Employee’s injury, sustained in the employer’s parking lot while walking to his car to go home for a personal emergency, was not compensable in that it did not constitute an exception to the coming and going rule.

The Commonwealth Court concludes that the claimant failed to present evidence establishing that his injury was caused by a condition of the employer’s premises or the operation of the employer’s business thereon. Noting that injuries suffered on an employer’s premises at a reasonable time before or after the work period are compensable, the court pointed out that an employee must prove course of employment by showing: (1) the injury must have occurred on the employer’s premises; (2) the employee’s presence thereon was required by the nature of his employment; and (3) the injury was caused by the condition of the premises or by the operation of the employer’s business thereon. Although the claimant satisfied the first two prongs of the test, he failed to satisfy the third. According to the court, the claimant’s injury was caused by his own act of running, not a condition of the employer’s premises. In fact, the claimant admitted that there was no physical condition of the parking lot that caused his injury.

_{Case Law Alerts, 3rd Quarter, July 2016}

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