The Washington Supreme Court has ruled that the state’s traveling employee doctrine – a key standard for workers’ compensation coverage – also applies to occupational diseases under state law.
The decision stems from a claim by an Alaska Airlines flight attendant who said she contracted COVID-19 in March 2020 while working eight flights, including several transcontinental routes.
The state Department of Labor initially approved her claim, but Alaska Airlines appealed, arguing COVID did not qualify as an occupational disease.
A Board of Industrial Insurance Appeals judge sided with the airline. The flight attendant then took the case to superior court, where a jury found COVID did meet the statutory definition of an occupational disease.
The judge instructed jurors that occupational disease must arise “naturally and proximately” from the employee’s work – meaning the condition must come from a distinctive feature of the job, not “conditions of everyday life or of all employments in general.”
Another instruction said the traveling employee doctrine provides coverage for the full duration of business trips, including time spent in transit, at hotels, and during meals.
Alaska Airlines argued those instructions conflicted – claiming the traveling employee doctrine only covers physical injuries, such as slips or falls, not diseases. The jury disagreed and found coverage applied.
On appeal, the Washington Court of Appeals overturned the verdict, agreeing with the airline that the jury had been misdirected. That ruling triggered Supreme Court review.
The state’s highest court reversed the appeals court, finding the superior court’s instructions correct.
It said the traveling employee doctrine doesn’t redefine occupational disease – it simply means that if a worker contracts a qualifying disease while traveling for work, that illness is compensable.
The Supreme Court remanded the case back to the Court of Appeals to determine whether evidence supported the jury’s original finding that the flight attendant’s COVID-19 exposure met the legal definition of an occupational disease.
We think this ruling could ripple through future comp cases involving infectious diseases. It doesn’t open the door to every travel-related illness – but it does expand the ground rules for when and where work begins.
