Court Opinion

ID: 9536307
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-07 06:57:22.575754+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T13:32:12.295815
License: Public Domain

McGovern, J.
(dissenting) — I dissent. In 1959 and 1960 when management and labor “mutually agreed that industrial insurance coverage should be extended to employees going and coming from their actual work site,” they did so because employees were not then covered while going and coming on the premises controlled by the employer.
The status of the law was exemplified by our holding in West v. Mount Vernon Sand & Gravel, Inc., 56 Wn.2d 752, 355 P.2d 795 (1960) when we said that employment begins when a workman commences to earn his pay, and not earlier. The facts in West were that plaintiff arrived at his jobsite at about 7:30 a.m. but his work shift did not commence until 8 a.m. He was walking down a “pour” line on the jobsite toward his designated place of employment when he was struck from behind by a cement truck and injured. The question was whether he was then engaged in extra hazardous employment, i.e., within the course of his employment. A jury found that plaintiff was injured before 8 a.m. and that he was not, therefore, engaged in the performance of his employment. We rejected the argument that plaintiff was, as a matter of law, engaged in the course of his work at the time of the accident. Plaintiff would not therefore have been entitled to relief under the Industrial Insurance Act.
To provide coverage for the worker under those circumstances, the legislature then passed Laws of 1961, ch. 107, § 3, which provides:
“Acting in the course of employment” means the workman acting at his employer’s direction or in the furtherance of his employer’s business which shall include time spent going to and from work on the jobsite, as defined in *365sections 1 and 2 of this act, insofar as such time is immediate to the actual time that the workman is engaged in the work process in areas controlled by his employer, except parking areas, and it is not necessary that at the time 'an injury is sustained by a workman he be doing the work on which his compensation is based or that the event be within the time limits on which industrial insurance or medical aid premiums or assessments are paid.
(Italics mine.) That legislation effectively eliminated the “time of day” minute issue as an active ingredient in deciding the “course of employment” question for injured workmen. It also did something else — it provided that there should be industrial insurance coverage under certain circumstances for workmen injured while going or coming to work on the jobsite.
But the language of the statute was made clear and restrictive. It provided that such coverage was to be afforded the injured workman while going or coming to his job only when the injury which gave rise to the claim occurred on premises controlled by the employer.
That is not what happened here. The majority opinion faffs to point out that the parking area where claimant had left her car was available for use to the general public; it also fails to state that the injury occurred on a public street. Contrary to the statement of the majority, the route taken by claimant was in fact one “commonly shared by the general public.”
The employer did not create the hazardous condition; it did not add to the danger; it did not and could not select the employee’s route of travel; it had no control over the area where the injury occurred; it could not alleviate the condition of danger. The injury occurred on a public way and claimant was not acting within the course of her employment.
I would reject her claim for benefits under the Industrial Insurance Act.
Hill and Neill, JJ., concur with McGovern, J.