COURT OF APPEALS OF OHIO, EIGHTH DISTRICT COUNTY OF CUYAHOGA NO. 67923 KAREN E. BROWN : : Plaintiff-Appellant : : JOURNAL ENTRY -vs- : AND : OPINION BANK ONE, ET AL. : : Defendants-Appellees : : DATE OF ANNOUNCEMENT OF DECISION MAY 25, 1995 CHARACTER OF PROCEEDING Civil appeal from Court of Common Pleas Case No. 265738 JUDGMENT Affirmed DATE OF JOURNALIZATION APPEARANCES: For Plaintiff-Appellant: For Defendant-Appellee Bank One: SCOTT I. LEVEY, ESQ. FRANK P. GIAIMO, ESQ. PATRICK H. LEWIS, ESQ. Mondello & Levey Buckingham, Doolittle & Burroughs 55 Public Square, Suite 2020 One Cleveland Ctr., Suite 1700 Cleveland, Ohio 44113 1375 East Ninth Street Cleveland, Ohio 44114-1724 For Defendant-Appellee Industrial Commission of Ohio: CASH MISCHKA, ESQ. Assistant Attorney General State Office Bldg., 12th Floor 615 West Superior Avenue Cleveland, Ohio 44113-1899 - 3 - JAMES M. PORTER, J., Plaintiff-appellant Karen E. Brown appeals from the trial court's award of summary judgment in favor of her employer- defendant-appellee Bank One in which it held that plaintiff was not entitled to receive workers' compensation for her fall on a public sidewalk after leaving her place of work. We find no error in the ruling below and affirm. Plaintiff has withdrawn a claim of procedural error resulting from the trial court's entry of summary judgment prior to plaintiff filing her opposition brief. The parties on August 18, 1995 waived their respective rights to file opposition briefs to the cross-motions for summary judgment. Thus, the first issue plaintiff raised is moot. On February 13, 1992, plaintiff was leaving her job as teller at a Bank One branch located in the Bank One Building at 600 Superior Avenue in Cleveland. She worked on the first floor. She exited the bank area, crossed a common lobby area and left the building. As she was crossing the public sidewalk in front of the building to reach cars in the curb lane, she slipped and fell on the ice causing the injury for which she claimed compensation. Although plaintiff has not specified an assignment of error, we will treat the following issue she raises as an assignment of error for purposes of this opinion. - 4 - WHETHER THE TRIAL COURT ERRED TO PLAINTIFF- APPELLANT'S PREJUDICE BY GRANTING DEFENDANT'S MOTION FOR SUMMARY JUDGMENT WHEN PLAINTIFF WAS ENTITLED TO PARTICIPATE IN THE OHIO WORKERS' COMPENSATION FUND AS A MATTER OF LAW. Ohio's workers' compensation statute covers "any injury, whether caused by external accidental means or accidental in character and result, received in the course of, and arising out of, the injured employee's employment ***." R.C. 4123.01(C). In MTD Products, Inc. v. Robatin (1991), 61 Ohio St.3d 66, syllabus, the Ohio Supreme Court held, as follows: As a general rule, an employee with a fixed place of employment, who is injured while traveling to or from his place of employment, is not entitled to participate in the Workers' Compensation Fund because the requisite causal connection between the injury and the employment does not exist. Case law prior to MTD Products, supra, allowed claims when an employee was not on the employer's premises, but was within the so-called "zone of employment." See, e.g., Frishkorn v. Flowers (1971), 26 Ohio App.2d 165 (claim allowed for employee injured in communal parking lot on his way to work at a store in the mall); Indus. Comm. v. Henry (1932), 124 Ohio St.616 (claim allowed for employee killed on railroad tracks adjacent to employer's premises while returning to work after meal). However, MTD Products indicates that injuries occurring off the employer's premises but within the "zone of employment" will only be compensable henceforth when the employment itself created a "special hazard," that is, a "risk *** distinctive in nature - 5 - [n]or quantitatively greater than the risk common to the public." MTD Products, supra at 69. The Court went on to state that MTD created no special hazard where its employee Robatin was rear- ended while slowing down to turn into the MTD premises. Accordingly, Robatin's claim was disallowed. This Court has recently followed MTD Products in holding that employees who are injured in common or public areas adjacent to their place of work were exposed to no special hazard and could not recover from the employer. Brown v. B.P. Am., Inc. (1993), 85 Ohio App.3d 194 (employee's fall while going through bank lobby adjacent to her work area to cash her paycheck was not exposed to special hazard created by her employment); Zelenak v. The May Co. Dept. Stores (April 7, 1994), Cuyahoga App. No. 64940, unreported (employee rear-ended when leaving the mall parking lot was not subject to any special hazard that the general public was not exposed to). We find nothing to materially distinguish these decisions from the instant case. Plaintiff slipped and fell on a public sidewalk outside her employer's premises. She was exposed to no different peril from the icy sidewalk than the other pedestrians and was subject to no special hazard created by her employer. Plaintiff is not entitled to share in the Workers' Compensation fund. We affirm the judgment below. - 6 - It is ordered that appellees recover of appellant its costs herein taxed. The Court finds there were reasonable grounds for this appeal. It is ordered that a special mandate issue out of this Court directing the Court of Common Pleas to carry this judgment into execution. A certified copy of this entry shall constitute the mandate pursuant to Rule 27 of the Rules of Appellate Procedure. PATTON, C.J., and JAMES D. SWEENEY, J., CONCUR. JAMES M. PORTER JUDGE N.B. This entry is made pursuant to the third sentence of Rule 22(D), Ohio Rules of Appellate Procedure. This is an announcement of decision (see Rule 26). Ten (10) days from the date hereof, this document will be stamped to indicate .