Court Opinion

ID: 9740258
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-26 20:31:04.446783+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T07:24:17.136206
License: Public Domain

DAY, J.
(dissenting). I would affirm the decision of the court of appeals. It is a well-accepted principle that the Worker’s Compensation Act, like any remedial statute, “ ‘should be liberally construed in favor of including all service that can in any sense be said to reasonably come within it.’ ”1 The instant action involves the interpretation of a provision which was added in 1971 to sec. 102.03(1)(c)1, Stats., as a result of this court’s decisions in Frisbie v. ILHR Dept., 45 Wis.2d 80, 172 N.W.2d 346 (1969) and Halama v. ILHR Dept., 48 Wis.2d 328, 179 N.W.2d 784 (1970).2
Both Frisbie and Halama involved situations where an employee was refused recovery for injuries suffered while he was walking from a company-owned parking lot to the plant’s premises. These denials of compensation were based on the grounds that Wisconsin’s strict requirement that the employee be “on the premises” when injured had not been fulfilled.3 In Halama, the court suggested that the legislature “consider broadening compensation coverage to provide that where a claimant is injured while crossing a public road or walk between an employer-owned parking lot and the work premises. . . .” that he be covered. Halama v. ILHR Dept., 48 Wis.2d at 333.
*604The majority states that the statutory language in this case is “unambiguous” and that the language should be given “its ordinary and accepted meaning.” However, the majority’s perception was not shared by the examiner, who found for the employer, the department, which found for the employee, the circuit court which found for the employer and the court of appeals which decided in favor of the employee! But even assuming the majority is correct in concluding that the language in question is “unambiguous,” in my opinion, its perceived lack of ambiguity would favor the employee.
In the instant action it is undisputed that when Kretschmann was injured he was located on the same route an employee would take if he used the parking lot, and walked to the employer’s premises on a direct route. The difference between Kretschmann, and employees who drove to work, is that since Kretschmann took public transit his starting point was not the parking lot but a bus stop. If he had been injured while getting off the bus, or at any point before reaching the route he would have taken had he used the parking lot, it is clear Kretschmann would be denied recovery, following the general rule that statutory interpretation should not be used as a device for changing a statute’s obvious meaning.4 However, such is not the case in this action. Kretschmann’s path had merged with those using the parking lot by the time of his injury. Thus, the question becomes whether, liberally construed, the phrase “going between an employer’s designated parking lot and the employer’s work premises while on a direct route” should be interpreted as creating an area at the premises in which recovery to injured employees is mandated, or merely protects a class of people, i.e., those using the parking lot. Based on the absence in this phrase of any *605requirement that the injured party have used the parking lot, or any reference to the parking lot as a required starting or ending point of his journey, the protection should not be limited merely to those using the parking lot. If it was the intent of the legislature to so limit this statute it would have done so explicitly as it did earlier in sec. 102.03, Stats., when it referred to employees “going to and from [their] employment in the ordinary and usual way.” (Emphasis added.) This statute should be construed as affording protection to those employees on a direct route between the employer’s parking lot and his premises, whatever the mode of transportation taken to reach that route.
The majority states, “it was fortuitous that Kretsch-mann was injured at a point on the direct route from the employee parking lot to the bakery.” (Slip op. at 10). This was, and is the reason why, under the statute he should recover. All injuries compensable under Worker’s Compensation Act are a fortiori fortuitous.
The majority attempts to support its analysis by attacking the reasoning of arguments that would grant recovery to employees leaving the plant at other exits and going to bus stops not “on a direct route” to the “employer’s designated parking lot.” But that situation is not before us. It presents a hypothetical situation that does not exist in this case. (p. 600).
The majority opinion cites Professor Larson (p. 601) on the problems created when courts try to stretch “premises” coverage by allowing recovery for injuries received at “reasonable distances” from the statutorily designated area. But again, this is not the fact in the case before us. Kretschmann was not a “reasonable distance” or any distance from the statutorily designated area, he was in that area when he was injured.
A hypothetical more in point is that under the majority opinion if a fellow employee had just come from parking *606his car in the parking lot and had been walking with and talking to Kretschmann and had also been attacked and injured, the majority would permit the employee coming from the parking lot to recover but not Kretschmann, even though they were both injured at the same place by the same people. In my opinion, this creates an absurd result not necessary by the wording of the statute.
The majority again cites Professor Larson:
“By establishing or sponsoring a parking lot not contiguous to the working premises, the employer has created the necessity for encountering the hazards lying between these two portions of the premises. No such considerations apply to a trip to some bus stop or railway terminal or some parking location on a public street over which the employer has no conceivable control.” (At 602, emphasis added)
The quotation shows exactly why Kretschmann should recover. He encountered a hazard lying between the two portions of the employer’s premises. I would affirm the court of appeals.

 Frisbie v. ILHR Dept., 45 Wis.2d 80, 87, n. 8, 172 N.W.2d 346 (1969), (quoting Vandervort v. Industrial Comm., 203 Wis. 362, 364, 234 N.W. 492 (1931). See also, Cruz v. ILHR Dept., 81 Wis.2d 442, 449-450, 260 N.W.2d 692 (1978).

 See Committee Note, 1971 (appended to sec. 102.03, Stats.).

 See, Halama v. ILHR Dept., 48 Wis.2d at 335; Frisbie v. ILHR Dept., 45 Wis.2d at 83.

 Frisbie v. ILHR Dept., 46 Wis.2d at 87.