Nevada Supreme Court Sets Totality-of-Circumstances Test for Law-Enforcement Workers' Comp in GGRM Case
Won by GGRM Law Firm.
The Nevada Supreme Court adopted a totality-of-circumstances test for the law-enforcement exception to the going-and-coming rule, affirming workers' compensation coverage for a Las Vegas Metro traffic officer injured while commuting after his sergeant ordered him to get motorcycle seat time.
What happened
David Figueroa was a traffic officer with the Las Vegas Metropolitan Police Department, an assignment that required him to ride a motorcycle on duty. After a period away from that post, he was preparing to return, which meant logging practice miles on a bike. On the day of the accident, he rode his personal motorcycle to work. Before he left for home, his sergeant told him to get some 'seat time' on the way back to sharpen his riding skills ahead of the transition. Figueroa followed the directive. During the commute home, another vehicle struck him and he suffered injuries.
Figueroa filed a workers' compensation claim with Cannon Cochran Management Services, Inc. (CCMSI), the third-party administrator handling claims for his employer. CCMSI denied coverage. The insurer's position relied on the going-and-coming rule, a baseline principle in workers' compensation law that excludes injuries sustained while traveling to and from work. An appeals officer sided with CCMSI, concluding that Figueroa was simply commuting on a personal vehicle and that no recognized exception brought his trip within the scope of employment.
Figueroa sought judicial review. The district court reversed the appeals officer, finding that the circumstances of his commute that day were not ordinary. CCMSI appealed to the Nevada Supreme Court.
Jason Mills, then of Jason D. Mills and Associates and now of GGRM Law Firm, represented Figueroa before the court. The central legal question was how Nevada should evaluate law-enforcement officers' workers' compensation claims when an injury occurs off-site but during an activity connected to official duties. The court considered two competing frameworks: a categorical approach that would extend the law-enforcement exception automatically to sworn officers, and a fact-specific approach that would examine the full circumstances of each incident.
The Nevada Supreme Court, in a decision dated July 30, 2020, adopted the totality-of-the-circumstances test. It held that courts must weigh all relevant facts, including the nature of the directive, the officer's assignment, and how closely the activity at the time of injury was tied to official duties. Applying that standard, the court concluded that the appeals officer's denial was arbitrary and capricious. Figueroa's sergeant had given a direct order connected to his pending traffic-officer duties, and the ride home was the moment chosen to satisfy it. The court affirmed the district court's grant of workers' compensation coverage.
The court also clarified that the distinct-benefit exception, a separate workers' compensation doctrine, does not apply to law enforcement claims; the law-enforcement exception governs instead. Cannon Cochran Management Services, Inc. v. Figueroa, 136 Nev. Adv. Op. 51, 468 P.3d 827 (2020) stands as the controlling Nevada precedent on how the law-enforcement going-and-coming exception is analyzed.
Sources
This account is drawn from contemporaneous public reporting and the court record.
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