Simkins v. General Motors Corp.

• Decision Date: 30 December 1996
• Docket Number: No. 102150,No. 15,102150,15
• Citation: 556 N.W.2d 839,453 Mich. 703
• Parties: Thomas G. SIMKINS, Guardian of Elizabeth A. Simkins, Plaintiff-Appellant, and Valley Forge Insurance Company and CNA, Intervening Plaintiff-Appellant, v. GENERAL MOTORS CORPORATION, Fisher Body Flint Plant, Defendant-Appellee, and Second Injury Fund, Defendant-Appellee. Calendar
• Court: Michigan Supreme Court

Page 839

556 N.W.2d 839

453 Mich. 703

Thomas G. SIMKINS, Guardian of Elizabeth A. Simkins Plaintiff-Appellant and Valley Forge Insurance Company and CNA, Intervening Plaintiff-Appellant, v. GENERAL MOTORS CORPORATION, Fisher Body Flint Plant Defendant-Appellee and Second Injury Fund, Defendant-Appellee.

No. 102150.

Calendar No. 15.

Supreme Court of Michigan.

Argued Oct. 10, 1996.

Decided Dec. 30, 1996.

[453 Mich. 705] Hanba, Lazar & Ackerman, P.C. by Michael D. Smith, Flint, for plaintiff-appellant.

John R. Parnell and Warren C. Droomers, St. Clair Shores, for intervening plaintiff-appellant.

Groves, Decker & Wyatt by Harvey R. Groves, Flint, and Braun, Kendrick, Finkbeiner, P.L.C. by Scott C. Strattard, Saginaw, for General Motors Corporation.

OPINION

RILEY, Justice.

In this appeal, this Court is asked to clarify when an employer has an obligation to pay worker's compensation to an employee who is injured while traveling to work under the "going and coming" provision, M.C.L. § 418.301(3); M.S.A. § 17.237(301)(3), of the Worker's Disability Compensation Act. We hold that under subsection 301(3) of the act, an employee does not suffer an injury that occurred in the course of his employment while traveling to work, when he was injured on a public street, not maintained by the employer, as he was walking from a private parking lot to the worksite. In the instant case, plaintiff drove to a parking lot provided by General Motors, traveled to a private parking lot, and then was injured while walking across a public street from the private parking lot on her way to the General Motors plant. We vacate the Court of Appeals decision to reverse the grant of worker's compensation benefits and remand to the Worker's Compensation Appellate Commission enable it to determine whether the injury occurred in the course of her employment consistent with the standards articulated in this opinion.

FACTS AND PROCEEDINGS

The parties stipulated the facts of the case. Because the parties dispute what reasonable inferences may be drawn from the stipulation, we provide the full text of the stipulation:

Elizabeth A. Simkins is an employee of the Fisher Body Flint Plant of General Motors Corporation. She worked on the first shift, which started at 6:18 a.m.

At some time before 6:00 a.m. on September 4, 1984, Mrs. Simkins drove her car to the Fisher Body Flint Plant and parked on the Fisher Body premises North parking lot. She exited her car and, after an unknown period, got into the car of a fellow employee, Perry Mitru. They drove onto Saginaw Street, a public street bordering the east side of the Fisher Plant, headed south to Hemphill and turned right, or west, onto Hemphill. Hemphill is a public street bordering the Fisher Plant on the south side. It has four lanes, two each for west and east bound traffic.

Mr. Mitru drove his car into a privately owned parking lot on the south side of Hemphill and parked. He and Mrs. Simkins alighted and, after paying the parking attendant, started across Hemphill to the Plant Gate at Post 11. The lot in which Mr. Mitru parked was located almost directly across the street from the Plant Gate and about in the middle of the block.

At about 5:58 a.m., twenty minutes before her shift was to start, Mrs. Simkins was struck by an automobile driven by Tonya D. Anderson. At the moment that she was struck, Mrs. Simkins was going north across Hemphill and was in the east bound inside lane near the double yellow center line.

Mrs. Simkins has been unable to perform her job since September 4, 1984.

The parties agree that this Court must rely on this stipulation alone in order to resolve whether plaintiff's injury arose out of and in the course of her employment.

On August 21, 1985, plaintiff, through her guardian Thomas Simkins, filed an amended petition seeking worker's compensation under § 301 of the WDCA against defendants General Motors and the Second Injury Fund. ¹ There is no dispute that plaintiff suffered severe, permanent injuries, including a closed-head injury, that resulted in weakness in her arms and legs. She cannot walk without the aid of a walker or wheelchair. In an opinion dated April 11, 1986, the hearing referee concluded that plaintiff was eligible for worker's compensation:

[Plaintiff] had entered the "premises" [of General Motors] when she entered the company-owned parking lot. The mere fact that she was given a ride to a closer, non-company lot, did not remove her from the scope of her employment. The injury sustained when crossing the street to the plant gate is compensable. ²

On May 7, 1987, General Motors filed an appeal of the decision with the Worker's Compensation Appeal Board. Plaintiff's no-fault insurance carrier, Valley Forge Insurance Company, moved to intervene as a plaintiff on July 19, 1988, alleging that it had paid more than $400,050 in medical and health care expenses on plaintiff's behalf. It sought reimbursements from General Motors for these costs. ³

In an opinion filed on June 26, 1991, the WCAB, in a two to one decision, affirmed the referee's ruling to award plaintiff worker's compensation benefits:

We find that plaintiff's slight deviation in her route from one parking lot controlled by defendant to another not controlled by defendant, but directly across the street from the plant entrance, kept plaintiff within the zone, environment, and hazards of her employment. [1991 WCABO 1399, 1412 ⁴

The dissent concluded otherwise:

I find that defendant's provision for an on-premises parking lot which was not shown by plaintiff to deny any reasonable safe access to its plant, with her leaving those premises to park in an undesignated private lot and to cross a street not shown to be under defendant's control or the protection against street traffic presumably provided by defendant's parking lot, placed plaintiff beyond the "zone, environment and hazards" of defendant's premises, thus depriving her of the presumption afforded by Section 30(3) of the Act. [Id. at 1409.]

General Motors appealed in the Court of Appeals, which denied leave. ⁵ On September 9, 1992, this Court denied General Motors application for leave. ⁶ On reconsideration, this Court remanded the case to the Court of Appeals as on leave granted. ⁷

On remand, the Court of Appeals reversed the WCAB and ruled that plaintiff was not eligible for worker's compensation. The Court reasoned that previous Michigan cases only allow compensation for employees injured while traveling to work from a parking area maintained by the employer, not from a private parking area. 208 Mich.App. 453, 457, 528 N.W.2d 775 (1995). The Court concluded:

In this case, there was no employer connection with plaintiff's accident. She was injured while crossing a public street from a private parking lot and was not yet on the employer's premises. We recognize that, had she been injured while crossing from the parking lot that the employer did provide, she would be entitled to compensation benefits under the case law, but, as Justice Levin recognized in a concurring opinion "a line must be drawn at some point." McClure v. General Motors Corp. (On Rehearing), 408 Mich. 191, 226, 289 N.W.2d 631 (1980). The decisions we have analyzed draw the line at some employer connection other than the mere fact that the employee was traveling to work but had not arrived yet on the employer's premises. [Id. at 458-459, 528 N.W.2d 775.]

Plaintiff filed an application for leave, which this Court granted. ⁸

ANALYSIS

A

Under the worker's compensation act,

[a]n employee, who receives a personal injury arising out of and in the course of employment by an employer who is subject to this act at the time of the injury, shall be paid compensation as provided in this act. [M.C.L. § 418.301(1); M.S.A. § 17.237(301)(1).]

It is well settled that an employee who seeks worker's compensation must show by competent evidence not only the fact of an injury, but also that the injury occurred in connection with his employment, arising out of and in the course of that employment. Hills v. Blair, 182 Mich. 20, 26, 148 N.W. 243 (1914). As remedial legislation, this Court construes the act liberally to grant rather than deny benefits. Bower v. Whitehall Leather Co., 412 Mich. 172, 191, 312 N.W.2d 640 (1981).

The primary purpose of the worker's compensation act is to provide benefits to the victims of work-related injuries by allocating the burden of these payments to the employer, and, therefore, ultimately, to consumers. ⁹ An employee who suffers an injury arising out of and in the course of his employment will be eligible for compensation regardless of whether the employer was at fault. ¹⁰ In return, the employer is immunized from tort liability because the worker's compensation act, under M.C.L. § 418.131(1); M.S.A. § 17.237(131)(1), ¹¹ provides that this compensation is the exclusive remedy for a personal injury, except for an injury resulting from an intentional tort. Travis v. Dreis & Krump Mfg. Co., 453 Mich. 149, 161, 551 N.W.2d 132 (1996) (Boyle, J., lead opinion). ¹² Thus, as the Court of Appeals described, the act's purpose is to " 'provide ... not only for employees a remedy which is both expeditious and independent of proof of fault, but also for employers a liability which is limited and determinate.' " ¹³

As a general rule, an employee who is injured while going to or coming from work cannot recover worker's compensation. Bush v. Parmenter, Forsythe, Rude & Dethmers, 413 Mich. 444, 451, 320 N.W.2d 858 (1982). The statute's going and coming provision furnishes an exception to the general rule:

An employee going to or from his or her work, while on the premises where the employee's work is to be performed, and within a reasonable time before and after his or her working hours, is presumed to be in the course of his or her employment. Notwithstanding this presumption, an injury incurred in the pursuit of an activity the major...