SAIF Corporation and employer seek judicial review of an order of the Workers’ Compensation Board concluding that claimants injuries, sustained on her way to work as she walked through a construction area adjacent to employers offices, are compensable. For the reasons recently discussed in Bruntz-Ferguson v. Liberty Mutual Ins., 310 Or. App. 618, 485 P.3d 903 (2021), SAIF v. Lynn, 315 Or. App. 720, 502 P.3d 1172 (2021), and Miles v. Bi-Mart Corp., 316 Or. App. 481, 504 P.3d 64 (2021), we conclude that the board did not err in concluding that claimants injuries arose out of and in the course of her employment and therefore affirm.
We take our summary of the facts from the boards order. Employer leases office space in a high-rise building. Under the terms of the lease, the landlord maintains public and common areas, including lobbies and elevators, but employer has the right to request maintenance and repairs, and a portion of its lease payment compensates the landlord for its operating expenses for maintenance of the common area and repairs, replacements, additions, or improvements.
The landlord was remodeling the buildings upper lobby outside of employers offices and replacing its floor. When claimant came to work on the day of the injury, she took the elevator to the upper lobby. As she stepped out of elevator and onto a plywood ramp that had been placed there by the construction contractor, the plywood “flexed” and claimants left ankle rolled, causing her to fall onto the concrete floor just beyond the ramp. She suffered a left foot fracture and a right elbow dislocation, for which she filed a claim. SAIF denied the claims, and claimant requested a hearing.
An administrative law judge upheld SAIFs denial, but the board reversed, concluding that, under the “parking lot” exception to the going and coming rule, claimants injury arose in the course of her employment, because “employer had sufficient ‘control’ over the upper lobby area, based on a right to require/obtain maintenance of that area.” The board concluded, further, that claimants injury occurred as a result of a “neutral” risk to which her employment had exposed her and therefore arose out of the employment.
On judicial review, SAIF challenges both determinations. Since this case was argued, we have issued opinions in other cases involving similar issues. For example, in Bruntz-Ferguson, the claimant was injured on her way to work when she slipped on an icy curb outside of the employers entrance. As here, the employer leased its space, and the landlord was responsible for maintaining common areas, which included the curb, but a portion of the employers lease payment was for maintenance of common areas, and the employer had the right to request maintenance. 310 Or. App. at 621, 485 P.3d 903. We held that the “in the course of” prong of the unitary work connection set forth in Robinson v. Nabisco, Inc., 331 Or. 178, 185, 11 P.3d 1286 (2000), had been satisfied, because the employers right to request repairs constituted “some control” of the premises, such that the injury was subject to the parking lot exception to the going and coming rule. Bruntz-Ferguson, 310 Or. App. at 623-24, 485 P.3d 903. We further concluded that the “arising out of” prong of the unitary work connection test was satisfied, because the risk of injury, although “neutral,” was one to which the claimants employment had exposed her, “because she could not arrive to her workstation without first entering the building where her office was located,” and her injury occurred in her normal ingress to work. Id. at 628, 485 P.3d 903.
In Lynn, the claimant was injured when she slipped on ice in a parking lot that the employer had requested its employees use. We held that the claimants injury occurred in the course of her employment under the parking lot exception to the going and coming rule, because the employer exercised “some control” of the parking lot by virtue of having requested access to it from the landlord. We held, further, that the injury arose out of a risk to which the employment had exposed the claimant, because the employer had requested that its employees use the lot for the benefit of its clients, which served the employers interests. 315 Or. App. at 727, ––– P.3d ––––; see also Miles, 316 Or. App. at 486, ––– P.3d –––– (concluding that because the “claimant parked her vehicle in the portion of the parking lot designated by the employer for employee parking, thereby benefiting [the] employer” supported a conclusion that claimants injury “arose out of” a condition that she was exposed to by her employer).
Consistent with Lynn, Bruntz-Ferguson, and Miles, here, substantial evidence supports the boards determination that employer exercised “some control” over the common area of the lobby and its conclusion that claimants injury occurred in the course of her employment. Additionally, substantial evidence supports the boards finding that, in stepping onto the plywood ramp as she exited the elevator, claimant passed through a common location of ingress to her employment, thereby satisfying the “arising out of” prong of the unitary work connection test, because the risk of injury, although “neutral,” was one to which claimants employment exposed her.
Affirmed.
PER CURIAM