An appeals court in North Carolina found that an employee who was traveling for work when he slipped and fell in a hotel lobby while retrieving laundry is not eligible for workers’ compensation. He was unable to prove he needed to do laundry as part of his trip.

In 2013 Jerry McSwain was working for Industrial Commercial Sales & Service LLC and was traveling as part of a work project. He finished a day early, and his company told everyone to stay on site since it would have been more expensive to change flights to leave early.

On this “free day” he slipped and fell on a wet spot in the hotel lobby while retrieving his laundry. He had been with some co-workers on the hotel patio consuming alcohol prior to his fall.

His employer denied his claim and appeal, and a deputy commissioner and the full state Workers’ Compensation Commission ruled his injury did not fall within the scope of his employment, because he “has failed to prove a causal relationship between walking through the hotel to check on his laundry and his employment.”

The appeals court found that some injuries suffered by traveling employees are compensable under state case law, but his injury did not meet the bar for proving doing his laundry was necessary.

They determined there was not enough evidence to support the finding that he had run of out clean clothes and needed to do laundry in order to provide clean clothes for the rest of the trip.

Read more here.