A contractor pays day laborers in cash, calls them independent contractors, and carries no workers' compensation. A laborer is injured. The contractor most likely:

Explanation

Labor Code §2775(b)(1) treats a worker as an employee unless the hiring entity proves all three parts of the ABC test, and §2781 sets the narrower conditions for construction subcontractors; the label on the paperwork settles nothing. An employer that owed coverage and had none faces the civil action §3706 allows, in which §3708 presumes the injury was caused by the employer's negligence and removes the usual defenses, plus §3700.5 misdemeanor exposure and suspension of the license under B&P §7125.2. (a) understates the exposure by orders of magnitude. (b) is the label-as-conclusion error the ABC test forecloses. (d) misreads the commercial general liability policy, which excludes bodily injury to the insured's own employees precisely because workers' compensation answers it.