The South Carolina Supreme Court ruled on a case where an employee was injured while traveling from one location of her job to another. Nathalie Davaut was working for the University of South Carolina at the time of her injury.

Nathalie Davaut worked as a French and Spanish professor for the University of South Carolina Lancaster, and was walking to her car from the library, where she was working late to review resumes for a new Spanish professor. She was on her way to the university lot where her car was parked when she was struck by a vehicle crossing Hubbard Drive, a street that runs down the middle of the campus. The street is owned and maintained by the city of Lancaster, but the library and the parking lot are university owned. Employees are not required to park in university lots and can park anywhere on campus, as there are a limited number of faculty designated spaces.

She sought workers’ compensation benefits but her employer and their insurer, the State Accident Fund, denied her claim based on the going and coming rule. They said she was off of her employer’s property, and the Workers’ Compensation Commission agreed that her claim should be denied. Davaut went to the court of appeals who upheld the denial, saying that her injuries were not within the course and scope of her employment, citing the fact that she was not required by her employer to park in that lot. She went all the way up to the South Carolina Supreme Court, who agreed with Davaut’s argument that her injury was compensable.

Generally with the “going and coming” rule, an employee who is traveling to or from their workplace is not covered in the event they are injured. Davaut was traveling from one part of her employer’s property to another part of the property, so the court decided her case fell under the “divided premises” rule which can allow benefits. This applies when an employee travels from one location that belongs to their employer to another over a reasonably necessary and direct route. In her case crossing a street that runs through campus to get to another part of campus would be reasonably necessary and a direct route. They further argued that, in this case especially, the employer was responsible for creating the need for her to cross the road in the first place. By building the parking lot across the road from the library and offering her the opportunity to park there, they are responsible for consequences that come out of the placement of those campus locations.

Read the case here.