Administrative Rules of Montana
Department 24 - LABOR AND INDUSTRY
Chapter 24.16 - WAGES AND HOURS
Subchapter 24.16.10 - Hours Worked
Rule 24.16.1010 - TRAVEL TIME

(1) General. The principles which apply in determining whether or not time spent in travel is working time depend upon the kind of travel involved.

(2) Home to work; ordinary situation. An employee who travels from home before his regular workday and returns to his home at the end of the workday is engaged in ordinary home to work travel, which is a normal incident of employment. This is true whether he works at a fixed location or at different job sites. Normal travel from home to work is not worktime.

(3) Home to work in emergency situations. There may be instances when travel from home to work is worktime. For example, if an employee who has gone home after completing his day's work is subsequently called out at night to travel a substantial distance to perform an emergency job for one of his employer's customers, all time spent on such travel is working time. Travel to the job and back home by an employee who receives an emergency call outside of his regular hours to report back to his regular place of business to do a job is working time.

(4) Home to work on special one day assignment in another city. A problem arises when an employee who regularly works at a fixed location in one city is given a special one day work assignment in another city. For example, an employee who works in Helena, with regular working hours from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m., may be given a special assignment in Missoula, with instructions to leave Helena at 8 a.m. He arrives in Missoula at 12 noon, ready for work. The special assignment is completed at 3 p.m., and the employee arrives back in Helena at 7 p.m. Such travel cannot be regarded as ordinary home-to-work travel occasioned merely by the fact of employment. It was performed for the employer's benefit and at his special request to meet the needs of the particular and unusual assignment. It would thus qualify as an integral part of the "principal" activity which the employee was hired to perform on the workday in question; it is like travel involved in an emergency call or like travel that is all in the day's work. All the time involved, however, need not be counted. Since, except for the special assignment the employee would have had to report to his regular work site, the travel between his home and the railroad depot may be deducted, it being in the "home-to-work" category. Also, of course, the usual meal time would be deductible.

(5) Travel that is all in the day's work. Time spent by an employee in travel as part of his principal activity, such as travel from job site to job site during the workday, must be counted as hours worked. Where an employee is required to report at a meeting place to receive instructions or to perform other work there, or to pick up and to carry tools, the travel from the designated place to the work place is part of the day's work, and must be counted as hours worked regardless of contract, custom, or practice. If an employee normally finishes his work on the premises at 5 p.m. and is sent to another job which he finishes at 8 p.m. and is required to return to his employer's premises arriving at 9 p.m. all of the time is working time. However, if the employee goes home instead of returning to his employer's premises, the travel after 8 p.m. is home-to-work travel and is not hours worked. Wallinq v. Mid-Continent Pipe Line Co., 143 F. 2d 308 (C.A. 10, 1944).

(6) Travel that keeps an employee away from home overnight is travel away from home. Travel away from home is clearly worktime when it cuts across the employee's workday. The employee is simply substituting travel for other duties. The time is not only hours worked on regular working days during normal working hours but also during the corresponding hours on nonworking days. Thus, if an employee regularly works from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. from Monday through Friday the travel time during these hours is worktime on Saturday and Sundays as well as on the other days. Regular meal period time is not counted.

(7) When private automobile is used in travel away from home community. If an employee is offered public transportation but requests permission to drive his car instead, the employer may count as hours worked either the time spent driving the car or the time he would have had to count as hours worked during working hours if the employee had used the public conveyance.

(8) Work performed while traveling. Any work which an employee is required to perform while traveling must of course be counted as hours worked. An employee who drives a truck, bus, automobile, boat or airplane, or an employee who is required to ride therein as an assistant or helper, is working while riding, except during bona fide meal periods or when he is permitted to sleep in adequate facilities furnished by the employer.