## Facts

- Norwood Glenn Powers worked for Lady’s Funeral Home as a mortician and embalmer whose duties included meeting with families and embalming bodies.
- On July 29, 1978, Powers began work at 8:00 a.m. and was required to remain at the funeral home or be on call at home until 8:00 a.m. the next morning.
- After a “night man” started at 10:30 p.m., Powers still had to remain on call at home for embalming work and respond immediately to calls.
- The funeral home had no shower or changing facilities; after embalming, Powers needed to shower and change due to odor and because he interacted with bereaved families.
- Around midnight, Powers was called from home to perform embalming work; he promptly drove to the funeral home, performed work-related tasks including meeting the family, and embalmed the body.
- After completing the embalming, he drove home in his personal car to shower, change, and remain on call.
- At about 2:30 a.m., upon arriving home, his car rolled down a sloped driveway, struck him, knocked him through the door, and seriously injured his legs and ankles.
- Powers sought workers’ compensation benefits for the injury.

## Issues

1. Whether an injury occurring on an employee’s own premises immediately after returning from an employer-required special errand, and while the employee remained on call, arose out of and in the course of employment under the North Carolina Workers’ Compensation Act.
2. Whether the special-errand exception to the going-and-coming rule can extend beyond travel on public ways to cover injury occurring after the employee reenters his own property.

## Decision

- The Supreme Court of North Carolina reversed the Court of Appeals and held Powers’s injury arose out of and in the course of employment.
- The court applied the special-errand exception and rejected a rule ending coverage at the employee’s property line.
- The case was remanded for entry of an award of workers’ compensation benefits.

## Legal Principles

- Under the going-and-coming rule, injuries incurred while traveling to and from work are generally not compensable.
- Under the special-errand (special-mission) exception, injuries connected to travel undertaken at the employer’s direction outside ordinary commuting may be compensable.
- Course of employment is determined functionally: the question is whether the employee was engaged in an activity reasonably incident to employment, not whether the employee was on a public way or on private property.
- When an employer’s work arrangement effectively requires an employee to use home facilities to complete employment-related needs (e.g., showering and changing after embalming due to lack of workplace facilities and continuing on-call obligations), travel home for that purpose may remain within the course of employment.
- “Arising out of” is satisfied where the employee’s presence at the place and time of injury is induced by employment requirements and bears a causal connection to the work.

## Conclusion

Because Powers returned home immediately after an employer-directed midnight embalming to shower and change (a work-related necessity given the lack of workplace facilities) and to remain available for further calls, his driveway injury was sufficiently connected to his continuing service to be compensable despite occurring on his own premises.


Powers v. Lady’s Funeral Home, 306 N.C. 728, 295 S.E.2d 473 (1982)