"I was hurt on my way to work."

The rule

Injuries sustained while commuting to or from work generally do not arise out of and in the course of employment. The reasoning is that the ordinary commute is a risk shared with the general public rather than a risk of the job.

The exceptions that matter

You were on a special mission or errand. A trip made at the employer's request, outside your normal commute — picking up supplies, making a delivery, going to a second site, attending a required meeting elsewhere.

Your vehicle was required. Where the employer expressly or implicitly requires you to have your car available for work, the commute becomes part of the employment. This is the most commonly available exception and it reaches home health aides, in-home care workers, field service technicians, outside sales, and construction workers required to carry tools or transport crew.

Dual purpose. The trip served both a personal and a business purpose, and the business purpose would have required the trip anyway.

The employer provided or paid for the transportation — a company vehicle, a company shuttle, or a paid travel allowance in the right circumstances.

You were already on the premises. The going and coming rule generally ends at the premises line. Parking lots the employer owns or controls, walkways, and stairwells are frequently inside it. A fall in the employer's parking lot is usually a compensable injury, and people assume otherwise all the time.

You were paid for the travel time.

Commercial traveler. An employee traveling on business is generally covered for the duration of the trip, including reasonable incidental activities.

What changed in 2025

In Zenith Insurance Co. v. WCAB (Hernandez) (2025) 110 Cal.App.5th 1164, the Court of Appeal narrowed the "special risk" exception.

The worker was severely injured commuting home in a vanpool arranged by a coworker — not by the employer — and the employer knew the worker had no driver's license. A workers' compensation judge found the injury compensable under the special risk exception. The Court of Appeal reversed, holding the exception did not apply where the injury occurred far from the employer's premises and involved no hazard the employment controlled, and that the dual purpose exception failed because the commute conferred no incidental benefit on the employer.

The practical effect: an employer's knowledge of how you get to work is not enough. The exception turns on whether the employment created or controlled the risk.

Pages describing the special risk exception broadly are now describing it more broadly than the Court of Appeal does.

What to preserve

The trip's purpose — texts, emails, dispatch records, or a schedule showing where you were going and why.

The employer's expectations about your vehicle — a job posting, a handbook, a mileage reimbursement record. Mileage reimbursement is strong evidence that the vehicle was required.

Exactly where it happened, relative to the premises line — a parking lot boundary can decide the case.

And whether you were on the clock or being paid for travel.

And the other claim

If a driver hit you, there is a civil case regardless of how the comp question resolves — and it pays for pain and suffering, which comp does not. How third-party claims work.