## Facts

- Joseph Smyth was a math instructor and department chair at Santa Rosa Junior College.
- Smyth lived about 60 miles from campus; his family resided there for personal convenience.
- Smyth often worked beyond normal hours and regularly took grading and preparation work home, especially while serving as department chair.
- Smyth used a designated area in his living room for work and kept duplicate books there.
- The college provided adequate on-campus facilities and time for grading and preparation and neither encouraged nor discouraged taking work home.
- Smyth was killed in a car accident while driving home from campus in his personal vehicle, carrying student papers he intended to grade that evening.

## Issues

1. Whether an employee’s regular practice of working at home, including commuting with work materials, makes the home a “second jobsite” so that injuries sustained while traveling between home and the primary workplace are compensable despite the going-and-coming rule.

## Decision

- The California Supreme Court affirmed the denial of benefits and held Smyth’s death noncompensable.
- The court applied the going-and-coming rule and rejected treating Smyth’s home as a second jobsite on these facts.
- The court held that, absent an employer requirement that the employee work at home as a condition of employment, regular home work does not convert the home into a second jobsite for commuting-injury purposes.
- The court concluded the WCAB improperly awarded death benefits because the employer did not require home work and provided adequate workplace facilities.

## Legal Principles

- The Workers’ Compensation Act covers injuries “arising out of and in the course of employment,” but the going-and-coming rule generally excludes ordinary commute injuries.
- Travel between two jobsites may be compensable when the employee is traveling between an employer-required second jobsite and the primary workplace.
- A home becomes a “second jobsite” for purposes of the second-jobsite exception only when the employer requires substantial work at home as a condition of employment; employer neutrality or employee preference is insufficient.
- Policy limits on exceptions to the going-and-coming rule are appropriate to avoid expanding compensability to ordinary commuting risks for large categories of employees who commonly take work home.

## Conclusion

Because the college did not require Smyth to perform work at home as a condition of employment, his regular practice of taking papers home did not make his home a second jobsite; therefore, his fatal commute fell within the going-and-coming rule and was not compensable.


Santa Rosa Junior Coll. v. Workers’ Comp. Appeals Bd., 40 Cal. 3d 345 (Cal. 1985)