What Is California Labor Code §3355: Household or Business Work?

As used in subdivision (d) of Section 3351, the term “course of trade, business, profession, or occupation” includes all services tending toward the preservation, maintenance, or operation of the business, business premises, or business property of the employer.

What Does Labor Code 3355 Actually Define?

It decides what counts as the owner's business for one narrow purpose: telling a household worker apart from a regular employee at the same residence.

Labor Code 3351 covers who counts as an employee at all. Subdivision (d) carves out people a homeowner hires for duties tied to the home itself, or for personal tasks that have nothing to do with the owner's trade. Section 3355 fills in the missing piece. It says what "the owner's trade" means when a job sits close to the line. Keeping a rental unit running, servicing a work vehicle, or maintaining equipment for a side business falls on the business side. That is true even when the work happens at a private home.

This rule reaches anyone doing paid work at a home where the owner also runs some kind of trade, profession, or regular activity. It affects the worker trying to find out which category applies. It also affects the homeowner trying to confirm whether comp insurance, or a personal umbrella policy, has to respond.

How Do You Tell Personal Chores From Business Work at the Same Address?

Ask what the task was actually keeping running: the family's home life, or an income activity the owner carries on there.

Cleaning the kitchen, mowing the lawn, watching the kids, or cooking meals are the kind of personal duties subdivision (d) was written for. Fixing up a unit the owner rents out, stocking a home office used for client work, or keeping a trade vehicle in running order point the other way. These tasks sit on the business side that section 3355 describes. The same worker can even do both kinds of task in one week. The classification follows the specific task, not the person.

A related statute, Labor Code 3356, adds one more point. The business side does not depend on how formal the owner's setup is. Any activity the owner actually carries on with some regularity counts. It does not matter if there is a business name, articles of incorporation, or a different main occupation.

Why Does This Classification Actually Change Your Coverage?

Household duties can fall under a narrow casual worker exemption; business duties at the same home cannot.

Workers whose job fits the personal side of subdivision (d) can still be left out of mandatory coverage under Labor Code 3352. That exemption applies when the job was short or paid little: under 52 hours, or 100 dollars or less, in the 90 days before the injury. A task that lands on the business side of section 3355 does not get that exemption at all. That worker is covered like any other employee of that trade from the first hour, no matter how little time was involved.

What if the Homeowner Carried No Insurance for Either Kind of Work?

A worker hurt doing business related duties can usually bring a direct claim; household duties follow narrower rules of their own.

Labor Code 3715 lets an injured worker take an uninsured employer straight to the Workers' Compensation Appeals Board, and it also sets specific hour and pay limits for the household and casual workers covered under subdivision (d). Sorting out which category applies first, household or business, matters before anyone looks at which path under 3715 fits.

What Should You Save if Your Work Crossed Into the Owner's Business?

Save whatever shows the task served an income activity, not the household: instructions, pay records, and what the task was actually for.

Write down what you were asked to do and why, who gave the instructions, how often the arrangement repeated, and whether payment came from a personal account or a business one. A lease, a rental listing, a business card, or a work order tied to the property can help show the task served that trade rather than the family's daily life. Our pages for day laborers and domestic workers cover the more common fact patterns on each side of this line in more depth.

Sorting household duties from business duties can decide whether a casual job hour limit applies to your claim at all. Yazdchi Law P.C. reviews the actual work performed and the property involved in each matter individually. Call (661) 273-1780 or use the contact form to talk through your situation.