Georgia: Estate of Employee Shot and Killed in Abortive Robbery in Parking Lot May Sue Employer

A Georgia trial court erred when it granted summary judgment in favor of an employer in a civil action filed against it (and others) following the fatal shooting of an employee in a parking lot adjacent to the employer’s grocery store, when the employee worked. Noting that at the time of the shooting, which occurred during an abortive armed robbery, the deceased employee had clocked out and left the store’s premises, the court stressed that issues of fact existed as to whether the deceased employee was “in the course of” her employment when she was shot. The deceased was standing in the parking lot, talking to another employee about matters unrelated to the store’s operation, when a car approached and two armed men got out, demanding their purses and wallets. A shootout ensued between the would-be robbers and an assistant store manager, who had just locked the store. The court noted that the parking lot was not owned by the employer and served not only the employer’s customers, but those of adjacent stores as well. The factual issues precluded summary judgment, said the court.

Thomas A. Robinson, J.D., the Feature National Columnist for the LexisNexis Workers’ Compensation eNewsletter, is co-author of Larson’s Workers’ Compensation Law (LexisNexis).

LexisNexis Online Subscribers: Citations below link to Lexis Advance.

See Smith v. Camarena, 2019 Ga. App. LEXIS 631 (Oct. 30, 2019)

See generally Larson’s Workers’ Compensation Law, § 13.04.

Source: Larson’s Workers’ Compensation Law, the nation’s leading authority on workers’ compensation law

For a more detailed discussion of the case, see