This is an appeal from a judgment setting aside an award of the Workmen’s Compensation Board for injuries received by the aрpellant-employee when she fell on a sidewalk in front of her employer’s meat packing plant about 5:40 a. m. on Jаnuary 30, 1961, while on her way to work in the plant.
The sidewalk was used by the general public, was owned and maintained by the employer whоse trucks ran across it to a loading dock by the employees’ entrance, and the employee-claimant, a fifty-fivе year old woman, Jesse Smith, fell at a defective place in the sidewalk where another employee had fallen. In fact, the north property line of the employer’s property was located between the edge of the plаnt and the curb line but the line of demarcation was not visible on the sidewalk itself. The Board *737 found that it was conceded the sidewаlk was on the Klarer property, and the claimant fell 240 feet east of the employees’ entrance and about 2½ fеet south of the survey line bisecting the sidewalk.
In an extensive, well-reasoned opinion granting compensation, the Board ruеfully commented, “Again, we find ourselves confronted with this nebulous judicial creation —the coming and going rule whereunder the generаlization has been made — that injuries sustained by employees on their way to or from work are not compensable,” and then proceeded to discuss and attempt to distinguish and apply our case law to the facts. Impressed by the fact that thе employees, as a class, necessarily used the sidewalk as a means of access to the employer’s premises and their work, and that the sidewalk, including its defect, was in the control of the employer who had the power to corrеct any defects and thus reduce the hazard to its employees, the Board concluded there was “a risk exposure rеlated to work, to route and to the dereliction of the employer for which compensation must be granted.” One membеr of the Board dissented on the ground that the employer was not exercising any control over the employee at thе time and place of her injury.
On appeal to the Circuit Court, the able trial judge set aside the Board’s award, appаrently with reluctance, after taking his turn at attempting to decipher from our many opinions what the Kentucky law was in this nebulous area. We are most sympathetic, for we too have recently canvassed the field and have adopted what is denоminated the “operating premises” test declaring in Ratliff v. Epling, Jr., et al., Ky.,
“The Pennsylvania courts havе taken what appears to be a fairer and more practical view of what constitutes ‘premises.’ In Young v. Hamilton Wаtch Co.,158 Pa.Super. 448 ,45 A.2d 261 , a distinction was made between the ‘premises’ and the ‘property’ of the employer. It was held that where the injury did nоt occur on the ‘operating premises’ of the employer, compensation would be denied. The same generаl principle was followed in Connecticut (Flodin v. Henry & Wright Mfg. Co.,131 Conn. 244 ,38 A.2d 801 ) and Tennessee (Bennett v. Vanderbilt University,198 Tenn. 1 ,277 S.W.2d 386 ).
“The ‘operating premises’ concept is somewhat related to the idea expressed by this Court in Barker v. Eblen Coal Company, Ky.,276 S.W.2d 448 , where the test applied was: ‘work connected activity*. If wе interpret ‘work connected activity’ as including ‘work connected place’, we really reach the concеpt of ‘operating premises’. See Kentucky Law Journal, Cooper, ‘Workmen’s Compensation — The “Going and Coming” Rule and Its Exceptions in Kentucky’, 47 Ky. L.J., pages 420, 424. (This might be considered a justifiable extension of the ‘industrial hazard’ theory.)
“The ‘operating premisеs’ principle appears implicit in the following cases: Phil Hollenbach Co. v. Hollenbach,181 Ky. 262 , 204 S.W.152, [13 A.L.R. 524 ]; Barres v. Watterson Hotel Co., 196 Ky. *738 100,244 S.W. 308 ; Big Elkhorn Coal Co. v. Burke,206 Ky. 489 ,267 S.W. 142 ; Wilson Berger Coal Co. v. Brown,223 Ky. 183 ,3 S.W.2d 199 ; Stearns Coal & Lumber Co. v. Smith,231 Ky. 269 ,21 S.W.2d 277 ; Black Mountain Corporation v. Vaughn,280 Ky. 271 ,132 S.W.2d 938 ; Clear Fork Coal Company v. Roberts, Ky.,279 S.W.2d 797 ; King v. Lexington Herald-Leader Co., Ky.,313 S.W.2d 423 .
“The cases of United States Steel Co. v. Isbell, Ky.,275 S.W.2d 917 , and Barker v. Eblen Coal Company, Ky.,276 S.W.2d 448 , appear inconsistent with this concept.
“Two cases involving injuries on a parking lot seem directly in conflict. Compensation was allowed in A. C. Lawrence Leather Co. v. Barnhill,249 Ky. 437 ,61 S.W.2d 1 , and denied in Bickel v. Ford Motor Company, Ky.,370 S.W.2d 193 . In the Pennsylvania cаse we have above cited (Young v. Hamilton Watch Co.,158 Pa.Super. 448 ,45 A.2d 261 ) it was held that a parking lot (located on the property of thе employer, though not contiguous with the work area) was not a part of the ‘operating premises’. Since we reachеd the same conclusion in the Ford Motor Company case, Barnhill in effect has been overruled.”
It is apparent that whаtever language is used in articulating a test, it canhot be so incisive and decisive as to assure a sort of mental automation on the part of the Board or the courts, or by able counsel. The property line as a decisive factor for determining liability lends itself to harsh results. We are inclined to believe the reasoning of the Board brings the facts of this case within the рurview of the “operating premises” concept because the employees, more than other segments of the public, necessarily had to use the sidewalk or part of it to personally gain access to the place of their work, and the sidewalk was in the control of the employer, thus making a fall upon it a risk peculiar to the employment. We think this viеw properly conforms to the statutory admonition that the Workmen’s Compensation law be liberally construed on matters of law. KRS 342.004; Brewer v. Millich (1955), Ky.,
The judgment is reversed.
Rehearing denied.