Cal. LAB § 5705

This is the official text of Cal. LAB § 5705, part of California’s Labor Code — governs wages, workplace safety, and employee rights.

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Official statutory text

The burden of proof rests upon the party or lien claimant holding the affirmative of the issue. The following are affirmative defenses, and the burden of proof rests upon the employer to establish them:

(a) That an injured person claiming to be an employee was an independent contractor or otherwise excluded from the protection of this division where there is proof that the injured person was at the time of his or her injury actually performing service for the alleged employer.

(b) Intoxication of an employee causing his or her injury.

(c) Willful misconduct of an employee causing his or her injury.

(d) Aggravation of disability by unreasonable conduct of the employee.

(e) Prejudice to the employer by failure of the employee to give notice, as required by Sections 5400 and 5401.

Status: in_force · Read it on the official government site

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About this page: Statute text is reproduced from official government publishers via the Open US Law dataset (Vaquill AI, snapshot v2026.08, CC BY 4.0). Primary legislative text like this is public domain under the government-edicts doctrine (Georgia v. Public.Resource.Org, 2020). We link every section back to its official source so you can verify it independently.