If you are injured while doing your job in California, you are eligible for workers’ compensation. So long as you are hurt while doing your job, you are eligible. Many of the worker’s compensation claims that we have helped with involve slips and falls at work, something falling upon the worker from a great height, being hurt by a machine, and so forth. Those are workers’ compensation claims.
By that same token, a vehicular accident, away from the worksite, can also be eligible for workers’ compensation. If, for example, you are working for your company by picking something up off-site and are injured in an accident, then that very well may be a worker’s compensation claim as well.
Many of the workers’ compensation claims that we have helped our clients with didn’t happen “all at once,” rather, they developed over time. For example, someone who types day in and day out for a company, over the course of many years, developing Carpal Tunnel Syndrome, qualifies for workers’ compensation. That injury wasn’t as immediate as, say, falling down a flight of stairs. But, it was an injury suffered while on the job, so it is eligible for workers’ compensation.
Injuries suffered by independent contractors are a bit of a gray area. While there is “no set definition of the term,” according to the California Department of Industrial Relations, you may still qualify for workers’ compensation. If you are hurt at work, the best course of action is to, after you receive medical care, reach out to a workers’ compensation attorney in California.