## Facts

- Andrew Leo Price worked for M & B Paper Products in a building that fronted directly on a public sidewalk; the employer provided no on-site parking.
- Employees generally parked on the street adjacent to the workplace.
- Price’s scheduled start time was 8:00 a.m., but he often arrived early and began working if the premises were open; the employer closed at 4:30 p.m. regardless of early start times.
- On June 20, 1980, Price arrived around 7:45 a.m. intending to start early, but the doors were locked and supervisory personnel were not present; employees could not enter until the doors were unlocked and had no place on the premises to wait.
- While waiting outside, Price briefly added oil to his car and, at about 7:50 a.m., a passing vehicle struck his leg.
- A workers’ compensation judge awarded benefits, finding Price was injured in the course of employment and that the brief personal act did not end the employment relationship.
- On reconsideration, the Workers’ Compensation Appeals Board (WCAB) rescinded the award under the going-and-coming rule, reasoning Price had not reached the employer’s premises.

## Issues

1. Whether the going-and-coming rule bars workers’ compensation benefits when an employee is injured while waiting outside a locked workplace before the workday begins.
2. Whether an injury occurring just off the employer’s premises is compensable when the employer’s arrangement effectively requires employees to wait in that location.
3. Whether a brief act of personal convenience while waiting (adding oil) removes the employee from the course of employment.

## Decision

- The California Supreme Court annulled the WCAB’s decision and reinstated the award of benefits.
- The Court held the going-and-coming rule did not apply because Price had arrived at the worksite and was waiting in the only practicable place dictated by the employer’s configuration and access limitations.
- The Court treated Price’s brief car-maintenance activity as incidental and not a break in the employment relationship.
- The Court concluded the employment placed Price within a traffic-related risk while he waited to begin work, supporting compensability.

## Legal Principles

- The going-and-coming rule generally excludes injuries occurring during ordinary travel to and from work, but it yields where the employment relationship has effectively resumed due to employer-created conditions at or immediately adjacent to the workplace.
- “Premises” analysis is functional as well as geographic; when an employer’s layout and access control leave employees no reasonable alternative but to wait in a particular adjacent area, that area may be treated as sufficiently work-connected for course-of-employment purposes.
- Injuries are compensable when the employment places the employee within the range of a particular danger (a special-risk/field-of-risk theory), even if the employee is not yet performing productive labor.
- Minor acts of personal convenience undertaken during a work-connected waiting period do not necessarily sever course-of-employment status.

## Conclusion

Because the employer’s lack of parking, locked doors, and absence of an on-premises waiting area effectively required Price to wait along the adjacent street and sidewalk, his exposure to passing traffic was an employment-created risk, and his injury occurred in the course of employment despite the going-and-coming rule.


Price v. Workers’ Comp. Appeals Bd., 37 Cal. 3d 559, 693 P.2d 254 (Cal. 1984)