Position paper presented at CSIMS 2024 by Hon. Robert G. Rassp, Chairman of the Board of Directors, Friends Research Institute (friendsresearch.org) Disclaimers: The opinions expressed in this article...
CALIFORNIA COMPENSATION CASES Vol. 89, No. 8 August 2024 A Report of En Banc and Significant Panel Decisions of the WCAB and Selected Court Opinions of Related Interest, With a Digest of WCAB Decisions...
By Hon. Susan V. Hamilton, Former Assistant Secretary and Deputy Commissioner, California Workers’ Compensation Appeals Board The June 13, 2024 edition of the LexisNexis Workers’ Compensation...
LexisNexis has selected some of the top “noteworthy” panel decisions issued by the California Workers’ Compensation Appeals Board during the period January through June 2024. The first...
By Hon. Susan V. Hamilton, Former Assistant Secretary and Deputy Commissioner, California Workers’ Compensation Appeals Board It is well understood that the California Insurance Guarantee Association...
Noteworthy panel decision finds going and coming rule didn’t bar shopping mall worker’s claim for injuries
An Appeals Board panel, affirming the WCJ, held that an applicant’s claim for injuries incurred on 2/18/2012 when she slipped after leaving the premises of her employment at Bath and Body Works but while still within the confines of Northridge Mall where the Bath and Body Works was located, was not barred by the “going and coming” rule.
The Appeals Board panel held that injuries are compensable if they are sustained on property provided to access the employer’s premises even if the means of access is not wholly under the employer’s ownership, control or management. Although the applicant in this case was injured in an area not owned or controlled by the employer, the mall was the only practical means of access to the employer’s premises, and the applicant was required to use the mall to enter and exit her place of employment.
The Appeals Board panel further found that the applicant’s injury occurred within a reasonable margin of time and space necessary to pass to and from the location where she actually worked. The applicant’s employment relationship with the defendant was not suspended during her walk through the mall, as she had not yet reached her regular commute for purposes of applying the “going and coming” rule, concluded the Appeals Board panel. See Haddad panel decision.
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