Juan Rodriguez appeals the order denying his claim for workers’ compensation
Mr. Rodriguez worked as a truck driver for Tri-State Trucking Company (TriState) delivering dry cement to Tri-State’s customers. The evening before the accident, he loaded one of Tri-State’s trucks with cement for the first delivery the following day. After he finished, he did not drive home in his personal car because he had accidentally locked the keys inside after driving it to work that morning. Instead, he drove the loaded Tri-State truck home, some fifteen miles in the opposite direction from the job site where the next morning’s delivery was to be made.
When he set out the next morning, November 16, 1997, to make the delivery, Mr. Rodriguez was injured in an accident before he regained the route he would have traveled from Tri-State’s place of business to the delivery site. He had only gone a few miles down the road he ordinarily took — and would have taken in his car if the keys had not been locked inside— driving to work at Tri-State’s distribution center.
Tri-State’s handbook for employees required that, when not in use for business purposes, Tri-State’s trucks were to be kept at Tri-State’s place of business. TriState witnesses conceded, however, that they occasionally gave permission for an employee to take a truck home, the handbook notwithstanding, but only, they testified, if the employee’s home was on a direct route to the next day’s delivery site. Although Mr. Rodriguez claimed that he had been given blanket permission to drive Tri-State trucks home, Tri-State’s witnesses disputed this, and the judge of compensation claims resolved the conflict against him.
In denying compensability, the judge of compensation claims relied on cases holding that an employee who is on a personal mission is outside the scope and course of employment. See Fidelity & Cas. Co. v. Moore,
While going to and coming from work ordinarily fall under the general heading of “personal missions,” see, e.g., Cent. Air Conditioning Co. v. Garren,
An injury suffered while going to or coming from work is not an injury arising out of and in the course of employment whether or not the employer provided transportation if such means of transportation was available for the exclusive personal use by the employee, unless the employee was engaged in a special errand or mission for the employer.
§ 440.092(2), Fla. Stat. (1997). The judge of compensation claims found that Tri State did not provide transportation although, even if he had found Mr. Rodriguez’s use of the truck authorized, nothing in the evidence would have supported a finding that any authorized personal use was not exclusive.
Nor was Mr. Rodriguez “engaged in a special errand or mission for the employer,” § 440.092(2), Fla. Stat. (1997), at the time of the accident. The deviation from the usual route of travel between Tri State and the delivery site did not serve any business purpose at all. See D.C. Moore & Sons,
The dual purpose doctrine has no application here. Mr. Rodriguez took the .truck home solely for his personal convenience. Compare Gilbert v. Publix Supermarkets, Inc.,
Affirmed.
