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Mass. court must handle interstate trucker’s comp claim

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The workers compensation case involving an injured interstate tractor-trailer driver who lives in Massachusetts and works for a company based in Pennsylvania belongs in a Massachusetts court, the Supreme Judicial Court of Massachusetts ruled Thursday.

 

While working for Chambersburg, Pennsylvania-based Franklin Logistics Inc., Massachusetts resident Mark Mendes injured his lower back while attempting to attach a loaded trailer to his truck at a location in Maine. Upon receiving medical treatment in his home state, he was diagnosed with a bulging disc that caused him to be physically unable to continue his work as a truck driver, according to documents in In Re Mark Mendes Case, filed in Suffolk, Massachusetts.

 

Although Franklin Logistics, a national freight transportation company that recruited drivers nationwide, did not own cargo terminals in Massachusetts, it used three facilities belonging to customers in three towns where drivers, including Mr. Mendes, exchanged empty trailers for trailers loaded with goods to be delivered, according to documents. Mr. Mendes’ driving record showed that he drove through 25 states to deliver goods.

 

After “protracted administrative proceedings” in the Department of Industrial Accidents, his claim for workers compensation benefits was ultimately denied and dismissed by the department’s reviewing board “which determined that the department lacked subject matter jurisdiction over the claim,” documents state. 

 

Mr. Mendes later appealed this determination to the state Appeals Court, and the state’s highest granted the application for direct appellate review, according to documents.

 

It its ruling remanding the case back to the board, the Supreme Judicial Court wrote that the board “appears to have adopted the narrowest of these tests for determining whether an employment relationship is located in Massachusetts.” Thursday’s ruling further explained the board’s decision that “because Massachusetts was neither the place of hire nor the place of injury, the only way for the Commonwealth to have jurisdiction over the employee’s claim would be if ‘something happened’ to transfer the relationship from the place of hire, Pennsylvania, to Massachusetts. Because the employee did not make such a showing, the board concluded that jurisdiction in the Commonwealth could not be established.”

 

In reversing this determination, the state’s highest court ruled that “sufficient significant contacts between Massachusetts and the claimant's employment such that the employment relationship was located in Massachusetts.”

 

“During the course of his employment, the claimant drove the employer’s tractor-trailer thousands of miles in Massachusetts, more than he drove in any other State except Pennsylvania,” the ruling states. “Further, the claimant had employment-related contact with Massachusetts on almost one-half (46.6%) of the days he worked for the employer, more than with any other State. He picked up tons of goods from, and delivered tons of goods to, the employer’s Massachusetts customers.”

 

Adding that the worker was permitted to park his truck in his home state and that he was treated in his home state, the high court concluded “that the Commonwealth has jurisdiction over the claimant's claim.”

 

 

 

 

 

 

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