Pennsylvania: Janitor’s Injury Near Building’s Entrance Not Barred by Going and Coming Rule

Applying the three-prong Slaugenhaupt test [see Slaugenhaupt v. United States Steel Corp., 31 Pa. Commw. 329, 376 A.2d 271 (1977), the Commonwealth Court of Pennsylvania found that a janitor’s claim was not barred by the going and coming rule when he slipped and fell exiting a shuttle van near the front entrance of the building within which he had been assigned. Noting that the janitor typically commuted via public transportation to a station where he then boarded a shuttle operated by the company to whom he had been assigned—he was employed by a janitorial services agency—and that the shuttle discharged passengers near the company’s front door, the court discounted the employer’s argument that the janitor was not injured on the employer’s “premises.” It stressed that parking lots, public streets, and common areas in multi-unit office building could be considered the employer’s “premises” if they are integral to the employer’s workplace or constitute a reasonable means of ingress to or egress from the workplace. Under these undisputed facts, the premises extended to the point at which the janitor was injured. The compensation judge and the Board erred in finding the claim was barred by the going and coming rule. 

Thomas A. Robinson, J.D., the co-Editor-in-Chief and Feature National Columnist for the LexisNexis Workers’ Compensation eNewsletter, is co-author of Larson’s Workers’ Compensation Law (LexisNexis).

LexisNexis Online Subscribers: Citations below link to Lexis Advance. 

See Stewart v. Workers’ Comp. Appeal Bd. (Bravo Grp. Servs.), 2021 Pa. Commw. LEXIS 502 (July 2, 2021)

See generally Larson’s Workers’ Compensation Law, § 13.01.

Source: Larson’s Workers’ Compensation Law, the nation’s leading authority on workers’ compensation law

For a more detailed discussion of the case, see

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