Respondent Superior

a. Trips from home: Most courts hold that where an accident occurs where the employee is traveling from her home to work, she is not acting within the scope of her employment; this conclusion is often based on the theory that the employer has no "control" over the employee at that time.

(1) Returning home: When the employee is returning home after business activities, the courts are divided, although most would probably deny liability on the employer's part here as well.

b. Frolic and detour: It frequently happens that, while on a business trip, the employee makes a short "side trip" or "detour" for her own purposes.

(1) Traditional view: The traditional view has been that while the employee is on the first leg of her side trip (i.e., going to the personal objective) she is engaging in what is often called a "frolic and detour," and thus is not within the scope of her employment. But as soon as she begins to return towards the path of her original business trip, she is once again within the scope of her employment, no matter how fair afield she may be at that point.

(2) Modern view: But many modern courts have taken a less mechanical view of the frolic and detour problem. These courts have held that the employee is within the scope of business if the deviation is "reasonably foreseeable." Under this view, the employee might be within the scope of employment even while she was heading toward the object of her personal errand, if this deviation was slight in terms of distance. But if the deviation was large and unforeseeable then the employee is not within the scope of business even while heading back towards her business goal, at least until she gets reasonably near the route she was supposed to take.