A flight attendant was injured in a motorcycle accident during a layover, and sought workers’ compensation benefits for her injuries. The insurer denied her and requested a summary judgment on the case from the Workers’ Compensation Court of Montana.

Tamara Holtz worked for Delta Airlines, Inc. as a flight attendant. On June 21, 2014 she flew from Salt Lake City to Seattle, then onto Cincinnati where she had a layover overnight until she was scheduled to fly back to Salt Lake City the morning of June 23. While she was on her layover in Cincinnati on June 22 she went out to lunch with friends on a motorcycle. They got into an accident and she suffered an injury to her leg, which Indemnity Insurance Co. denied responsibility for because they claimed she was not acting in the course and scope of her employment at the time of the accident.

In addition to regular flight attendant wages paid during flight times, Holtz was paid an hourly wage while she was traveling on behalf of Delta, and her flight schedule could be subject to change if Delta decided. She was somewhat “on-call” though FAA regulations require that flight attendants are allowed an eight hours rest period after they work so many hours. Her hotel rooms were paid for by her employer but her meals outside of the airplane were not reimbursed and Delta did not place stipulations on where she went or what she did during her layovers.

Holtz contended that Delta did have some control over her during her layover since they decided which city she went to, which hotel she would stay in, and she was expected to be “on-call” in case she needed to be ready to go on another flight different from the one she was expected to take out. The court sided with the insurer since she was on a “break” (paid or not, it is still a break), was not at the site of her employment, and was not doing any of her specified tasks for her job. Her argument that she was performing a duty for her employer by being on-call did not hold up, as the court said that this fell under the coming and going rule and any injuries she sustained would not be compensable until she arrived at her worksite.