Davaut v. Univ. of S.C.

• Decision Date: 26 October 2016
• Docket Number: Opinion No. 27673,Appellate Case No. 2015–001218
• Citation: 795 S.E.2d 678,418 S.C. 627
• Court: South Carolina Supreme Court
• Parties: Nathalie I. DAVAUT, Employee, Claimant, Petitioner, v. UNIVERSITY OF SOUTH CAROLINA and State Accident Fund, Respondents.

418 S.C. 627

795 S.E.2d 678

Nathalie I. DAVAUT, Employee, Claimant, Petitioner,

v.UNIVERSITY OF SOUTH CAROLINA and State Accident Fund, Respondents.

Appellate Case No. 2015–001218

Opinion No. 27673

Supreme Court of South Carolina.

Heard May 18, 2016

Filed October 26, 2016

Rehearing Denied February 9, 2017

Paul L. Reeves, of Reeves Law Firm, L.L.C., of Columbia, for Petitioner.

Paul L. Hendrix, of Jones & Hendrix, P.A., of Spartanburg, for Respondents.

JUSTICE KITTREDGE :

Petitioner Nathalie I. Davaut appeals the denial of her claim for workers' compensation benefits for injuries she sustained attempting to leave her workplace. We now reverse the court of appeals, which upheld the Workers' Compensation Commission's denial of those benefits. Davaut v. Univ. of S.C. , Op. No. 2015–UP–041, 2015 WL 262093 (S.C. Ct. App. filed Jan. 21, 2015). As discussed below, we reject the suggestion that this case is controlled by the "going and coming" rule, which generally precludes workers' compensation benefits for injuries sustained while an employee is traveling to and from work. We adopt the so-called "divided premises" rule and hold that when an employee travels from one portion of her employer's property to another over a reasonably necessary and direct route, the employee remains in the course of her employment for purposes of workers' compensation. We thus remand this case to the Workers' Compensation Commission for a determination of benefits.

I.

Petitioner, a French and Spanish professor at the University of South Carolina Lancaster (USCL), was injured walking to her car after work on February 16, 2012. Petitioner had been reviewing résumés in the library on behalf of a search committee looking to hire a new Spanish professor. She left the library, where the résumés were on reserve, when it closed at 9 p.m. To reach her car, which was in a university lot provided for faculty and student parking,¹ Petitioner was required to cross Hubbard Drive (the Street), which bisects USCL's campus. While crossing the Street, Petitioner was struck by a vehicle and injured. It is undisputed that the Street and the crosswalks that span it are not owned or controlled by Petitioner's employer, the University of South Carolina (USC);² rather, they are maintained and controlled by the City of Lancaster. However, it is also undisputed that both the library—where Petitioner had been working—and the parking lot—where Petitioner was headed—belong to USC.

Petitioner sought workers' compensation benefits from her employer and its insurer, State Accident Fund (collectively, Respondents). Respondents, relying on the going and coming rule, denied Petitioner's injuries were compensable, on the basis Petitioner was injured away from USC's property.

Petitioner appeared before a single commissioner (the Commissioner), who found Petitioner's injuries were not compensable. In so finding, the Commissioner relied upon this Court's opinion in Howell v. Pacific Columbia Mills , 291 S.C. 469, 354 S.E.2d 384 (1987), which the Commissioner found to be controlling. In Howell , we held that a millworker did not suffer a compensable injury when she was struck by a car while crossing a public street via a crosswalk that connected an employer-maintained parking lot with one of the mill's main entrances. Id. at 471–74, 354 S.E.2d at 385–86. Because Petitioner's injuries also occurred on a public street over which her employer exercised no control, the Commissioner concluded those injuries were not compensable.

Upon review by an appellate panel of the Workers' Compensation Commission (the Panel), Petitioner argued that the Commissioner erred in relying upon Howell because the employee in Howell never reached the employer's premises before being injured. Petitioner claimed her injuries arose under distinguishable circumstances—she had already reached her employer's property; moreover, she had not yet left her employer's property because the Street, although not owned by USC, is "so close in proximity and so close in relation so as to be in practical effect a part of [USC's] premises." The Panel acknowledged that Howell was factually distinguishable, but nevertheless rejected Petitioner's argument and upheld the Commissioner's ruling denying Petitioner's claim.

After the Panel rejected Petitioner's arguments, she appealed to the court of appeals. Petitioner claimed that because she was injured while traveling from one portion of USC's property to another, the Panel erred in denying her relief. The court of appeals disagreed and upheld the Panel's denial of coverage. Davaut , Op. No. 2015–UP–041. The court of appeals concluded that "substantial evidence" supported the Panel's determination that Petitioner's injuries "did not arise out of and in the course of her employment," in part because there were no faculty-designated spaces in the lot where Petitioner parked her car. Id.

Petitioner asks this Court to reverse the court of appeals and find that she suffered a compensable injury when she was struck by a vehicle while crossing a public street running through USCL's campus.

II.

Petitioner argues the Commissioner, the Panel, and the court of appeals erred in accepting Respondents' contention that the going and coming rule controls this case. Consequently, Petitioner claims the Commissioner, the Panel, and the court of appeals erred in relying upon the going and coming rule to find that an employee injured traveling between two portions of her employer's premises while attempting to leave work does not suffer a compensable injury. We agree.

A.

"Under the Administrative Procedures Act (APA),.... ‘[t]his Court will not overturn a decision by the [Workers' Compensation] Commission unless the determination is unsupported by substantial evidence.’ " Pollack v. S. Wine & Spirits of Am. , 405 S.C. 9, 13–14, 747 S.E.2d 430, 432 (2013) (quoting Jones v. Ga.–Pac. Corp. , 355 S.C. 413, 416, 586 S.E.2d 111, 113 (2003) ) (citing S.C. Code Ann. § 1–23–380(5) (Supp. 2015)). However, the Court "may reverse when the decision is affected by an error of law." Id. (citing S.C. Code Ann § 1–23–380(5) ).

Because the facts are not in dispute, we are free to decide this case as a matter of law. See Grant v. Grant Textiles , 372 S.C. 196, 201, 641 S.E.2d 869, 872 (2007) ("Where there are no disputed facts, the question of whether an accident is compensable is a question of law." (citing Douglas v. Spartan Mills , 245 S.C. 265, 266, 140 S.E.2d 173, 173 (1965) )). Therefore, we are not constrained by the "substantial evidence" standard of review that the court of appeals found limited its examination of this case. See Pollack , 405 S.C. at 13–14, 747 S.E.2d at 432 (citations omitted).

B.

"Workers' compensation pays an employee benefits for damages resulting from personal injury or death by accident arising out of and in the course of the employment." Bentley v. Spartanburg County , 398 S.C. 418, 422, 730 S.E.2d 296, 298 (2012) (citing S.C. Code Ann. § 42–1–310 (2015) ). " ‘Arising out of’ refers to the origin of the cause of the accident; ‘in the course of’ refers to the time, place, and circumstances under which the accident occurred." Baggott v. S. Music, Inc. , 330 S.C. 1, 5, 496 S.E.2d 852, 854 (1998) (citing Owings v. Anderson Cty. Sheriff's Dep't , 315 S.C. 297, 299, 433 S.E.2d 869, 871 (1993) ; Eargle v. S.C. Elec. & Gas Co. , 205 S.C. 423, 429, 32 S.E.2d 240, 242 (1944) ). "An injury occurs in the course of employment ‘when it occurs within the period of employment at a place where the employee reasonably may be in the performance of his duties and while fulfilling those duties or engaged in something incidental thereto.’ " Id. (quoting Beam v. State Workmen's Comp. Fund , 261 S.C. 327, 331, 200 S.E.2d 83, 85 (1973) ). "In determining whether a work-related injury is compensable, the Workers' Compensation Act is liberally construed toward providing coverage and any reasonable doubt as to the construction of the Act will be resolved in favor of coverage." Whigham v. Jackson Dawson Commc'ns , 410 S.C. 131, 135, 763 S.E.2d 420, 422 (2014) (citing Shealy v. Aiken County , 341 S.C. 448, 455–56, 535 S.E.2d 438, 442 (2000) ).

Consistent with this rule of construction, we have recognized that

employment includes not only the actual doing of the work, but a reasonable margin of time and space necessary to be used in passing to and from the place where the work is to be done. If the employee be injured while passing, with the express or implied consent of the employer, to or from his work by a way over the employer's premises, or over those of another in such proximity and relation as to be in practical effect a part of the employer's premises, the injury is one arising out of and in the course of the employment....

Williams v. S.C. State Hosp. , 245 S.C. 377, 381, 140 S.E.2d 601, 603 (1965) (quoting Bountiful Brick Co. v. Giles , 276 U.S. 154, 158, 48 S.Ct. 221, 72 L.Ed. 507 (1928) ) (internal quotation marks omitted). Thus, "[t]he act of leaving the employer's premises is ‘in the course of’ one's employment if the employee leaves the premises as contemplated at the close of the work day." Camp v. Spartan Mills , 302 S.C. 348, 350, 396 S.E.2d 121, 122 (Ct. App. 1990) (citing Williams , 245 S.C. at 381–82, 140 S.E.2d at 603 ). Compare Williams , 245 S.C. at 382, 140 S.E.2d at 603 (affirming an award of benefits to an employee injured walking from the hospital building where she worked to an employer-maintained parking lot provided for employee parking and describing the employee walking to the parking lot at the end of her workday as "a reasonable incident to [the employee] leaving the place of her work"), with Camp , 302 S.C. at 350, 396 S.E.2d at 122 (holding the Workers' Compensation Commission properly concluded an employee's "delay of four hours exceeded a reasonable margin of time for leaving her work place" and therefore the employee "was no longer in the course of her employment when she [was injured]"...