What is Virginia’s ‘Extended Premises Doctrine’? 

Do You Know the Rule?

An injury is compensable under the Virginia Workers’ Compensation Act if the injury arose out of and in the course and scope of employment. Generally, to occur in the course and scope of employment, the injury must happen where the employee carries out her work activities.  

The “extended premises doctrine” is an exception to that rule. The doctrine expands the area in which the employer is responsible for its employee’s injuries to spaces adjacent to the workplace that employees use to access or leave work.  

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Essentially, the doctrine permits compensation when an injury occurs in a location that, even though the employer does not own or maintain it, is so close to the employer’s space that it is for practical effect its premises. This includes passageways and parking lots. 

Passageways  

Injuries occurring in places where an employer has some right of passage to and from a building may be compensable under the doctrine.  

An injury in a passageway may be compensable even if the employer does not own or rent the passageway. The key in that type of cases is whether the employee needs to use the passageway to access her workspace. 

Case example: 

An employee suffered an injury in the course of her employment when she slipped on an icy walkway that extended from a public sidewalk to a building where her employer was a tenant. Since the walkway constituted an essential means of ingress and egress to the workplace, it was in practical effect a part of the employer's premises  Prince v. Pan American Work Airways, 368 S.E.2d 96 (Va. Ct. App. 1988). 

Parking lots 

Injuries that occur in parking lots adjacent to the workplace may also be compensable. This can be the case even when the employer does not own or fully control the lot. In the latter situation, key factors include 1) how close the lot is to the place of work; 2) whether the employer has any authority over the lot; and 3) the extent to which the employer is responsible for maintaining the lot.  

Case example: 

An employee’s injury occurred in the course of employee where, while reporting to work, she was struck and injured by an automobile in a company parking lot. The accident occurred at a place where, from the nature of the work, the employee was reasonably expected to be. Brown v. Reed, No. 6826. (VA 01/20/69). 

Relationship to ‘going and coming rule’ 

When an employee is injured on the employer's extended premises, the employee is not transiting to the workplace so as to implicate the going and coming rule. Rather, the employee has already arrived at the workplace.  

Thus, the application of either the "going and coming" rule or the extended premises doctrine relies wholly upon the factual circumstances of the case. 

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