This opinion is subject to revision before final

publication in the Pacific Reporter

2019 UT 55

IN THE

SUPREME COURT OF THE STATE OF UTAH

INTERCONTINENTAL HOTELS GROUP 

and AMERICAN ZURICH INS. CO.,

Petitioners,

v.

UTAH LABOR COMMISSION

and JESSICA WILSON,

Respondents.

No. 20170501

Filed September 4, 2019

On Certification from the Court of Appeals

Attorneys:

Bret A. Gardner, Kristy L. Bertelsen, Scott R. Taylor, Salt Lake City, 

for petitioners

Christopher C. Hill, Salt Lake City, for respondent

Utah Labor Commission

Gary E. Atkin, Kenneth E. Atkin, Salt Lake City, 

for respondent Jessica Wilson

CHIEF JUSTICE DURRANT authored the opinion of the Court, in which

ASSOCIATE CHIEF JUSTICE LEE, JUSTICE HIMONAS, JUSTICE PEARCE, and

JUSTICE PETERSEN joined.

CHIEF JUSTICE DURRANT, opinion of the Court:

Introduction

¶1 Jessica Wilson was injured after she tripped and fell in a 

parking lot while walking into work. To pay for her injuries, 

Ms. Wilson requested workers’ compensation benefits from her 

employer, Intercontinental Hotels Group (IHG), which IHG denied. 

Ms. Wilson appealed this denial to the Utah Labor Commission, and 

the Labor Commission ordered IHG to award benefits. IHG now 

asks us to overturn the Labor Commission’s decision. Because the 

Labor Commission did not err in concluding that Ms. Wilson’s 
IHG v. LABOR COMM’N

Opinion of the Court

2

injuries arose out of, and in the course of, her employment with IHG, 

we decline to do so.

Background

¶2 Ms. Wilson tripped and fell in a parking lot next to IHG’s 

office building while on her way to work. Although IHG does not 

own the parking lot in which Ms. Wilson fell, it does have a 

“nonexclusive right” to use the entire parking lot, as well as 

“exclusive parking rights” to certain spaces in the lot.1 At the time of 

the fall, the parking lot was free of any obvious tripping hazards, 

such as ice, cracks, or other defects.

¶3 As a result of the fall, Ms. Wilson injured her right foot—an 

injury that necessitated two surgeries and the amputation of her 

right third toe. To cover her medical costs, and to receive temporary 

disability compensation, Ms. Wilson filed a workers’ compensation 

claim. But American Zurich Insurance Co., IHG’s workers’ 

compensation provider, denied Ms. Wilson’s claim because it 

believed that, under the going-and-coming rule, her accident did not 

arise out of and in the course of her employment—a prerequisite to 

workers’ compensation coverage under Utah law. Ms. Wilson 

challenged this denial by filing a claim with the Labor Commission.

¶4 An administrative law judge with the Labor Commission 

reviewed Ms. Wilson’s claim and, after holding an evidentiary 

hearing, concluded that Ms. Wilson was entitled to workers’ 

compensation benefits. The judge found that Ms. Wilson had 

“slipped and f[allen] in the parking area her employer directed her 

to use.” As a result, the judge concluded that she was entitled to 

compensation under what courts often refer to as the premises rule. 

IHG appealed this decision to the Labor Commission’s appeals 

board.

¶5 The Labor Commission affirmed the administrative law 

judge’s ruling. In so doing, it found that “the communal parking 

area where the accident occurred [was] . . . part of IHG’s premises 

for purposes of determining compensability under the Utah 

Workers’ Compensation Act.” For this reason, it held that 

Ms. Wilson’s injury was “not precluded from compensability under 

the going and coming rule and the accident [wa]s considered to have 

_____________________________________________________________

1 In exchange for these parking rights, IHG pays the landlord’s 

parking-lot-maintenance costs.
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Opinion of the Court

3

arisen out of and in the course of her employment.” In accordance 

with Utah Code section 63G-4-401, IHG petitioned the Utah Court of 

Appeals to review the entirety of the Labor Commission’s order. The 

court of appeals subsequently certified the case to this court. We 

have jurisdiction pursuant to Utah Code section 78A-3-102(3)(b).

Standard of Review

¶6 IHG asks us to reconsider the Labor Commission’s order 

affirming the award of workers’ compensation benefits to 

Ms. Wilson. “Whether the [Labor] [C]ommission correctly or 

incorrectly denied benefits is ‘a traditional mixed question of law 

and fact.’”2 And the “standard of review we apply when reviewing a 

mixed question can be either deferential or non-deferential.”3

“Deference on a mixed question is warranted when the mixed 

finding is not law-like because it does not lend itself to consistent 

resolution by a uniform body of appellate precedent or is fact-like 

because the [factfinder] is in a superior position to decide it.”4 In this 

case, we must review two Labor Commission determinations: one 

determination that is law-like—whether certain “going and coming” 

exception factors we identified in a previous case applied to 

accidents on an employer’s premises—and another that is fact-like—

whether the accident in this case occurred on the employer’s 

premises. Accordingly, we review the first determination without 

deference, and the second determination with deference.

Analysis

¶7 IHG argues that the Labor Commission erred when it 

determined that Ms. Wilson was entitled to workers’ compensation 

benefits under Utah Code section 34A-2-401 (workers’ compensation 

statute). This statute entitles an employee to workers’ compensation 

benefits if the employee “is injured . . . by accident arising out of and 

in the course of the employee’s employment.”5 The workers’

compensation statute includes two requirements that are relevant to 

this case: the accident must (1) arise out of Ms. Wilson’s employment 

with IHG, and (2) occur in the course of her employment with IHG. 

IHG argues that the accident did not arise out of Ms. Wilson’s 

_____________________________________________________________

2 Jex v. Utah Labor Comm’n, 2013 UT 40, ¶ 15, 306 P.3d 799.

3 Id. (internal quotation marks omitted).

4 Id. (alteration in original) (internal quotation marks omitted).

5 UTAH CODE § 34A-2-401(1) (emphases added).
IHG v. LABOR COMM’N

Opinion of the Court

4

employment, because her injury did not stem from an 

employment-related risk. And it argues that the accident did not 

occur in the course of employment, because Ms. Wilson was 

traveling to work at the time.6 We disagree on both counts.

I. Ms. Wilson’s Accident Arose Out of Her Employment With IHG

¶8 The first piece of the workers’ compensation statute at issue 

is the meaning of the phrase “arising out of” employment. 

Ms. Wilson was injured when she tripped and fell in a parking lot 

next to IHG’s office building while on her way to work. At the time 

of the fall, the parking lot was free of any obvious tripping hazards, 

such as ice, cracks, or other defects. IHG argues that the workers’ 

compensation statute does not cover the unexplained fall in this case,

because the “arising out of” element introduces a causation element 

into the workers’ compensation statute. And IHG argues that this 

causation element limits compensation to only those injuries 

sustained as a result of exposure to risk “to which the general public 

is not exposed.” Although we agree that the phrase “arising out of” 

introduces a causation element into the analysis, we hold that, in the 

workers’ compensation context, the causation element is broad 

enough to encompass the unexplained fall in this case.

A. The phrase “arising out of” introduces an element of causation into the 

workers’ compensation analysis

¶9 The “arising out of” requirement in the workers’ 

compensation statute requires that an accident be caused, in some 

sense, by an employee’s employment. In Bountiful Brick Co. v. Giles, 

the United States Supreme Court stated that liability for an 

employee’s injury “was constitutionally imposed under the Utah 

Compensation Law if there was a causal connection between the 

injury and the employment.”7 And in Utah Apex Mining Co. v. 

_____________________________________________________________

6 IHG argues that Ms. Wilson’s travel-related accident is not 

compensable under what courts often refer to as the 

going-and-coming rule. Under the going-and-coming rule, where an 

employee is injured while traveling to or from the employer’s 

premises, the employee is not entitled to workers’ compensation. See

infra ¶ 27. But, as we explain in section II of this opinion, the 

going-and–coming rule does not apply in this case, because 

Ms. Wilson’s accident occurred on IHG’s premises.

7 276 U.S. 154, 158 (1928) (emphasis added).
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Opinion of the Court

5

Industrial Commission of Utah,

8 one of our earliest workers’ 

compensation cases, we explained that the “arising out of” phrase 

“refer[s] to the origin or cause of the injury.” Subsequent cases have 

also interpreted the “arising out of” language as introducing a 

causation element into the statute.9 So, under our case law, the 

phrase “arising out of” introduces a causation requirement into the 

workers’ compensation analysis. We further clarified the nature of 

this causation requirement in Allen v. Industrial Commission.

10

¶10 In Allen, we explained that the workers’ compensation 

statute contained a causation requirement that made it necessary to 

distinguish those injuries that “coincidentally occur at work because 

a preexisting condition results in symptoms which appear during 

work hours without any enhancement from the workplace,” from 

those injuries which occur because of some condition or exertion 

required by the employment.11 After recognizing this causation 

requirement, we adopted Professor Larson’s “two-part causation 

test.”12 The two parts of this test are (1) legal causation and 

(2) medical causation. We explained that under “the legal test, the 

law must define what kind of exertion satisfies the test of ‘arising out 

of the employment.’”13 And under the medical causation test, “the 

doctors must say whether the exertion (having been held legally 

sufficient to support compensation) in fact caused this [injury].”14

Thus, Allen established that injuries legally and medically caused by 

a work accident satisfy the “arising out of” element of the workers’ 

_____________________________________________________________

8 248 P. 490, 493 (Utah 1926) (internal quotation marks omitted).

9 See, e.g., M & K Corp. v. Indus. Comm’n, 189 P.2d 132, 134 (Utah 

1948) (“The distinction being that in order for an accident to arise out 

of the employment a more definite and closer causal relationship is 

required than is necessary for an accident to arise in the course of the 

employment but in the latter a closer relationship must exist as to 

time and place and as to the nature and type of work being 

performed.”).

10 729 P.2d 15 (Utah 1986).

11 Id. at 25.

12 Id. (citing LARSON, THE LAW OF WORKMEN’S COMPENSATION

§ 38.83 (1986)).

13 Id.

14 Id. (alteration in original) (internal quotation marks omitted).
IHG v. LABOR COMM’N

Opinion of the Court

6

compensation statute.15 Accordingly, we agree with IHG that the 

phrase “arising out of” introduces a causation requirement into the 

workers’ compensation statute. 

B. Ms. Wilson’s accident satisfies the causation requirement

¶11 Although IHG correctly states that the phrase “arising out 

of” requires a causal connection between an employee’s injury and 

employment, we reject IHG’s argument that this element limits 

workers’ compensation to only those injuries sustained as a result of 

exposure to risk “to which the general public is not exposed.” IHG 

argues that the workers’ compensation statute provides benefits only 

for those injuries that occur because the employee’s employment 

creates “an increased risk of injury” due to the nature of the 

employee’s work responsibilities. According to IHG, this more 

restrictive view of causation would seemingly include only such 

risks as “falling objects, explosives, fingers getting caught in a 

machine, or a very heavy lift of an object”—in short, only those risks 

inherent in employment in heavy industry. But we reject this 

argument because it is inconsistent with our case law.

¶12 Our previous cases have made clear that in applying the 

legal causation component of Allen’s two-part causation test, we 

need not determine whether the nature of an employee’s work 

responsibilities created an increased risk to which the general public 

was not exposed. Instead, we need only determine whether the 

employee’s employment can be considered “a condition out of which 

the event arises.”16

¶13 Significantly, this does not require an injured employee to 

prove that a condition of the employment produced “the event in 

affirmative fashion.”17 Rather, an accident is legally caused by 

employment if it occurs “as a natural consequence” of the 

employee’s employment.18 So when the requirements of the workers’ 

_____________________________________________________________

15 We note that IHG does not dispute that the medical causation 

requirement of the Allen test has been met, so only the legal 

causation requirement is at issue in this case.

16 Buczynski v. Indus. Comm’n of Utah, 934 P.2d 1169, 1172 (Utah 

Ct. App. 1997) (emphasis omitted) (internal quotation marks 

omitted).

17 Id. (internal quotation marks omitted).

18 82 AM. JUR. 2D Workers’ Compensation § 225 (2019).
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Opinion of the Court

7

compensation statute are triggered, the employer is obligated to 

provide benefits “regardless of who was at fault in causing [the 

accident].”19 The unexplained fall in this case meets that 

requirement.

¶14 Where “an employee falls while walking down the sidewalk 

or across a level factory floor for no discoverable reason,” the 

causation requirement is satisfied because the “particular injury 

would not have happened if the employee had not been engaged 

upon an employment errand at the time.”20 In other words, in 

unexplained falls at work, employment constitutes a condition out of 

which the accident arises because that particular accident would not 

have happened where and when it did if employment obligations 

had not required the employee to be walking where he or she was 

walking at the time of the accident. Although this concept of 

causation would be insufficient to sustain a finding of tort liability, 

“most courts confronted with the unexplained-fall problem have 

seen fit to award compensation” in the workers’ compensation 

context.21 Our case law is consistent with this rule.

¶15 In Bountiful Brick, the Supreme Court explicitly held that 

there “was a causal connection” between an employee’s employment 

and an injury the employee suffered while walking.22 The Court 

explained that “employment includes not only the actual doing of 

the work, but a reasonable margin of time and space necessary to be 

used in passing to and from the place where the work is to be 

done.”23 And if “the employee [is] injured while passing” to or from 

the place where work is to be done “the injury is one arising out of 

and in the course of the employment.”24 So Bountiful Brick suggests 

that where an employee suffers an injury during travel to a work 

site, the employee’s obligation to travel to the work site sufficiently 

_____________________________________________________________

19 Spencer v. Indus. Comm’n, 290 P.2d 692, 693 (Utah 1955).

20 LARSON, THE LAW OF WORKMEN’S COMPENSATION § 7.04(1)(a)

(2018).

21 Id.

22 276 U.S. at 158.

23 Id.

24 Id.
IHG v. LABOR COMM’N

Opinion of the Court

8

connects the injury to the employment, thus satisfying the causation 

requirement.25

¶16 And this reasoning accords with a number of other Utah 

cases in which we, or the court of appeals, awarded workers’ 

compensation benefits despite the accidents at issue having stemmed 

from risks to which the general public is equally exposed. For 

example, Utah courts have awarded compensation for injuries 

sustained in car accidents,26 while shoveling snow,27 while walking 

in a parking lot,28 and while walking on ice on a public street.29 In 

each of these cases, employment did not increase the risk of injury 

beyond that to which a member of the public would have been 

exposed. Nevertheless, in each case, we, or the court of appeals, 

found the injury compensable because it occurred while the 

employee engaged in an activity connected to the employee’s work 

responsibilities.30 Accordingly, we reject IHG’s risk-based argument, 

and apply the legal causation test identified in our case law.

31

_____________________________________________________________

25 See, e.g., Park Utah Consol. Mines Co. v. Indus. Comm’n, 133 P.2d 

314, 317 (Utah 1943) (awarding benefits stemming from a 

slip-and-fall on ice in front of an employer’s entrance even though it 

did not find that the employer had a duty to keep the area free from 

snow and ice); Ae Clevite, Inc. v. Labor Comm’n, 2000 UT App 35, 

¶¶ 12–13, 996 P.2d 1072 (determining that a slip-and-fall accident on 

an employee’s driveway was “connected” to that employee’s 

employment because the employee worked from home and fell 

while shoveling snow from his driveway so that a work-related 

package could be delivered to his doorstep).

26 Salt Lake City Corp. v. Labor Comm’n, 2007 UT 4, ¶ 4, 153 P.3d 

179.

27 Ae Clevite, Inc., 2000 UT App 35, ¶¶ 11–14.

28 Hope v. Berrett, 756 P.2d 102, 102–04 (Utah Ct. App. 1988).

29 Park Utah Consol. Mines Co., 133 P.2d at 317.

30 We emphasize that in this section we are discussing only the 

“arising out of” requirement in the statute. To be compensable under 

the workers’ compensation statute, the accident must also satisfy the 

“in the course of” requirement—a requirement we discuss in 

Section II of this opinion.

31 We also note that IHG’s risk-based argument seems to be based 

on a formulation of workers’ compensation liability that we 

(Continued)
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Opinion of the Court

9

¶17 In this case, Ms. Wilson’s unexplained fall satisfies the 

causation requirement described in our case law. Ms. Wilson’s 

accident occurred while she walked into work. And even though 

Ms. Wilson could just as easily have slipped while walking to the 

mall or through the park, Ms. Wilson’s “particular injury would not 

have happened” where and when it did but for her obligation to 

appear at IHG’s offices on the morning of the accident.32

Accordingly, Ms. Wilson’s employment was “a condition” out of 

which her accident arose.33

¶18 In sum, we hold that an injury arises out of employment if 

the employment was a condition out of which the accident occurred. 

More specifically, we hold that a slip-and-fall accident arises out of 

employment where the employee slips and falls in a place, and at a 

time, in which the employee would not otherwise have been but for 

the employee’s employment obligations. Because Ms. Wilson slipped 

and fell in a parking lot on her way to work—a place she would not 

have been were she not obligated to report to work on the day of the 

accident—we hold that her accident arose out of her employment.

 

disavowed in Salt Lake City Corp., 2007 UT 4, ¶ 20. In that case, we 

quoted an oft-cited justification for the going-and-coming rule: that 

injuries “suffered as a consequence of the risks and hazards to which 

all members of the traveling public are subject” are not compensable.

Id. ¶ 19. But then we explained that this “formulation of the going 

and coming rule is poorly equipped to handle the task of evaluating 

the relationship between an employer and an employee at the time 

an injury occurs.” Id. ¶ 20. Additionally, even if we had not 

disregarded this risk-based formulation of the workers’ 

compensation statute, it would not apply to the question of whether 

an accident arose out of employment because it was a concept

specifically tied to the going-and-coming rule, a rule used to 

determine whether an accident occurred “in the course of” 

employment. See infra ¶ 23 (explaining that the going-and-coming 

rule is a judicially created principle that guides courts in determining 

whether an accident occurred in the course of employment).

32 LARSON, THE LAW OF WORKMEN’S COMPENSATION § 7.04(1)(a)

(2018).

33 Buczynski, 934 P.2d at 1172 (emphasis omitted) (internal 

quotation marks omitted).
IHG v. LABOR COMM’N

Opinion of the Court

10

II. Ms. Wilson’s Accident Also Occurred in the Course of Her 

Employment Because it Occurred on IHG’s Premises

¶19 In addition to the “arising out of” requirement, the workers’ 

compensation statute also requires an accident to have occurred “in 

the course of” employment. The Labor Commission, citing what 

courts commonly refer to as the premises rule or premises exception, 

found that Ms. Wilson’s accident occurred in the course of her 

employment. IHG argues this was error. It does so in two ways.

¶20 First, IHG argues that the premises rule is an exception to 

what we refer to as the going-and-coming rule, and that, after our 

decision in Jex v. Utah Labor Commission,

34 the Labor Commission 

was required to consider two factors—benefit and control—before 

applying it in this case.35 But IHG errs in assuming the 

going-and-coming rule is relevant in cases involving accidents on an 

employer’s premises. It is not. The going-and-coming rule applies 

only in cases in which an employee is injured off of an employer’s 

premises. And because the purpose of the Jex factors is to help courts 

determine whether an exception to the going-and-coming rule 

should be made, the Jex factors apply only in cases in which an 

employee is injured off of an employer’s premises. In this case, the 

Labor Commission found that the accident occurred on IHG’s 

premises. Accordingly, we conclude the Labor Commission did not 

err in determining that the going-and-coming rule does not bar 

compensation. And in so concluding, we clarify the nature of the 

going-and-coming rule and what is often referred to as the premises 

exception to it.

¶21 Second, IHG argues that, even were the Labor Commission 

not required to consider the Jex factors, it nevertheless erred in 

determining that Ms. Wilson’s accident occurred on IHG’s premises. 

We disagree. Because the Labor Commission did not err in finding 

that IHG’s premises included the parking lot in which Ms. Wilson 

fell, we also affirm the Labor Commission’s finding on this point. 

_____________________________________________________________

34 2013 UT 40, 306 P.3d 799.

35 Under the going-and-coming rule, where an employee is 

injured while traveling to or from the employer’s premises, the 

employee is not entitled to workers’ compensation. See infra ¶ 27. 

Our decision in Jex clarified where exceptions to this rule, which 

would allow recovery for injuries suffered off of an employer’s 

premises, may be applied. See infra ¶ 33.
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Opinion of the Court

11

A. Under the going-and-coming rule, accidents that occur while traveling 

on an employer’s premises occur “in the course of employment”

¶22 First, IHG argues that the Labor Commission erred in 

applying the premises rule as a bright-line rule instead of 

considering the benefit and control factors that we identified in our 

Jex case. But this argument rests on the mistaken assumption that the 

going-and-coming rule applies to cases involving accidents that 

occur on an employer’s premises. This mistake is understandable in 

light of cases that have discussed the premises rule as if it were a 

distinct exception to the going-and-coming rule.36 But a closer look at 

the origins of the going-and-coming rule makes clear that the rule is 

inapplicable in cases involving accidents on an employer’s premises. 

And it also makes clear that what courts sometimes refer to as the 

premises rule, or premises exception, is nothing more than a 

shorthand description of a circumstance in which the 

going-and-coming rule does not apply.

¶23 The going-and-coming rule is a “judicially adopted 

principle” that guides courts in determining whether an accident an 

employee suffers while traveling between home and work occurred 

in the course of the employee’s employment.37 An accident occurs in 

the course of employment if it occurs in “the time, place, and 

circumstances” typical of the employee’s employment.

38 For 

example, in Black v. McDonald’s of Layton,

39 we explained that to “be 

embraced within the ambit of ‘course of employment,’ the injury 

must be received while the employee is carrying on the work which 

he is called upon to perform or doing some act incidental thereto.”

¶24 So, to occur “in the course of” employment, an accident 

“must occur within the period of employment, at a place or area 

where the employee may reasonably be, and while the employee is 

_____________________________________________________________

36 See, e.g., Soldier Creek Coal Co. v. Bailey, 709 P.2d 1165, 1166 

(Utah 1985) (discussing the “premises rule” as an “exception” to the 

“going-to-and-from-work rule”).

37 Jex, 2013 UT 40, ¶ 18 (citing Bailey v. Indus. Comm’n, 398 P.2d 

545, 546 (Utah 1965)).

38 E.g., M & K Corp. v. Indus. Comm’n, 189 P.2d 132, 134 (Utah 

1948).

39 733 P.2d 154, 156 (Utah 1987).
IHG v. LABOR COMM’N

Opinion of the Court

12

engaged in an activity at least incidental to his employment.”40 This 

language clearly includes employees who are injured while actively 

engaged in the work they are assigned to do during a time, and in 

the place, in which they are assigned to do it. But the language 

applies less clearly to accidents employees suffer while traveling to 

or from their work.

¶25 Professor Larson discusses the difficulty presented when an 

accident occurs while an employee travels between home and work:

The course of employment is not confined to the actual 

manipulation of the tools of the work, nor to the exact 

hours of work. On the other hand, while admittedly 

the employment is the cause of the worker’s journey 

between home and factory, it is generally taken for 

granted that workers’ compensation was not intended 

to protect against all the perils of that journey.41

In other words, Professor Larson has identified an inherent tension 

between the aim of awarding compensation for employment-caused 

accidents and the reluctance of courts to interpret workers’ 

compensation statutes to encompass all accidents occurring along 

the entire journey between an employee’s home and an employee’s 

designated work site.

¶26 To resolve this tension, Professor Larson explains that 

almost every jurisdiction has adopted the following rule: “for an 

employee having fixed hours and place of work, going to and from 

work is covered only on the employer’s premises.”42 In other words, 

courts have resolved this tension by adopting a compromise in 

which injuries suffered during the employee’s travel between home 

and an employer’s premises are not compensable, but injuries 

suffered on the employer’s premises are.43

_____________________________________________________________

40 Id. An activity is incidental to employment if it advances, 

directly or indirectly, an employer’s interests. Id.

41 LARSON, THE LAW OF WORKMEN’S COMPENSATION § 13.01(1)

(2018).

42 Id. (footnotes omitted).

43 See id. (explaining that the going-and-coming rule and premises 

rule are opposing sides of a single “compromise” between 

competing workers’ compensation policies).
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Opinion of the Court

13

¶27 So, under this rule, when an employee suffers an injury 

while traveling to or from work, the operative question becomes 

whether the accident occurred on the employer’s premises. If the

accident occurred on the employer’s premises, the rule does not 

apply; but if it occurred off of an employer’s premises, the rule 

applies and will bar compensation (unless a recognized exception to 

the rule applies). We have adopted this rule, and most commonly 

refer to it as the going-and-coming rule.44

¶28 Our decision in North Point Consolidated Irrigation Co. v. 

Industrial Commission of Utah45 represents one of the earliest instances 

in which we recognized the going-and-coming rule. In that case, we 

cited case law from a number of jurisdictions in support of the 

following rule: an “injury incurred by a workman in the course of his 

travel to his place of work, and not on the premises of the employer, 

does not give right to participation in [a workers’ compensation] 

fund.”46

¶29 The rule was again acknowledged in Bountiful Brick Co. v. 

Giles.

47 In that case, the United States Supreme Court reviewed and 

upheld our decision to affirm an award of workers’ compensation 

for an employee killed by a train while crossing train tracks adjacent 

to his work site. In upholding our decision, the Court explained that 

“employment includes not only the actual doing of the work, but a 

reasonable margin of time and space necessary to be used in passing 

to and from the place where the work is to be done.”48 For this 

_____________________________________________________________

44 See, e.g., Salt Lake City Corp. v. Labor Comm’n, 2007 UT 4, ¶ 1, 153 

P.3d 179 (“The law uses the ‘going and coming’ rule to determine 

when a person acquires and abandons her status as an employee at 

the beginning and end of the workday.”); see also Jex, 2013 UT 40, 

¶ 18 (explaining that under the going-and-coming rule, “accidents 

occurring to the employee while going to and from work are 

generally not compensable because they are outside the course of 

employment” (internal quotation marks omitted)); Soldier Creek Coal

Co., 709 P.2d at 1166 (“Travel to and from work is not generally 

considered to be ‘in the course of . . . employment.’” (alteration in 

original)).

45 214 P. 22 (Utah 1923).

46 Id. at 24 (emphasis added) (internal quotation marks omitted).

47 276 U.S. 154 (1928).

48 Id. at 158.
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Opinion of the Court

14

reason, the Court stated that if “the employee [is] injured while 

passing, with the express or implied consent of the employer, to or 

from his work by a way over the employer’s premises, or over those 

of another in such proximity and relation as to be in practical effect a 

part of the employer’s premises, the injury is one arising out of and 

in the course of the employment as much as though it had happened 

while the employee was engaged in his work at the place of its 

performance.”49

¶30 So the decision in Bountiful Brick established that, while 

employees are on their employer’s premises, travel to or from their 

designated work site is incidental to their employment. For this 

reason, an injury that occurs while the employee travels to or from a 

work site on an employer’s premises necessarily satisfies the “in the 

course of” requirement as defined by our case law: it “occur[s] 

within the period of employment, at a place or area where the 

employee may reasonably be, and while the employee is engaged in 

an activity at least incidental to his employment.”50 Accordingly, 

injuries suffered while employees travel to a work site on an 

employer’s premises satisfy the “in the course of” employment 

requirement.

¶31 Although our practice of awarding compensation for 

accidents occurring on an employer’s premises is consistent with the 

language of the workers’ compensation statute, Utah courts quickly 

realized that applying the going-and-coming rule to bar 

compensation in cases involving accidents that occurred off of an 

employer’s premises did not always accord with the statutory 

_____________________________________________________________

49 Id. This opinion also has policy language that formed the 

foundation for one of the first exceptions to the going-and-coming 

rule: the special hazard exception. Id. The special hazard exception 

provides for workers’ compensation benefits where an “off-premises 

point at which the injury occurred lies on the only route, or at least 

on the normal route, which employees must traverse to reach the 

[work site], and that therefore the special hazards of that route 

become the hazards of the employment.” Soldier Creek Coal Co., 709 

P.2d at 1166 (quoting LARSON, THE LAW OF WORKMEN’S 

COMPENSATION § 15.13 (1985)).

50 McDonald’s of Layton, 733 P.2d at 156.
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Opinion of the Court

15

language. Consequently, over time courts created a number of 

exceptions to the going-and-coming rule.51

¶32 These exceptions had the effect of making off-premises 

accidents compensable in certain situations. For example, we have 

applied these exceptions to award compensation to a traveling 

employee injured off of the employer’s premises because the mode 

of transportation was furnished by the employer for the employer’s 

benefit.52 And we have also granted compensation where the 

employee suffered an injury while upon a “special errand” or 

“special mission” for the employer.53 As we explained in Jex, these 

exceptions represent “limited circumstances in which an accident in 

the course of ‘going and coming’ [to or from an employer’s 

premises] is nonetheless within the course of employment.”54

¶33 Because determining whether a particular exception would 

apply in a given case presented a fact-intensive test that was difficult 

to apply consistently,55 in Jex, we articulated a simpler test that can 

be applied more consistently.56 In so doing, we considered a number 

of our previous going-and-coming cases before concluding that, in 

those cases, “an employee is in ‘the course of [her] employment’ if 

she is injured while subject to her employer’s control and while 

benefiting the employer.”57 Accordingly, after our decision in Jex, 

whether the going-and-coming rule will bar compensation for 

off-premises injuries depends on “two factors—employer control and 

benefits conferred.”58

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51 Barney v. Indus. Comm’n, 506 P.2d 1271, 1272 (Utah 1973) 

(explaining that the various exceptions to the going-and-coming rule 

had been created over time as courts made “specific applications of 

the statute to particular fact situations”).

52 Salt Lake City Corp., 2007 UT 4, ¶ 6.

53 State (Tax Comm’n) v. Indus. Comm’n of Utah, 685 P.2d 1051, 1053

(Utah 1984).

54 Jex, 2013 UT 40, ¶ 18.

55 Kinne v. Indus. Comm’n, 609 P.2d 926, 927 (Utah 1980).

56 Jex, 2013 UT 40, ¶¶ 16, 26–27.

57 Id. ¶ 26 (alteration in original).

58 Id. ¶ 27.
IHG v. LABOR COMM’N

Opinion of the Court

16

¶34 But our opinion in Jex did nothing to modify our approach 

to injuries suffered while an employee was travelling on his or her 

employer’s premises. As we have explained, the going-and-coming 

rule stems from an understanding that accidents occurring off of an 

employer’s premises should not be compensable under the workers’ 

compensation statute. Thus where an employee is injured on his or 

her employer’s premises, the going-and-coming rule does not apply, 

and the employee is considered to be in “the course of” employment. 

This is so because when the employee is injured on an employer’s 

premises, the employee’s “connection with employment is both 

‘physical and tangible.’”59 Thus the “employer’s property line 

provides a bright line” for determining whether the injured 

employee is entitled to compensation, and once an employee is 

found to have been injured on his or her employer’s premises, no 

other factors need be considered.60

¶35 In sum, the going-and-coming rule does not apply in cases 

in which an employee is injured on an employer’s premises. Because 

the Labor Commission concluded that Ms. Wilson’s accident 

occurred on IHG’s premises, it did not err in declining to consider 

the Jex factors before concluding that Ms. Wilson’s accident occurred 

in the course of her employment.

B. The Labor Commission did not err in concluding that Ms. Wilson’s 

accident occurred on IHG’s premises

¶36 But IHG also argues that the Labor Commission erred in 

finding that IHG’s premises included the parking lot at issue. The 

Labor Commission’s finding on this point is a fact-like one, to which 

we grant deference. With this in mind, we must determine whether 

the Labor Commission erred in finding that the parking lot in which 

Ms. Wilson fell constituted a part of IHG’s premises.61 We conclude 

that it did not.

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59 Soldier Creek Coal Co., 709 P.2d at 1167 (quoting LARSON, THE 

LAW OF WORKMEN’S COMPENSATION § 15.12(a) (1985)).

60 Id.

61 See Murray v. Utah Labor Comm’n, 2013 UT 38, ¶ 33, 308 P.3d 461

(explaining that where, “as an appellate court,” we are not “in the 

best position to say what the ‘right’ answer is,” we “afford deference 

to [the Labor Commission’s] decision”).
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Opinion of the Court

17

¶37 In Bountiful Brick, the Supreme Court stated that if an 

employee is injured “while passing, with the express or implied 

consent of the employer, to or from his work by a way over the 

employer’s premises, or over those of another in such proximity and 

relation as to be in practical effect a part of the employer’s premises,” the 

injury is compensable.62 This provides us with an operative 

definition of an employer’s premises for the purpose of the workers’ 

compensation statute.

¶38 Under the rule laid out in Bountiful Brick, any area within 

the employer’s premises, or any area lying in such “proximity and 

relation as to be in practical effect a part of the employer’s premises” 

may be considered a part of the employer’s premises for the 

purposes of a workers’ compensation determination.63 So we must 

determine whether the parking lot in this case constitutes part of the 

employer’s premises or lies in such proximity and relation to the 

employer’s premises to be “in practical effect” a part of the 

employer’s premises. It does.

¶39 Utah courts have consistently considered the employer’s 

“premises,” in the workers’ compensation context, to include 

parking lots commonly used by employees. This is so even if the 

employer does not actually own the location where the accident 

occurred. At least two Utah courts have found injuries stemming 

from accidents in parking lots to be covered by the scope of the 

Workers’ Compensation Act.64 And in Bountiful Brick, the Supreme 

Court explained that the “employer’s premises” could be extended 

“to include adjacent premises used by the employee as a means of 

ingress and egress with the express or implied consent of the 

employer.”65 So, under our case law, parking lots are considered to 

be part of an employer’s premises if they are used by employees, as a 

means of ingress and egress into the place of employment, with the 

express or implied consent of the employer. 

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62 276 U.S. at 158 (emphasis added).

63 Id. According to Professor Larson, the “term ‘premises’ 

includes the entire area devoted by the employer to the industry 

with which the employee is associated.” LARSON, THE LAW OF 

WORKMEN’S COMPENSATION § 13.04(1) (2018).

64 See Brown v. Williams, 2017 UT App 29, 392 P.3d 919; Hope v. 

Berrett, 756 P.2d 102 (Utah Ct. App. 1988).

65 276 U.S. at 158.
IHG v. LABOR COMM’N

Opinion of the Court

18

¶40 This rule also accords with the majority rule in other 

jurisdictions. “[P]ractically all jurisdictions” consider parking lots to 

be “part of the ‘premises.’”66 This is true “whether [the lot is] within 

the main company premises or separated from it,” or whether the 

parking lot is “owned, controlled, or maintained by the employer.”67

So if an employee suffers an injury in “a shopping center parking lot 

[that] is used by employees of businesses located in the center,” then 

the parking lot may be considered a part of the employer’s 

premises.68 Based on this rule, the Labor Commission did not err in 

concluding that IHG’s premises included, in practical effect, the 

parking lot at issue in this case.

¶41 In this case, the Labor Commission concluded that the 

parking lot constituted part of IHG’s premises. Because the evidence 

on record supports the finding that the parking lot is used by 

employees, as a means of ingress or egress into their place of 

employment, with the express or implied consent of their employer, 

we cannot say the Labor Commission’s determination—that the 

parking lot is in practical effect a part of IHG’s premises—was 

incorrect under the applicable standard of review.

69 The accident 

occurred while Ms. Wilson walked through the parking lot adjacent 

to IHG’s premises. IHG has a “nonexclusive right” to use the entire 

parking lot, as well as “exclusive parking rights” to certain spaces in 

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66 LARSON, THE LAW OF WORKMEN’S COMPENSATION § 13.04(2)(a)

(2018).

67 Id.

68 Id.

69 As we have explained, whether “the [Labor] [C]ommission 

correctly or incorrectly denied benefits is ‘a traditional mixed 

question of law and fact.’” Jex, 2013 UT 40, ¶ 15. And the “standard 

of review we apply when reviewing a mixed question can be either 

deferential or non-deferential.” Id. “Deference on a mixed question is 

warranted when the mixed finding is not law-like because it does not 

lend itself to consistent resolution by a uniform body of appellate 

precedent or is fact-like because the [factfinder] is in a superior 

position to decide it.” Id. (alteration in original) (internal quotation 

marks omitted). Under this standard, the Labor Commission’s 

determinations regarding the time, place, and factual circumstances 

of the accident are fact-like. So we will not disturb them unless we 

find they are clearly erroneous.
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Opinion of the Court

19

the lot. IHG, through its HR representative, had instructed 

Ms. Wilson to use the parking lot, and both parties agree that IHG 

knew Ms. Wilson regularly parked in the parking lot. Additionally, a 

co-worker testified that Ms. Wilson had parked in an appropriate 

location. These facts provide a sufficient basis for the Labor 

Commission’s finding that the parking lot is part of IHG’s premises.

¶42 In sum, an accident must have occurred in the course of 

employment to be compensable under the workers’ compensation 

statute. Where the accident occurs while the employee travels on an 

employer’s premises this statutory requirement is met. The Labor 

Commission found that Ms. Wilson’s accident occurred on IHG’s 

premises, and that, under our case law, this constituted an accident 

in the course of her employment. We cannot say that the Labor 

Commission’s legal conclusions were incorrect, nor can we say that 

its factual findings were clearly erroneous. Accordingly, we affirm 

the Labor Commission’s determination and hold that Ms. Wilson’s 

accident occurred in the course of her employment with IHG.

Conclusion

¶43 The workers’ compensation statute provides benefits to 

employees for injuries caused “by accident[s] arising out of and in 

the course of the employee’s employment.”70 Because the accident in 

this case arose out, and in the course, of Ms. Wilson’s employment 

with IHG, the workers’ compensation statute entitles her to benefits. 

Accordingly, we affirm the Labor Commission’s award of benefits.

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70 UTAH CODE § 34A-2-401(1).