Texas: Worker’s Tort Action for Fall in Parking Lot Not Barred by Exclusive Remedy Defense

Under the Texas “access doctrine”—an exception to the going and coming rule—where the employer has evidenced an intention that the employee utilize a particular access route or area in going to and from work, and where that access route or area is so closely related to the employer’s premises as to be fairly treated as part of the premises, any injury sustained within that route or area is considered to have occurred within the course and scope of the employment. A Texas court recently held that the access doctrine could not be used by an employer to block a civil action filed by a municipal employee to recover for injuries sustained when the employee stepped into a parking lot pot hole and fell. The court stressed that the employer failed to introduce evidence that the employee was implicitly or explicitly directed to park her vehicle in the lot where she sustained injuries.

Thomas A. Robinson, J.D., the 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 City of Corpus Christi v. Muller, 2019 Tex. App. LEXIS 4645 (June 6, 2019)

See generally Larson’s Workers’ Compensation Law, § 13.02.

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

For a more detailed discussion of the case, see