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An employee who was killed as a result of an automobile accident after a night out while he was working away from home was held to be in the course of his employment. In the case of Angela Ann Cavalcante versus Lockheed Electronics Company,85 N.J. Super. 320 (1964), the Workers Compensation Court applied a “reasonable” standard in its analysis of the facts to determine that the case was compensable because it was reasonable for an employee working temporarily out of state to seek some relaxation with colleagues after working irregular hours for several days.
The employee and four other co-workers had been sent by their employer Lockheed Electronics Company from Plainfield New Jersey to New London, Connecticut for a “clean up” job which was supposed to last a week. At the end of the third day, the co-workers decided to “go out and see what New London (Connecticut) was like.” They ended up in the Seven Brothers Restaurant which had a restaurant, bar and dance hall. On the way back to the motel, the deceased employee Richard Cavalcante failed to negotiate a hidden curve in the road and went off the roadway and sustained fatal injuries. The other co-workers survived the accident.
The New Jersey Workers Compensation Judge found that the accident arose out of and in the course of employment and awarded dependency benefits to Angela Ann Cavalcante, the wife of employee Richard Cavalcante. Lockheed Electronics Company’s workers compensation insurance company took an appeal to the Superior Court of New Jersey and the Appellate Court at that time upheld the Workers Compensation Judge’s decision that the case “arose out of and in the course of employment”. The Appellate Court rejected arguments that the Mr. Cavalcante’s activities on the night of his accident were beyond the limit of those “reasonably necessary to serve the basic subsistence needs of the employee”. The court rejected the notion that the evening trip was a departure from the employment on a purely personal matter.
The court stated that “This court feels bound to hold that an employee, who is away from home at the direction of his employer, is not acting unreasonably where he seeks to satisfy his physical needs, including relaxation, provided this is done in a reasonable manner, as in the present case… In the instant case the visit to the tavern was with fellow employees simply seeking some reasonable relaxation. Reasonableness is the key to recovery … Because it is reasonable for a traveling employee to seek some physical relations, and because this was done in a reasonable manner, this accident and the consequent death did arise out of and in the course of decedent’s employment.”
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