Lucero: A Work-Driving Injury Survived the Initial-Aggressor Defense

After a crash while driving for work, you need medical care and a clear answer about your claim. A denial that calls you the aggressor can make the dispute feel like a judgment about your character. The legal question is more specific: What conduct and evidence support the defense, and how did the injury arise from your work?

In Lucero v. Living Spaces Furniture, LLC, No. ADJ19073561 (WCAB Mar. 17, 2025), the Workers’ Compensation Appeals Board rejected the employer’s initial-aggressor defense after a collision involving a truck driver working for the company. The Board also made the injury finding more precise: It identified the cervical and lumbar spine as injured and deferred the remaining issues.

The employer’s allegations required proof

Jazmin Lucero was driving a truck for Living Spaces Furniture when the March 27, 2024 accident occurred. The employer argued that she had pursued another trucker over a personal dispute, intentionally placed herself in danger and temporarily abandoned her employment. It also argued that she was the initial aggressor.

Those were the employer’s allegations, which the Board examined against the record. In the evidence discussion in Lucero, the other driver had not testified, and the record supplied no evidence of that driver’s state of mind. The Board considered what his actions showed as well.

The distinction matters when reading a denial. A description such as “aggressive” is a conclusion to examine. Identify the specific conduct alleged, who observed it, and which records or testimony support the account. Keep the employer’s version, your account and an actual finding separate.

Two elements defined the initial-aggressor defense

Labor Code section 3600(a)(7) addresses an injury arising from an altercation in which the injured employee was the initial physical aggressor. The Board applied Mathews v. Workmen’s Compensation Appeals Board, 6 Cal.3d 719 (1972), to explain the two required elements: An injury arising from an altercation, and the employee’s role as the initial physical aggressor in that altercation.

The legal test in Lucero described an altercation as an exchange marked by animosity and a willingness to inflict bodily harm. It described the initial physical aggressor as the person who first engaged in physical conduct that a reasonable person would perceive as a real, present and apparent threat of bodily harm.

The worker still bore the burden of proving a work-related injury. The employer bore the burden of establishing its initial-aggressor defense. The Board relied on section 5705, which places the burden on the party asserting the affirmative of an issue. The employer’s accusation therefore needed evidentiary support; it was not a substitute for proof.

The Board examined what the other driver actually did

The Board drew on the trial judge’s account of the collision. The other driver appeared to be traveling securely in the far-left lane before accelerating alongside Lucero, swerving into her truck and continuing to push it onto the shoulder.

Read together with the missing testimony and state-of-mind evidence, those actions gave the Board little support for the employer’s claim that the other driver had reacted to a perceived threat of bodily harm. The application of Mathews in Lucero also emphasized that the statutory defense denying compensation must be narrowly construed.

The result depended on the actual evidence, not merely the fact that one participant was absent from trial. For another claim, reconstruct the lead-up to the collision and the physical actions on which the employer relies. A witness’s opportunity to observe, an available recording and the complete sequence may bear on whether the alleged threat was supported.

Driving for work remained central to the employment connection

The employer separately argued that Lucero’s conduct amounted to a temporary abandonment of employment. The Board rejected that argument as well. It emphasized that she was involved in the accident while driving her semi-truck trailer for work.

The employment-connection analysis in Lucero applied Williams v. Workers’ Compensation Appeals Board, 41 Cal.App.3d 937 (1974). When an employee is performing the employer’s duties, performing them in an unauthorized manner or violating instructions does not, by itself, place the resulting injury outside employment.

California’s compensation system generally addresses employment-caused injury without regard to negligence, subject to the statutory conditions and defenses. Here, the Board evaluated the work-driving connection and the employer’s claimed defense separately. That approach keeps an allegation of unsafe conduct from silently replacing the legal questions the evidence must answer.

The medical evidence made the replacement finding specific

The trial judge had found an industrial injury but had not identified any injured body parts. The Board explained why that omission mattered: An enforceable finding needed enough certainty to establish the employer’s obligations.

The medical-evidence discussion in Lucero relied on Dr. Shaheen Zakaria’s examination the day after the crash. After taking a history, examining Lucero and obtaining diagnostic information, the doctor diagnosed cervical and lumbosacral strain with paraspinal muscle spasm related to the accident. That evidence supported injury findings for the cervical and lumbar spine.

A later orthopedic evaluation addressed additional diagnoses, and Lucero claimed other affected body parts and conditions. The replacement order in Lucero deferred all other issues, including injury to other body parts. The Board granted reconsideration, rescinded the December 13, 2024 findings and award, and substituted findings identifying the cervical and lumbar injuries and rejecting the initial-aggressor defense.

The favorable result was concrete: The defense failed, and two injured spinal regions were identified. The medical and other issues expressly deferred remained part of the continuing claim. The substituted order, rather than the broader list of claimed conditions, defines what this decision established.

Preserve the incident sequence and the early medical record

Keep the denial, incident report and any available witness accounts. Preserve complete recordings if they exist, including the events leading up to the collision, and identify who controls them before they are overwritten. Dispatch records, route information and relevant communications may help explain what work you were performing.

Keep the early medical reports and diagnostic records as well. Compare the body parts actually found injured with the conditions still being evaluated. Ask counsel which conduct allegedly establishes the defense, what evidence supports that account, and which medical questions remain unresolved under the actual order.

Our Sarian analysis examines proof of a work purpose during an off-site meal. The truck–train collision Insight addresses a separate psychiatric-injury exception. Lucero concerns the proof required for an initial-aggressor defense, the continuing work-driving connection and the medical basis for a specific injury finding.