Wis JI-Civil 4045

The first question to be resolved by you is whether the trip in question was that of

the employer or the employee. If the trip is determined to be the employer’s, the

employee is engaged in his or her employer’s business and acting within the scope of his

or her employment while going to or returning from the place where his or her

employer’s business required him or her to go. If it is the employee’s trip, he or she is

not within the scope of his or her employment while traveling on the trip.

If the work of the employee for his or her employer creates the necessity for travel,

the employee is in the course of his or her employment while traveling on the trip, even

though he or she is serving at the same time some purpose of his or her own. If, however,

the work of the employee for his or her employer has had no part in creating the necessity

for travel, the travel then becomes the personal trip of the employee and outside the scope

of his or her employment.

In case it is the employer’s trip and the employee makes any detours for purely

personal objectives, such detours must be separated from the main trip and the employee

held to be outside the scope of his or her employment during such detours. If it is the

employee’s own trip, then detours which are made for the purpose of dispatching

business for his or her employer are within the scope of his or her employment.