Is It Work-Related? The 9 OSHA Exceptions That Make an Injury Not Recordable

An injury that happens in the work environment is presumed to be work-related — and therefore a candidate for your OSHA 300 Log. But OSHA wrote nine specific exceptions into 29 CFR 1904.5(b)(2), and if one of them fits, the case is not work-related and never reaches the log. These nine are where many recordability arguments turn: the parking-lot commute, the common cold, the worker who hurt themselves eating lunch. Know them well, because the presumption runs against you until one applies.

Under 29 CFR 1904.5, an injury or illness in the work environment is presumed work-related unless it results solely from one of nine exceptions, such as a commuting car accident in the company parking lot, the common cold or flu, or eating your own food, and a work-related case still goes on the 300 Log only if it meets a recording criterion of 1904.7.

The presumption: guilty until excepted

Start with the rule the exceptions carve out of. Under 1904.5(a), an injury or illness is work-related if an event or exposure in the work environment either caused or contributed to it, or significantly aggravated a pre-existing condition. The "work environment" is the establishment and any other location where employees are working, or are present as a condition of their employment.

That is a broad, employer-unfriendly default. You do not need the workplace to be the sole cause — merely a contributing one — and aggravating an old injury counts. So the analysis is not "did work cause this?" It is: "is work presumed to have contributed, and if so, does one of the nine exceptions rebut it?"

The nine exceptions (1904.5(b)(2))

An injury or illness occurring in the work environment is not work-related if it results solely from one of these:

The word that does the work in every row is solely. If work contributed at all beyond the excepted cause, the exception fails and the presumption stands.

The traps inside the exceptions

The parking lot is about the commute, not the location. Exception (vii) only covers a motor vehicle accident during the commute. A worker struck by a pallet while loading a company truck in that same lot, during work, is not covered by (vii) — that is work-related. Same asphalt, opposite answer.

"Eating" has a contamination carve-out. Exception (iv) covers choking on or reacting to your own food. But if the food or drink was contaminated by a workplace chemical — lead dust settling on an unwashed sandwich, say — the resulting illness is work-related, and so is food poisoning from food the employer supplied (the note to 1904.5(b)(2)(iv)). The exception protects personal consumption, not workplace contamination.

The cold and flu are singled out; other infections are not. Exception (viii) names only the common cold and flu. Tuberculosis, brucellosis, hepatitis A, and plague are explicitly outside the exception — contract one through work and it can be recordable. Do not stretch "it's just a bug going around" past the two illnesses OSHA actually excluded.

Aggravation defeats "pre-existing." Employers often assume an old back injury or a prior condition is automatically non-recordable. It is not. Under 1904.5(a), if a work event significantly aggravated the pre-existing condition — made it worse than it would have gotten on its own — the aggravation is work-related. The exception in (ii) only applies when the workplace contributed nothing.

Two location rules: travel and working from home

Beyond the nine exceptions, 1904.5 carries two location rules that decide the cases of traveling and remote workers:

Travel status (1904.5(b)(6)). When an employee is on business travel, an injury is work-related if it happens while they are engaged in work activities in the interest of the employer. Once the traveler checks into a hotel or other temporary lodging, they establish a "home away from home," and from that point injuries are judged the same way as for a non-traveling employee — an injury in the room from a purely personal activity is not work-related, but one while doing work is. Injuries during a personal detour — a side trip off a reasonably direct business route — are not work-related.

Working at home (1904.5(b)(7)). An injury that happens while an employee is performing work for pay in the home is work-related if it is directly related to the performance of work, not to the general home environment. OSHA's own illustration: a home worker who drops a box of work documents on their foot has a work-related injury; the same worker who trips over the family dog on the stairs does not. The line is work, not location — the home office doesn't make everything recordable, and it doesn't make anything exempt.

The Second Gate: Recording Criteria

Getting past work-relatedness does not put a case on the log by itself. Recordability is a two-gate test (1904.4(a)), and this article is only the first gate:

1. Is it work-related? (1904.5 — this article, and the nine exceptions above.)
2. Does it meet a general recording criterion? (1904.7 — death, days away, restricted work/transfer, medical treatment beyond first aid, loss of consciousness, or a significant diagnosis.)

A work-related cut cleaned and covered with a bandage clears gate one but fails gate two — first aid alone is not recordable. Walk a real case through both gates with the OSHA Recordability Decision Tree, and see the full recording rules on the OSHA recordkeeping hub.

Worked scenarios

• A laborer trips on a curb walking to their car after their shift. In the work environment, but no motor-vehicle accident, so (vii) doesn't apply; a trip-and-fall on the employer's premises during work-related presence is generally work-related. Apply 1904.7.
• A carpenter's car is rear-ended in the company lot on the way in. Exception (vii) applies — commute, motor vehicle, company lot. Not work-related.
• A worker catches the flu that's going around the crew. Exception (viii) — not work-related.
• A worker contracts hepatitis A from a jobsite sanitation failure. Not excluded by (viii); if work contributed, it is work-related and recordable.
• A worker with a bad knee twists it stepping off a scaffold and now needs surgery. Work significantly aggravated a pre-existing condition (1904.5(a)) — work-related; surgery is medical treatment beyond first aid, so it is recordable.

Apply the nine exceptions literally, or record the case

The nine exceptions in 1904.5(b)(2) are narrow, literal, and each hinges on the word solely. The parking-lot exception is really a commute-crash exception; the food exception has a contamination carve-out; the cold-and-flu exception excludes exactly two illnesses and no others; and aggravating a pre-existing condition keeps a case work-related no matter how old the underlying problem is. When in doubt, the presumption favors recording — so document why an exception applies before you leave a case off the log.

Related reading

• The hub: OSHA recordkeeping — 300, 300A & 301
• The other gate: When is an injury recordable? (1904.7) · Is a near miss recordable?
• Decide a case: OSHA Recordability Decision Tree
• The standards: 1904.5 — work-relatedness · 1904.7 — general recording criteria

Sources & verification (read on the eCFR, October 5, 2026): work-relatedness presumption and the nine exceptions per 29 CFR 1904.5(a) and (b)(2)(i)–(ix); unclear cases per 1904.5(b)(3); travel status per 1904.5(b)(6) and work-at-home per 1904.5(b)(7); the two gates per 1904.4(a); general recording criteria per 1904.7(a). General guidance, not legal advice; OSHA State-Plan states may impose additional requirements.