## Facts

- John Sandilands, a New York State Department of Public Works engineering technician based in Buffalo, was temporarily assigned to a project near Salamanca, about 80 miles away.
- The State paid for Sandilands’s weekday lodging in Salamanca and reimbursed his weekend travel between Buffalo and Salamanca.
- On a Monday morning, Sandilands drove his personal car from Buffalo toward Salamanca and, due solely to his negligence, skidded and collided with a car driven by John H. Lundberg, killing Lundberg.
- Lundberg’s widow sued the State in the Court of Claims, asserting vicarious liability under respondeat superior for Sandilands’s negligent driving.

## Issues

1. Whether a state employee commuting in his own car from home to a temporary work assignment is acting within the scope of employment when the State pays for lodging and reimburses travel expenses.
2. Whether employer reimbursement for travel, without evidence of control over the commute’s manner and means, suffices to impose respondeat superior liability.

## Decision

- The Court of Appeals reversed the judgments for the claimant and dismissed the claim against the State.
- The court held Sandilands was not acting within the scope of employment while commuting from home to the job site, even though the State reimbursed travel expenses and provided lodging.
- The court treated the trip as ordinary “going and coming” travel rather than employer-controlled work travel between business appointments.
- The court declined to apply broader workers’ compensation concepts of “course of employment” to tort respondeat superior.

## Legal Principles

- As a general rule, an employee is not within the scope of employment when driving to and from work.
- Scope of employment requires conduct in furtherance of the employer’s business and an employer right to control the employee’s activity at the time of the tort.
- Reimbursement of travel expenses and payment for lodging, without employer control over route, timing, or manner of driving, does not by itself bring a commute within the scope of employment.
- Workers’ compensation “necessity for travel” reasoning does not automatically define scope of employment for vicarious liability in tort.

## Conclusion

The court held that a state employee’s negligent drive from home to a temporary work location remained a noncompensable commute for respondeat superior purposes because the State did not control the details of the travel, making vicarious liability improper despite employer-paid lodging and travel reimbursement.


Lundberg v. State, 25 N.Y.2d 467 (N.Y. 1969)