Martinez v. Custom Pipe Coupling: A Canceled Delivery Did Not Convert the Commute

In Martinez v. Custom Pipe Coupling, No. ADJ17834281 (WCAB Nov. 7, 2025), a company-owned truck did not transform an ordinary commute into employment travel. The decisive fact was that the delivery originally assigned to the worker had been withdrawn before he left. The Board denied reconsideration, adopting the workers’ compensation judge’s report and leaving the finding of no industrial injury in place.

The withdrawn delivery defined the trip

Martinez had worked as a forklift operator for more than ten years. He sometimes made deliveries, but the record described them as infrequent. A supervisor initially asked him to deliver a pipe to a company near his home, either that afternoon or the next morning. Separately, the plant manager gave him scrap metal for his own use. He loaded that material into the company truck.

Before departure, the employer reassigned the pipe delivery and removed the pipe. Martinez knew that he no longer had to make the delivery. He nevertheless took the truck home with the scrap metal and was injured while driving directly back to work on May 26, 2023. He testified that he performed no employer errand on either journey. Adopted report at 4–5.

Permission did not establish a special mission

The parties disputed whether the supervisor permitted Martinez to keep using the truck after the delivery was removed. The judge did not make that disagreement carry more weight than the legal test allowed. Even accepting Martinez’s account of permission, the remaining journey lacked the employer benefit necessary for the special-mission theory advanced in the case.

The report applied the ordinary going-and-coming rule and examined the special-trip exception discussed in Southern California Rapid Transit District, Inc. v. Workers’ Compensation Appeals Board, 23 Cal. 3d 158 (1979), and Dimmig v. Workers’ Compensation Appeals Board, 6 Cal. 3d 860 (1972). A requested trip for the employer’s benefit may qualify even when related to a commute. Here, however, the requested business task had ended before travel began. Report at 5–6.

The scrap metal did not fill that gap. On this record, giving it to Martinez benefited him; the employer otherwise could have sold it for a small amount. The judge therefore rejected the theory that carrying it home supplied a business purpose. That finding concerns this transaction, not every instance in which an employee transports discarded material.

The separate transportation exception also failed

The judge considered an employment arrangement in which the employer furnishes transportation and controls its means. Martinez normally supplied his own transportation. The occasional use of a truck for deliveries was not a standing company-car arrangement, and the job had not been accepted on a promise of employer-provided commuting transportation. Those facts defeated the alternative exception. Report at 6.

Martinez also relied on a claimed permissive-use doctrine. The report found no cited authority making permission alone an exception to the going-and-coming rule. Vehicle authorization and workers’ compensation coverage answer different questions; authorization does not dispense with the required connection between the journey and employment.

Disposition, procedural detail and limits

The November 7 order denied reconsideration. It separately applied the amended Labor Code section 5909 transmission-based decision period: The case and report were transmitted September 10, 2025, making the Board’s action timely. The order adopted the merits report rather than remanding for a new factual inquiry. Martinez, slip op. at 1–3.

This is an ordinary WCAB panel decision, not an en banc rule establishing a categorical exclusion for company vehicles. Its persuasive value lies in the canceled task, absence of any remaining employer service and lack of a furnished-transportation agreement. A required delivery still in effect, regular employer transportation or a different travel arrangement would require separate analysis. The report contains an isolated reference to a 2025 evening trip; its stated injury date and factual sequence identify May 26, 2023 as the accident date.

For practical record preparation, see MCX Legal’s guide to documenting an assignment canceled before a commute injury. Preserve the change in instructions, not just the initial request or the truck’s ownership.

Practical implications of the decision

For workers evaluating a similar trip, the practical implication is to preserve each change in dispatch instructions and test the actual injury journey against the claimed exception. For employers, the same record should distinguish permission to borrow equipment from a transportation term of employment. Neither side should assume the vehicle’s title resolves the claim.

Questions about this issue

What did the Board do in Martinez?

It denied reconsideration and adopted the judge’s report rejecting the claimed industrial injury.

Did the permission dispute decide the case?

The report explained that the claim failed even assuming permission because the delivery was canceled and the remaining use served a personal purpose.

Was this an en banc ruling?

No. It is an ordinary panel decision whose persuasive value depends on its facts and reasoning.

Read the primary source: Martinez v. Custom Pipe Coupling — filed order PDF.