Lab. Code §§ 3351, 3357
An employee is presumed to be every person in the service of an employer under any appointment or contract of hire or apprenticeship, express or implied, oral or written, whether lawfully or unlawfully employed. The burden shifts to the hirer to prove independent contractor status once the employee presumption is established.
Applicant bore burden to prove rendering service to defendant, then defendant to rebut employment presumption. Evidence failed to establish applicant was rendering service at time of injury.
From the decision · page 9An "employee" is defined as "every person in the service of an employer under any
appointment or contract of hire or apprenticeship, express or implied, oral or written, whether
lawfully or unlawfully employed." (§ 3351.) Any person rendering service for another, other than
as an independent contractor or other excluded classification, is presumed to be an employee. (See
§ 3357.) Once the person rendering service establishes a prima facie case of "employee" status,
the burden shifts to the hirer to affirmatively prove that the worker is an independent contractor.
(Cristler v. Express Messenger Sys. Inc. (2009) 171 Cal.App.4th 72, 84 [74 Cal.Comp.Cases 167]
(Cristler); Narayan v. EGL, Inc. (2010) 616 F.3d 895, 900 [75 Cal.Comp.Cases 724] (Narayan).)
Consequently, all workers are presumed to be employees unless the hirer can demonstrate that the
worker meets specific criteria to be considered an independent contractor.
Lab. Code § 3600(a)(2)
Employer liability for workers' compensation benefits requires injury arising out of and in the course of employment, including performing service growing out of and incidental to employment within the course of employment.
No persuasive evidence applicant was doing activity reasonably attributable to employment at time of injury. Text messages showed retraction of assistance request before injury.
From the decision · page 10Here we observe that where a worker sustains injury while employed, section 3600 imposes
liability on the employer for workers' compensation benefits only if the employee sustains an
injury "arising out of and in the course of employment." An employer is liable for workers'
compensation benefits, where, at the time of the injury, an employee is "performing service
growing out of and incidental to his or her employment and is acting within the course of
employment." (§ 3600(a)(2).) The determination of whether an injury arises out of and in the
course of employment requires a two-prong analysis. (LaTourette v. Workers' Comp. Appeals Bd.
(1998) 17 Cal.4th 644 [63 Cal.Comp.Cases 253].)