For most workers' comp applicants, coverage is assumed and the fight is over the extent of disability. For app-based gig workers hurt on the job, coverage itself is the first battle, and it is being fought on different legal ground than it was a few years ago.
In 2024, the California Supreme Court decided Castellanos v. State of California, upholding Proposition 22 as constitutional and preserving the ability of app-based transportation and delivery companies to classify their drivers as independent contractors rather than employees. That ruling closed off the argument that Prop 22 itself was invalid, but it did not close off the underlying classification fight for workers hurt while gig driving. It just moved the battlefield.
Why Classification Still Controls Everything
Workers' compensation is an employee-only system. An independent contractor has no claim against the hiring company's comp carrier regardless of how serious the injury is, which is precisely why companies have fought so hard, dating back to the 2018 Dynamex decision and the 2019 passage of AB 5, to keep drivers outside the employee definition. Prop 22 created a dedicated carve-out for app-based network companies specifically, with its own benefits scheme, including an occupational accident insurance benefit that is meant to substitute for comp but is not comp and does not carry comp's full protections.
Where the Coverage Dispute Still Lives
Castellanos resolved the facial constitutional challenge to Prop 22, but it did not resolve every fact-specific classification dispute. Practitioners should still be testing:
- Whether the worker's actual job falls inside Prop 22's definition of app-based transportation or delivery network work, or whether the platform has stretched the label to cover something closer to traditional logistics or last-mile employment.
- Whether the occupational accident policy the platform points to was actually in force and adequately funded at the time of injury, since gaps and exclusions in these substitute policies are common sources of secondary disputes.
- Whether a mixed-work arrangement, where the same worker also performs tasks for the company outside the app, creates a dual-status argument that supports traditional employee coverage for the portion of work done off-platform.
- Whether state or local law outside California, where Prop 22-style carve-outs do not exist, still treats the same work relationship as employment for comp purposes.
Intake Questions That Actually Matter
When a gig worker calls in with an on-the-job injury, the initial intake interview should establish exactly which app or platform was active at the time, whether the worker carries any other coverage such as a personal health policy or an off-platform employer's policy, and whether any occupational accident claim has already been filed or denied. A denied occupational accident claim is not the end of the road. It is evidence of how the platform itself is characterizing the relationship, and that characterization can be tested.
Building the Record Early
Because the classification question is fact-intensive, the earliest days after injury are when the best evidence exists: app logs showing hours and assignment patterns, any communications suggesting company control over how the work was performed, and documentation of whether the worker could meaningfully decline assignments without penalty. All of that evidence degrades quickly once litigation starts and the platform's own records retention policies take over.
For firms that also handle the underlying auto accident claim when a gig driver is hurt in a crash, the classification question has a second life: if the worker is found to be an employee for comp purposes, that can affect subrogation and credit calculations against any third-party auto recovery, which is worth flagging early to whoever is managing the liens and settlement side of the case. And because Prop 22's framework is itself the product of legislative and ballot-measure maneuvering rather than ordinary statute, any firm handling these disputes should keep an eye on the industry news coverage of further legislative attempts to amend or narrow it.
Castellanos settled one question. It left the harder one, whether a given worker's actual relationship fits inside the box Prop 22 built, exactly where it always was: a fact dispute to be won case by case.