Sidda Silman Case Study

Facts: Wanda Silman was a clerical assistant. As part of her daily duties, she has to travel to the post office to retrieve the firm’s mail and pay postage fees. On the day in question, after she finished her tasks at the post office she went to her personal bank in the opposite directions for personal reasons. While traveling to her bank she had gotten into a car accident with Michael Timmons. Timmons then sued Silman, her insurer, and the firm’s insurer for physical injuries. The lower court dismissed her employer’s insurer from the case and ruled that Silman’s errand as out of the “scope and course” of her job. The court of appeals also agreed with their ruling. They now bring this case to the Supreme Court to determine if the lower courts were correct.
Issue: Was Silman’s trip to the bank important in the scope and course of her job?
Holding: Yes. Silman was not within the scope and course of her job because she made a personal errand to the bank.
Reasoning
Rule: …show more content…
This means that the “when and where” of the incident counts negatively towards Silman. Her trip was not far from the office, which means that she was still within boundaries of her office. The trip was also short in time length that meant there was less of a liability for the company, and Silman was within the course and scope of her job. However the fact that she went past the law office a farther distance than the post office was in regards to the office, she invalidated her personal errand. Stagg went to the bank during a work errand, even though she was not instructed to do so by her boss. Just because the firm uses this bank, it does not related to her duties of that day to go to the bank. The last factor was the accident that was a result of Silman’s personal errand. She had finished her errands for work, and instead of returning to the office, she went handle personal