“I got hurt in training, before I really started.”

Why it is covered

The law presumes that any person rendering service for another is an employee. The law defines employee broadly and does not require that you have completed anything.

And § 3600(a)(2) asks whether you were performing service growing out of and incidental to the employment. Training is that, because the employer required it and the employer benefits from it.

“I hadn’t officially started yet” is not a defense, and neither is “it was your first day.” It was my first day.

The variations

Unpaid orientation. Whether time is compensable under wage law and whether an injury is covered are different questions. A required, employer-controlled orientation is generally within the employment even where a pay dispute exists alongside it.

Off-site training. Covered where the employer required or paid for it. Travel to and from required off-site training can also be covered under the special-errand exception to the going-and-coming rule. Commuting.

Physical agility or fitness testing as a hiring or promotional requirement. This one is fact-specific, and it turns partly on whether participation was required and whether the employer directed it.

Voluntary recreational activity is the exception that goes the other way. The law excludes injury from voluntary participation in an off-duty recreational, social, or athletic activity that is not a reasonable expectancy of the employment. The word doing the work there is “voluntary” — an activity everyone understood you were expected to attend is not.

Apprenticeship and school-based training have their own considerations, including who the employer is for coverage purposes.