Ohio: Worker Fails to Show “Zone of Employment” Should Be Extended to Nearby Public Parking Lot

Acknowledging that Ohio employs exceptions to the usual “going and coming rule,” including the “zone of employment” exception, in which the employer’s premises is deemed to include areas where the employer has control of the conditions and the employee has no option but to pursue a given course, a state appellate court nevertheless affirmed the denial of benefits to a worker who slipped and fell in an enclosed, indoor walkway that connected the employer’s premises to the parking area of a nearby downtown Cleveland office tower. While the employer provided the injured employee with a parking pass that allowed parking in the designated parking lot, it did not require the employee to utilize that particular parking area. Nor did it control or maintain the parking area. It was open to the general public and no parking spaces were reserved or marked for the employer’s workers. The court held the going and coming rule barred compensation.

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 Parrish v. Cavaliers Holding, LLC, 2019-Ohio-89, 2019 Ohio App. LEXIS 106 (Jan. 10, 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