California: “Required Vehicle” Exception to Going and Coming Rule Can Apply to In-Home Caretaker’s Bicycle

Utilizing the state’s “required vehicle” exception to the going and coming rule, a state appellate court held that injuries sustained by an in-home caretaker when she was struck and injured by a car as she rode her bicycle from one private home where she worked to another home where she was scheduled to work were compensable. The Court added that under the facts of the case, the employer clearly received a benefit from the caretaker’s self-propelled transit from one client’s residence to that of another. In as much as the employer provided no transportation between the clients, it was reasonable to conclude that the employer at least impliedly required the employee to provide for her own transportation. Under those circumstances, the going and coming rule did not apply.

Thomas A. Robinson, J.D., the Feature National Columnist for the LexisNexis Workers’ Compensation eNewsletter, is the co-author of Larson’s Workers’ Compensation Law (LexisNexis).

LexisNexis Online Subscribers: Citations below link to Lexis Advance.

See Zhu v. Workers’ Comp. Appeals Bd. & Dep’t of Soc. Servs., 2017 Cal. App. LEXIS 564 (June 20, 2017)

See generally Larson’s Workers’ Compensation Law, § 15.05.

Source: Larson’s Workers’ Compensation Law, the nation’s leading authority on workers’ compensation law