An employee who was involved in an automobile-pedestrian accident in an employee parking lot at work sought to sue the co-worker who struck them. Based on the exclusive remedy provisions of Utah’s workers’ compensation laws, they were barred from suing their co-worker for negligence.

Marjorie Brown worked for the Internal Revenue Service at their Ogden, Utah office. She was walking in the employee parking lot on the way to the building when she was hit by her co-worker Alice Nelson. The building and the parking lot are surrounded by a fence and workers have to go through security to get to the lot so that they can then enter the building.

Brown filed a federal workers’ compensation claim which was denied. She then filed a third-party negligence suit against Nelson. Unfortunately Alice Nelson passed away after the suit was filed and her son, Lennie Williams, became the defendant in this case.

Her initial comp claim was denied because the Office of Workers’ Compensation Programs determined her claim lacked enough evidence to prove the accident occurred on the IRS premises. They told her she had the opportunity to provide more evidence and file a request to reconsider her claim with the office, however she did not file another request. She received some provisional medical payments before her claim was denied as well. Mr. Williams said that these payments should prevent her from seeking other avenues of relief for her injuries, yet since the letters detailing those payments were not included in the court record the court did not address that portion of his argument nor her opportunity to have her claim reconsidered.

In the district court Williams argued that the accident took place on IRS property and workers’ compensation laws should prevent the negligence suit. Brown argued that the accident did not occur on IRS property, since the building and parking lot are not IRS owned and they use an outside security company to patrol the lot. The district court granted Williams his motion for summary judgment because a parking lot is considered part of the employer’s premises so workers’ compensation should be Brown’s exclusive remedy. She appealed, saying that granting summary judgment isn’t appropriate if there is a dispute about the facts of the case. In her view the lot was not her employer’s property. She also claimed that because she brought a negligence suit, the district court should have looked at whether the employees were in the course and scope of their employment at the time of the injury rather than applied workers’ compensation law.

The Utah Court of Appeals heard the case and determined that the district court did properly apply the workers’ compensation law instead of tort law. Brown had the right to recover workers’ compensation, and though she was denied, it was still her exclusive remedy and she could not bring a tort claim. The premises rule did apply in this case, it states that if the accident occurs within property lines (the lot was fenced in with the building) then employees were acting in the scope of their employment. Though she argued Williams should not have been granted summary judgment because there was a dispute of facts, the court said that there was no dispute. The accident clearly occurred within the premises of her employer.

Read the case here