Court Opinion

ID: 9560454
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-21 17:49:16.873157+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T09:12:55.962989
License: Public Domain

Justice Whichard
dissenting.
I disagree with the majority’s interpretation and application of Hardy. There the employer provided housing for the employee in a location that necessitated the employee’s crossing a public highway, not under the employer’s .ownership or control, in order to perform *284the tasks of the employment. Here the employer provided parking for the employee in a location that equally necessitated the employee’s crossing a public highway, not under the employer’s ownership or control, in order to perform the tasks of the employment. In Hardy this Court, in allowing payment of workers’ compensation, properly recognized that “[t]he fact that [the employee] had to cross the highway on his way to and from the farm constituted an additional hazard of his employment.” Hardy v. Small, 246 N.C. 581, 586, 99 S.E.2d 862, 867 (1957). Here plaintiff encountered the identical “additional” hazard as he crossed the public highway separating the employer-owned parking lot from the workplace. The cases thus merit identical treatment for purposes of determining the employee’s right to workers’ compensation payments.
I also disagree with the majority’s interpretation and application of Barham. There the employee slipped, fell, and was injured in a loading zone in front of her employer’s store after parking in a shopping center parking lot. The employer owned or controlled neither the parking lot nor the loading zone. The employee therefore had not yet reached the employer’s premises and thus had not entered the course of employment when she was injured. Here, by contrast, the employee was injured while moving between one portion of the employer’s premises (the parking lot) and another (the workplace). An employee injured while going to and from work on premises owned or controlled by the employer is covered by the Workers’ Compensation Act. Barham v. Food World, Inc., 300 N.C. 329, 332, 266 S.E.2d 676, 679 (1980); Maurer v. Salem Co., 266 N.C. 381, 382, 146 S.E.2d 432, 433-34 (1966). Defendant-employer’s employees here who parked in the on-premises lots thus would recover for injuries sustained while going to and from the workplace after they had entered the lots. Both logic and fairness dictate that employees parking in the off-premises lot, which is also owned and controlled by the employer, be accorded the same treatment.
To so hold would accord with the majority rule in the country. See 1 Arthur Larson, The Law of Workmen’s Compensation § 15.14(b) (1995) (“most courts . . . hold that an injury in a public street or other off-premises place between the plant and the parking lot is in the course of employment, being on a necessary route between the two portions of the premises”), and cases cited. It would also accord with the familiar rule that “the Workers’ Compensation Act should be liberally construed so that its benefits are not denied by narrow, techni*285cal or strict interpretation.” Whitley v. Columbia Lumber Mfg. Co., 318 N.C. 89, 98, 348 S.E.2d 336, 341 (1986).
I therefore vote to affirm the decision of the Court of Appeals, and I respectfully dissent.
Justice WEBB joins in this dissenting opinion.