COURT OF APPEALS OF VIRGINIA 

Present: Chief Judge Moon, Judges Willis and Bray 

Argued at Norfolk, Virginia 

HUNTON & WILLIAMS 

 and VIGILANT INSURANCE COMPANY 

v. Record No. 2437-94-4 OPINION BY 

 CHIEF JUDGE NORMAN K. MOON 

SUE S. GILMER AUGUST 8, 1995 

 FROM THE VIRGINIA 

WORKERS' COMPENSATION COMMISSION 

 Charles P. Monroe (Frank R. Kearney; Mell, 

Brownell & Baker, on brief), for appellants. 

 Karen M. Rye (Melody L. Cockrell, on brief), 

for appellee. 

 Hunton & Williams and Vigilant Insurance Company 

("appellant") appeal a decision of the Virginia Workers' 

Compensation Commission awarding benefits to Sue S. Gilmer for 

injuries she sustained when she slipped on ice and fell while 

walking from her parking space to her place of employment. 

Appellant argues that the commission erred in awarding Gilmer 

compensation because the "going and coming" rule barred a 

determination by the commission that Gilmer suffered an injury by 

accident arising out of and in the course of employment. We 

agree and reverse the commission's ruling. 

 The evidence established that Gilmer worked as a legal 

secretary for Hunton & Williams, which had offices in Crestar 

Bank's downtown Norfolk building. On February 2, 1994, shortly 

before 8:30 a.m., Gilmer arrived at the Crestar Bank parking 

garage, across the street from the bank building. Snow was 
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falling and a light coating of snow covered the garage deck where 

Gilmer parked. As Gilmer walked down a ramp from the level on 

which her car was parked to the next level, she slipped on ice 

and fell, injuring her back. 

 Hunton & Williams neither owns nor maintains the parking 

garage. Gilmer had a regular parking space in the garage for 

which she paid seventy dollars per month via a payroll deduction 

from her earnings at Hunton & Williams. She was not required to 

park in the Crestar garage. 

 Crestar Bank permits Hunton & Williams's employees to park 

in the Crestar garage because Hunton & Williams is a tenant of 

Crestar Bank. Crestar requires Hunton & Williams to pay by one 

check for the parking of all its employees who park in Crestar's 

garage. However, Hunton & Williams does not receive a group rate 

parking discount from Crestar and does not subsidize parking for 

its employees. Rather, Hunton & Williams deducts the cost of 

parking from each employee's paycheck. 

 Hunton & Williams informed all of its employees that though 

they were not required to park in the Crestar garage, they might 

do so if space was available. The record does not reveal whether 

Crestar designated a certain area in the garage to be used 

exclusively by employees of Hunton & Williams. The record also 

does not reveal whether members of the general public were 

allowed to park in Crestar's garage or whether parking was 

restricted to customers and employees of Crestar and its tenants. 

 The Supreme Court of Virginia drew a "bright line" at the 
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employer's door in Brown v. Reed, 209 Va. 562, 565, 165 S.E.2d 

394, 397 (1969), when it held that if an employee is injured 

while going to and from his work and while on the employer's 

premises, the injury is treated at law as though it happens while 

the employee is engaged in his work at the place of its 

performance. See also Jones v. Colonial Williamsburg Found., 

8 Va. App. 432, 437-38, 382 S.E.2d 300, 303 (1989), aff'd en

banc, 10 Va. App. 521, 392 S.E.2d 848 (1990). Virginia is among 

a majority of states that now consider parking lots owned by the 

employer or maintained by the employer for its employees part of 

the "premises," whether within or separated from company 

premises. See 1 Arthur Larson, The Law of Worker's 

Compensation, § 15.42(a), 4-104 (1995); see also Reed, 209 Va. at 

565, 165 S.E.2d at 397; Painter v. Simmons, 238 Va. 196, 380 

S.E.2d 663, 665 (1989). 

 In Barnes v. Stokes, 233 Va. 249, 355 S.E.2d 330 (1987), the 

Supreme Court affirmed a circuit court ruling barring a personal 

injury suit brought by an employee who was injured when struck by 

a motor vehicle operated by a fellow employee in a parking lot 

adjacent to their place of employment while both were departing 

from work. The Court extended the exception to the general rule 

of "going and coming" to cover a section of a parking lot that 

was neither owned nor maintained by the employer, but was used 

exclusively, at the owner's direction, by the employees of the 

employer. The Court held that the employee's exclusive remedy 

was under the Worker's Compensation Act because she 
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 sustain[ed] an injury while passing, with the express 

or implied consent of the employer, to and from [her] 

work by a way . . . "over [the premises] of another in 

such proximity and relation as to be in practical 

effect a part of the employer's premises." 

Id. at 252, 355 S.E.2d at 331 (other citation omitted). 

 In the present case, appellant argues that the commission's 

decision, which relies on one of its earlier rulings, Agee v. 

Alexis Risk Management, 69 O.I.C. 84 (1990), is contrary to 

Virginia case law on the subject of parking lots. In Agee, the 

commission considered whether Agee, who slipped on ice at a 

street intersection while walking to her office from a parking 

lot not owned by the employer, had suffered an injury by accident 

arising out of and in the course of her employment. The employer 

had made arrangements for its employees to park in a particular 

lot but did not require them to park there. The employer 

collected the monthly parking fees from its employees and turned 

the checks over to the lot's owner. The employer received no 

group discount for parking but collected the checks as a courtesy 

to the employees. The evidence showed that Agee used the most 

direct path from her parking space to the building entrance. 

 The commission held that Agee's accident had arisen out of 

and in the course of employment. The commission concluded: 

 The evidence and facts of this record when considered 

with the precedent cited lead us to conclude that the 

parking spaces were provided by the employer for the 

use of its employees, including Agee, and that the 

parking lot and direct path between it and the 

employee's worksite are reasonable extensions of the 

employer's premises. 

Id. at 88. 
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 Relying on Agee, the commission ruled in the present case 

that Gilmer was entitled to compensation. 

 By providing parking facilities for its employees 

through coordination of a leasing arrangement with 

Crestar, Hunton & Williams facilitated the use of those 

facilities and encouraged participation, even if it was 

not required and even if the employee had to pay her 

share of the actual cost of the parking lease. Both 

the employee and the employer benefitted from this 

arrangement, in that the employee would have [a] 

guaranteed parking space in the crowded business area 

and she would not be late for work because she had to 

find and obtain a parking space not otherwise 

immediately available. Agee appropriately extends the 

business premises of the employer to those parking 

areas where arrangements for use by the employee have 

been made and are so utilized. 

 Both Agee and the commission's decision in the present case 

go beyond the rule established in Barnes. In holding that the 

situs of Barnes's injury brought his accidental injury within the 

scope of compensation, the Court stressed the fact that the 

parking area in which Barnes was injured was a designated area 

reserved for the employer's employees only. 

 Even though the evidence showed that members of the 

public who were visiting other tenants in the office 

building could park randomly on the lot in question, 

the accident sued upon occurred in the area 

specifically allocated to the employer and at the place 

where the employees were required to park their 

vehicles. 

Barnes, 233 Va. at 252-53, 355 S.E.2d at 332. In the present 

case, no evidence showed that Hunton & Williams's employees were 

required to park in the Crestar parking garage or that Gilmer 

sustained her injury in an area of the parking lot reserved for 

Hunton & Williams's employees only. Thus, unlike in Barnes, no 

evidence disclosed any control or authority by Hunton & Williams 
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over the area in which Gilmer parked. 

 We note that the parking lot rule is one of the exceptions 

to the rule that bars compensation for injuries not on the 

employer's premises. This exception, unlike others, is based on 

the range of risk of the employment, not the rule of respondent

superior. This is because the employer does not necessarily 

control the employee during the critical period, nor is the 

employee being paid wages during this time. 

 [I]t is not proximity, or reasonable distance, or even 

the identifying of surrounding areas with the premises: 

 it is simply that, when a court has satisfied itself 

that there is a distinct "arising out of" or causal 

connection between the conditions under which claimant 

must approach and leave the premises and the occurrence 

of the injury, it may hold that the course of 

employment extends as far as those conditions extend. 

Larson, supra § 15.15, 4-73 (emphasis added). 

 In holding the injury compensable in Barnes, the Supreme 

Court satisfied itself that there was a causal connection between 

the conditions under which Barnes had to approach and leave the 

premises and the occurrence of the injury. In doing so, the 

Court established the extent to which compensation is to be 

awarded to claimants for injuries occurring in parking lots 

neither owned nor maintained by the employer. The Crestar 

parking garage may have been convenient for Hunton & Williams's 

employees and, therefore, valuable to Hunton & Williams. 

However, absent the conditions noted in Barnes, the Workers' 

Compensation Act does not apply. 

 Reversed.