Sued Personally After a Crash on a Delivery Job

Attorney Answer

Yes, you need a lawyer, and you need one this week — you were served, and a served defendant has a short deadline to respond. Do not assume your employer's lawyer is also yours. In California an employer owes an employee indemnity, not automatically a defense, and that distinction is the whole of your first question.

Start with Labor Code § 2802(a). It requires an employer to indemnify an employee for all necessary expenditures or losses the employee incurs in direct consequence of discharging their duties. If you crashed while delivering for the company, a judgment or settlement against you is exactly the kind of loss that section is aimed at.

But two decisions draw the line more narrowly than you would hope, and both cut against you in part. In Cassady v. Morgan, Lewis & Bockius LLP, 145 Cal. App. 4th 220 (2006), the Court of Appeal held that section 2802 requires an employer to indemnify but does not create an independent duty to defend a sued employee. And in Carter v. Entercom Sacramento, LLC, 219 Cal. App. 4th 337 (2013), the court held that an employee is not entitled to section 2802 indemnity for counsel of their own choosing where the employer or its insurer has already offered a competent, conflict-free defense. Read together: if the company or its insurer offers you a lawyer who has no conflict with you, taking that offer is usually the right move, and rejecting it to hire your own may leave you paying for your own lawyer.

One threshold question sits underneath all of this. Section 2802 protects employees. Labor Code § 2775(b)(1) sets California's ABC test, under which a person providing labor for pay is treated as an employee rather than an independent contractor unless the hiring entity proves all three conditions — freedom from control, work outside the usual course of the hiring entity's business, and an independently established trade of the same nature. Delivering pizza for a pizza company sits awkwardly with the second condition, which is why the paperwork about how you were classified and paid matters.

On your own insurer: ask for the denial in writing. Under Cal. Code Regs. tit. 10, § 2695.7(b)(1), an insurer denying a first-party claim must do so in writing, listing every basis and the factual and legal grounds for each, and where the denial rests on a policy provision or exclusion, identify it and explain how it applies. Section 2695.7(b)(3) requires that notice to tell you that you may have the matter reviewed by the California Department of Insurance and to give its address and telephone number.

As for what anyone can take: a judgment is not the same as collection. Code Civ. Proc. § 704.010 exempts $7,500 of motor vehicle equity, and Code Civ. Proc. § 704.730 sets the homestead exemption at the greater of the prior year's countywide median single-family sale price, capped at $600,000, or $300,000, adjusted annually for inflation. Those protections are real but partial, and a judgment can persist for years. That is why who defends and who ultimately pays is the fight worth having now.

What you can do

1. Give your employer a copy of the summons and complaint today, in writing, and ask in writing whether they will provide your defense and confirm indemnity under Labor Code § 2802.

2. Send the papers to your former insurer as well, in writing, and ask for the coverage denial in writing with all of its bases.

3. If the denial does not come, or does not explain itself, file a complaint with the California Department of Insurance.

4. Collect your pay records, schedule, tax forms, onboarding paperwork and any app or dispatch records. These determine whether you were an employee under Labor Code § 2775(b)(1), which drives everything else.

5. Speak to a local attorney immediately about the response deadline. It is short, set by court rules, and missing it can produce a default judgment for the full amount claimed.

6. If the employer offers you a lawyer, ask a local attorney whether that lawyer is conflict-free for you before accepting or refusing — Carter is why refusing carelessly is costly.

7. Most lawyers offer a brief initial call at no cost, and a few minutes on your specific facts is worth more than any general guidance, including this page.

⏱ Time limits apply. The claim against you runs under Code Civ. Proc. § 335.1 for injury and Code Civ. Proc. § 338(c)(1) for vehicle damage, and a separate, much shorter deadline now runs from the day you were served. Which dates control depends on your facts. Have a local attorney look at the papers this week.