Opinion ID: 2629801
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: the employee is entitled to workers' compensation benefits.

Text: ¶ 7 The employer does not dispute that the claimant sustained an accidental injury in the shopping center parking lot. Rather, it contends that the injury neither arose out of nor occurred in the course of employment, and that it does not own or control the parking lot. It argues that the claimant is not entitled to workers' compensation benefits because: 1) she was injured while going to work; 2) there was no causal relationship between her act of walking into the building and the requirements of employment; 3) her fall was the result of a neutral risk of wetness which is not an employment related risk or hazard maintained or controlled by the employer; and 4) she was exposed to no more risk than that to which the general public would be exposed. The employer relies on our decisions in Odyssey/Americare of Oklahoma v. Worden, 1997 OK 136, 948 P.2d 309 and American Management Systems v. Burns, 1995 OK 58, 903 P.2d 288, to support its argument. ¶ 8 The claimant counters that Worden and Burns are inapplicable because they involved injuries which occurred off the employer's premises. She argues because her injury occurred in the parking lot, while going into work, it is deemed to have arisen out of and in the course of employment. She asserts that: 1) our decision in Corbett v. Express Personnel, 1997 OK 40, 936 P.2d 932 and its underlying rationale are controlling and dispositive of this cause; and 2) the parking lot does not need to be directly owned or under the complete control of the employer to be considered the premises of the employer for workers' compensation purposes. Because the injury here occurred on what is deemed to be the employer's premises, we agree that Worden and Burns do not apply.
¶ 10 Neither party disputes that the owner of the shopping center provided the parking lot for the joint use and benefit of employees and customers, nor that the employer acquiesced in the employee's use of the landlord-provided parking lot. Similar situations existed in Max E. Landry, Inc. v. Treadway, 1966 OK 259, 421 P.2d 829 and Swanson v. General Paint Co., 1961 OK 70, 361 P.2d 842. ¶ 11 The Treadway employer conducted its business in a building in which several other business were operated. The owner of the building provided a parking lot for the employees and customers of the building to use. When the Treadway claimant arrived for work, she slipped and fell before entering the building. The Court held that insofar as workers' compensation law is concerned, a parking lot constitutes an employer's premises when the employer's landlord furnishes it for the joint use of tenants and their employees, and its use is acquiesced in by the employer. ¶ 12 In Swanson, an employee was killed while crossing a highway from the parking area to the place of employment. The landlord furnished a parking area for the convenience of its several tenants and their employees. The employer acquiesced in the employee's use of a landlord-provided parking lot. The Swanson Court held that the parking area constituted a part of the employer's premises within the meaning of the Act. Pursuant to the rule set forth in Treadway and Swanson, the shopping center parking lot constituted the employer's premises.