Castillo: A Personal Conversation Did Not End the Employment Connection in a Parking Lot

In Castillo v. Lucia Mar Sch. Dist., No. ADJ17704323, slip op. at 8–10 (WCAB June 10, 2024), the WCAB held that a bus driver’s claimed injury arose out of and in the course of employment despite a personal conversation after her shift. The June 10, 2024 panel decision rescinded a take-nothing order, rejected the going-and-coming and substantial-deviation defenses on this record, and deferred the body-part and remaining issues. Its practical value is the way the Board connected premises, chronology, and workplace custom; it did not create automatic coverage for every parking-lot fall.

How the dispute reached reconsideration

Castillo claimed injury from a June 2, 2022 fall in a parking lot used by employees. Her shift ended around 4:30 p.m.; the fall occurred around 5:05 p.m. The record described work performed in her vehicle while waiting for a coworker, followed by a conversation about moving a sectional. She then tripped while walking between vehicles. The claim included the cervical spine, left upper extremity, and left ear.

The workers’ compensation judge found that she had substantially departed from employment and that the activities did not qualify as personal comfort. The March 27, 2024 order denied recovery. On reconsideration, the Board examined what the record actually established about the lot, the interval, and the nature of the conversation rather than treating the end of the paid shift as conclusive. See the filed decision at 2–4.

Premises and causation were related but separate

The opinion used Cal. Lab. Code § 3600 and the distinction between an injury occurring in the course of employment and one arising out of employment. Time, place, and circumstances inform the first inquiry; a contributing employment connection informs the second. The Board discussed the premises line as an administrable boundary for the ordinary commute and relied on the employee-designated lot shown in this record.

The timing evidence strengthened that connection. Castillo had not driven away and returned for a new event. While waiting in the lot, she performed employment-related work, then spoke for roughly ten minutes. The Board also discussed a reasonable margin of time and space, while recognizing the objective premises rule. The analysis at 5–7 therefore should not be reduced to a numerical grace period after clocking out.

Why the personal conversation was not a substantial departure

The decisive custom was not merely that coworkers sometimes socialize. Castillo testified that she spoke with coworkers in the parking lot once or twice a week and that the employer knew of the practice. The Board applied the principle that personal-comfort activities reasonably contemplated by employment can remain incidental to it. It distinguished a slight deviation from an entire departure.

“Personal conversations with co-workers after a shift are reasonably contemplated”

Castillo, slip op. at 8.

That passage appears at 8 and continues by emphasizing the employer’s knowledge in this case. Read in context, it ties the legal conclusion to evidence of an ordinary, known practice. It does not mean that any personal gathering on work property, however long or disconnected from the shift, necessarily remains within employment.

What the Board decided and left open

The substituted findings state that the claimed injury was not barred by the going-and-coming rule, that Castillo had not substantially and materially deviated, and that the claimed injury arose out of and in the course of employment. But the Board expressly deferred which body parts, if any, sustained industrial injury, and deferred all other issues. See id. at 9–10.

This is a WCAB panel decision, useful for persuasive reasoning rather than binding en banc precedent. A claimant citing it should identify the record parallels and differences. A lot’s actual use or control, the reason for remaining, a departure and return, or contrary evidence of an unrelated undertaking could change the analysis. A favorable employment-connection ruling also does not itself quantify disability or establish every requested medical benefit.

Practical implications for workers

For workers, the evidentiary lesson is to preserve the route and chronology early. A parking instruction, testimony about established practice, contemporaneous work message, and accurate injury report address different links in the analysis. Our parking-lot evidence guide turns those distinctions into a practical checklist.

The claim-process guide explains the broader procedural path. If the unresolved dispute concerns medical causation rather than the premises defense, consult the medical-legal evaluation guide. MCX Legal can evaluate how the actual worksite and activity record compares with Castillo; a photograph of a workplace lot alone cannot answer the claim.

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