IN THE COMMONWEALTH COURT OF PENNSYLVANIA

Piedmont Airlines, Inc. and New : Hampshire Insurance Company : c/o Sedgwick Claims Management : Services, Inc., :

Petitioner s :

:
v. : No. 468 C.D. 20 1 8 : Submitted: July 27 , 20 1 8 Workers’ Compen sation Appeal : Board (Watson), :

Respondent :

BEFORE: HONORABLE ROBERT SIMPSON, Judge

HONORABLE CHRISTINE FIZZANO CANNON, Judge HONORABLE DAN PELLEGRINI, Senior Judge

OPINION NOT REPORTED

MEMORANDUM OPINION BY SENIOR JUDGE PELLEGRINI FILED: August 20, 2018

Piedmont A irlines, Inc. (Employer) and New Hampshire Insurance Company c/o Sedgwick Claims Management Services, Inc. petition for review of the Workers’ Compensation Appeal Board ( Board) order affirming a Workers ’ Compensation Judge ’ s (WCJ) decision that grant ed Craig Watson’s (Claimant)

c laim p etition . The WCA concluded that Claimant sustained a work injury while

on the premises for which Employer was responsible. For the following reasons,

we affirm.2 I. The facts are not in disput e. Claimant works as a training supervisor for Employer
, training new employees to be gate agents

. He is provided with a

bad ge granting him a ccess to certain areas of the Philadelphia I nternational Airport (Airport)
, including employee parking lots. The Department of A viation (DOA) issues the badges for which Employer pays a one

- time administrative fee to process the background check necessary for the employee to receive the badge.

O n February 5 , 2016, Claimant was scheduled to work from 8:00 a.m.

to 6 :30 p.m. H is wife drove him to the Bartram Avenue employee parking lot
, which is on e of two parking lots that are designated for employee parking. The

DOA o wns, operates and maintains both lots. As he walked through the parking

lot towards a shelte r to catch an employee shuttle, Claimant slipped and fell on a pile of snow, landing on his right hand at an awkward angle and breaking his right ring finger

.

Claimant reported his injury to Employer’s human resources department , which referred him to Premier Orthopedics where his right hand was put in a cast. Claimant retur ned to work the following week but the swelling in his

hand made his cast uncomfortable. Employer’s w orkers’ co mpensation (WC) case

manager took him off the work schedule and referred him to Michael Rivlin , M.D. (Dr. Rivlin) at the Rothman Institute who perf ormed surgery on his right hand. Claimant initially returned to work the last week of February 2016, but because of continuing pain in his right hand, Dr. Rivlin faxed a doctor’s note to the human

resources department stating that Claimant was to return home.3 In March 2016, Cla imant filed a WC claim petition alleging that he had been injured in the course of his employment and seeking temporary partial disability benefits from February 5, 2016
, to February 9, 2016, and ongoing temporary total disability benefits beginning on February 10, 2016 . Employer

issued a n otice of WC d enial denying that t he injury occurred on Employer’s premises or that Claimant was in the course and scope of hi s employment at the time of the injury. On May 31, 2016, Claimant returned to work.

After a hearing, the WCJ found that Claimant’s injury arose in the course of his employment because he slipped and fell while walking in an employee parking lot that req uired an identi fication card for entry in order to board a bus designated for A irport employees only. The WCJ ordered Employer to pay weekly wage benefits from February 16, 2016
, until May 31, 2016
, when benefits were suspend ed because Claimant returned t o work.

Employer appealed this decision to the Board
, which affirmed, adding that the parking lot was a “reasonable means of access to [C] laimant’s workplace” and “was so connected to [Employer’s] business as to form an integral part thereof.” (R ecord ( R

. ) Item No. 8, Opinion

– Commissioner , p. 4.) This petition

for review followed.

II.

On appeal, Employer argues that the Board erred in finding that

Claimant was injured in the course of his employment because Employer did not require Claimant to use t he Bartram Avenue p arking lot

. It also contend s that4

Claimant’s presence in the parking lot was not required because he did not drive to work or park a car in the lot on the date of his injury. 1

Pursuant to Section 301(c)(1) of the Workers’ Compensation Act (Act), 2 the term “injury” refers to:

[A]n injury to an employe, regardless of his previous physical condition . . . arising in the course of his employment and related thereto, and such disease or infection as naturally results from the injury or is aggravated, reactivated or accelerated by the injury . . . . The term “injury arising in the course of his employment,” as used in this article, s h all not include an injury caused by an act of a third person intended to injure the employe because of reaso ns personal to him, and not directed against him as an employe or because of his employment . . . but shall include all other injuries sustained while the employe is actually engaged in the furtherance of business or affairs of the employer, whether upon t he employer’s premises or elsewhere, and shall include all injuries caused by the condition of the premises or by the operation of the employer’s business or affairs thereon, sustained by the employe, who, though not so engaged, is injured upon the premise s occupied by or under the control of the employer, or upon which the employer’s business or affairs are being carried on, the employe’s presence thereon being required by the nature of his employment.

1 This Court’s standard of review is limited to determining whether the necessary findings of fact are supported by substantial evidence, whether an err or of law has been committed, or whether constitutional rights have been violated. PPL v. Workers’ Compensation Appeal Board (Kloss) , 92 A.3d 1276 (Pa. Cmwlth. 2014).

2 Act of June 2, 1915, P.L. 991, as amended , 77 P.S. § 411(1).5

77 P.S. § 411(1) (emphasis added)

. Under this provis ion, where an employee is not directly engaged in the performance of his duties, an injury still may be compensable if the claimant establishes that: (1) the injury occurred on employer’s premises, (2) the c laimant’s presence thereon was required by the n ature of his employment, and (3) the injury was caused by the condition of t he premises or by operation of e mployer’s business thereon. See US Airways, Inc. v. W orkers’ Compensation Appeal Board (Bockelman) , 179 A.3d 1177, 1180 (Pa. Cmwlth.

2018 ); U.S. Ai rways v. Workers’ Compensation Appeal Board (Dixon) , 764 A.2d 635, 640 (Pa. Cmwlth. 2000).

Employer contends that Claimant fails t o satisfy the first prong of this

test because the injury did not occur on Employer’s premises but on DOA ’s premises. 3 In c onstruing the term “premises” as contemplated by Section 301(c)(1) of the Act, the determinative question is not who owns or controls the premises but whether the site of the accident is so connected with the employer’s business as to form an integral part thereof. Epler v. North American Rockwell Corporation
, 393
A.2d 1163, 1166

- 67 (Pa. 1978). The critical factor is not the employer’s control over the area, but whether the employer caused the area to be used by employees in

the performance of their assig ned tasks. Id. at 1167. This Court has held that a reasonable means of access to the workplace is considered an integral part of the

3 Employer also argues that Claimant is not entitled to benefits because he was merely commuting to work. The general rule is that an employer is not liable to the employee for injuries received off the employer’s premises while the employee is traveling to or from work. Peter son v. Workmen’s Compensation Appeal Board (PRN Nursing Agency) , 597 A.2d 1116, 1119 (Pa. 1991). This argument, however, does not apply because we find that Claimant was on Employer’s premises at the time of his injury.6

employer ’ s business, and, therefore, is part of the employer’s premises. Newhouse v. Workmen’s Compensation Appeal Board (Harris Cleaning Services , Inc. ) , 530
A.2d 545, 546

- 47 (Pa. Cmwlth. 1987).

E mployer argues that even though its employees can park in the DOA
lots, t hey should not be considered Employer’s premises because its employees are

not mandated to use the parki ng lots. However, just because an employee is not required to use the premises, if a m eans of access is customarily used by employees for ingress and egress
, that property can be such an integral part of an employer’s business a s to be considered part of the employer’s premises.

Bockelman , 179 A.3d at 1181.

I n Bockelman , the c laimant w as an employee of US Airways
, Inc., based out of the Airport. The c laimant caught an employee shuttle from the exact same employee parking lot on Bartram Avenue and slippe d on a spill on the

floor of the shuttle bus sustaining an injury

. A lthough US Airways did not mandate that emplo yees use the employee shuttle busses
, the shuttle bus was a customary means of ingress and egress for the employees and part of the employer’s premises

. Similarly, i n t his case, the re is no dispute that the A irport parking lot was a custom ary means of ingress and e gress for its employees
, making it part of its premises.

Even if Claimant met the first prong of the test

– that the injury

o ccurr ed on Employer’s premises

– Employer argues that Claimant was not required to be on the premises where the injury occurred because Claimant did not7

drive to work that day and
, therefore
, had no reason to b e in the employee parking

lot.

However, in ICT Gr oup v. Workers’ Compensation Appeal Board (Churchray

- Woytunick) , 995 A.2d 927 (Pa. Cmwlth. 2010), we considered whether a claimant who sustained an injury from slipping on ice on her employer’s premises when leaving for her lunch break was injured within t he course of her employment. The employer argued that the nature of her employment did not require her to be prese nt in the parking lot, but rather she chose to be there during

her lunch break. We held that the claimant’s presence was required because on ce an employee is on the employer’s premises, getting to or leaving the employee’s

workstation is a necessary part of an employee’s employment.

In this case , Claimant was dropped off at the parking lot to board a

shuttle bus to arrive at work. In order to do so, Claimant had to walk through the employee lot using hi s security badge

– a badge that only granted him clearance to

enter the lot, not his wife who had dr i ve n him to the lot

. Claimant’s presence in the parking lot to get the employee shuttle bus was so connected with his employment relationship that it was required by the nature of his employment

.

Because Claimant was injur ed on Employer’s premises, his presence was required due to the na ture of his employment and the condition o f the premises caused the injury, we affirm the Board’s decision.

_________________________________ DAN PELLEGRINI, Senior JudgeIN THE COMMONWEALTH COURT OF PENNSYLVANIA

Piedmont Airlines, Inc. and New : Hampshire Insurance Company : c/o Sedgwick Claims Mana gement : Services, Inc., :

Petitioner s :

:
v. : No. 468 C.D. 201 8

: Workers’ Compensation Appeal : Board (Watson), :

Respondent :

O R D E R

AND NOW, this 20 th day of August , 2018, the Workers’ Compensation Appeal Board’s order o f March 9 , 2018
, is affirmed.

_________________________________ DAN PELLEGRINI, Senior Judge