legal Principles

- Workers’ compensation covers injuries “by accident arising out of and in the course of” employment.
- A traveling employee required to work away from home is generally within the course of employment during reasonable activities related to living on the road, including obtaining meals and returning to employer-provided lodging.
- A personal deviation may suspend coverage, but the Commission may treat ordinary meal and evening activities during required travel, followed by a return to assigned lodging, as still connected to employment depending on the facts.
- Under N.C. Gen. Stat. § 97-12, intoxication can bar benefits if it is a proximate cause of the injury, but the bar does not apply if the intoxicant was supplied by the employer or its agent in a supervisory capacity to the employee.
- Whether an injury arose out of and in the course of employment is treated as a mixed question of law and fact; appellate courts review whether the Commission’s findings are supported by competent evidence and whether its legal conclusions follow from those findings.

## Conclusion

The court affirmed an award of workers’ compensation death benefits for a traveling employee killed near his employer-paid motel while returning from dinner and watching a game at a bar, holding that the Commission could find the incident occurred in the course of employment and that intoxication did not bar recovery where the statutory supervisor-supplied exception applied.


Cauble v. Soft-Play, Inc., 477 S.E.2d 678, 124 N.C. App. 526 (1996)