Compensability of Injuries Occurring at Home

California has seen an increase in the number of workers who work remotely from home. In response to the COVID-19 pandemic and the statewide stay-at-home order, employers across the state implemented changes to allow employees to work from home to keep their businesses running during the pandemic. Those changes are still being felt, as many employees want to work from home, and many employers continue to allow them to do so, either fully or partially.

Of course that raises issues when an employee claims that he or she was injured at home while performing job duties. When someone is working on the premises of a business, an employer can monitor the worker's activities. But when someone works from home, it's difficult, if not impossible, for an employer to determine when an injury was sustained, or what the employee was doing at the time of injury. Moreover, California makes it easy for employees to make claims for any injury occurring while they are working.

Under the personal comfort doctrine, an injury at work might be compensable even though it occurred while the employee was engaged in an activity necessary only for personal comfort, convenience or welfare. An employee is not required to be performing a job-related activity for an injury to be compensable. The California Supreme court has explained that the personal comfort doctrine is not limited to acts performed on the employer's premises. Acts of personal convenience or personal comfort are within the course of employment if they are "reasonably contemplated by the employment." (Price v. WCAB (1984) 37 Cal. 3d 559, 568.) In that case, the court stated that "doubts as to whether an act is reasonably contemplated by the employment are resolved in favor of the employee." Such liberal standards make it easy for employees who are allowed to work at home to claim that injuries occurring there are work related.

The personal comfort principles were applied recently in the case of Johnson v. ABM Industries, Inc., 2025 Cal. Wrk. Comp. P.D. LEXIS 37. That applicant worked as a chief engineer, and testified that he had two other engineers who would call him regarding potential emergencies or other issues at the job site. The applicant claimed that one night, while he was at home and on call for work, he heard his phone ring in another room. He claimed that he knew it was his co-worker because he had a unique ringtone programmed into his cell phone for that person. The applicant testified that as he arose from his recliner to answer his phone, his right knee buckled, and he fell. He was taken to the hospital, where he underwent surgery for a torn ACL. The employer asserted that the applicant was not working at the time of injury, but the WCAB upheld a WCJ's decision that the claim was compensable.

The WCAB explained that it's possible for off-premises injuries to be compensable under the personal comfort doctrine, and the deciding factor is whether the activity was reasonably contemplated by the employment. It found that the act of moving to answer the phone and putting pressure on his knee was a contributing cause of the applicant's injury, without which it would not have occurred. It also found the applicant's unrebutted testimony to be credible that he had an agreement with a manager to be "on call" or on "standby" when the injury occurred. So, it concluded that the applicant was acting within the course of his employment at the time of injury because he was performing a duty imposed on him by his employer, and one necessary to perform the terms of the employment contract.

The case hinged on the WCAB's finding that the applicant was credible regarding the circumstances of his injury, and the employer's failure to rebut his testimony. But because they cannot completely monitor an employee at home, it's difficult for employers to rebut an employee's home injury claim. A certain degree of trust is necessary for employers to allow an employee to work from home, and employers must decide whether the benefits of allowing that arrangement exceed their risk of liability for injuries occurring in the home.

For further discussion of injuries at home, see "Sullivan on Comp" Section 5.50 Home as Second Job Site. For further discussion of the personal comfort doctrine, see Section 5.59 Personal Comfort Doctrine.