Last month, the most significant legal development in the area of independent contractor (IC) compliance and misclassification was on Capitol Hill. Bill Cassidy of Louisiana, a Senate Republican who chairs the Senate Health,...more
5/12/2025
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The U.S. Department of Labor re-issued an Opinion Letter on the issue of independent contractor (IC) status of an on-demand virtual marketplace company (VMC) that refers end-market consumers to service providers who offer...more
5/6/2025
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The most significant development last month in the law of independent contractors was not one of the four cases we summarize below but rather a bill passed by the New York Senate. ...more
4/15/2025
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Few industries are immune from class actions alleging IC misclassification of workers paid on a 1099 basis. One industry that has not yet been besieged by these types of lawsuits is travel, but that may be changing. ...more
Few federal regulations over the past five years have produced more needless concern by stakeholders than the independent contractor rules under the federal Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA) issued by the different...more
2/12/2025
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Richard Reibstein, a partner with Troutman Pepper Locke, was quoted in the February 3, 2025 FreightWaves article, “Trucking-Backed Suit May Be Arena for Dumping Biden Independent Contractor Rule.”...more
2/4/2025
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As the business of artificial intelligence is expanding, it seemed it was only a matter of time before the AI industry became the subject of an independent contractor misclassification lawsuit. Last month, one of the leading...more
1/8/2025
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The most significant legal development in the past month in the area of independent contractor compliance was the enactment of California’s Freelance Worker Protection Act, which goes into effect on January 1, 2025. We have...more
Is independent contractor misclassification, standing alone, a violation of the National Labor Relations Act? Last month, the National Labor Relations Board issued a decision in a case involving workers who were found to be...more
The legal developments in the area of independent contractor misclassification and compliance last month include cases against a record label company, an Islamic Center, and a waste recycling company. Lawsuits for IC...more
Lawyers representing ride share drivers have argued for years that their clients are being misclassified as independent contractors under federal and state laws. They have attained little success, however, obtaining...more
Class action independent contractor misclassification cases continue to be filed and most seem to settle, often for large sums, as we have reported in our blog posts on legal developments each month. But some industries have...more
Is an independent food distributor exempt from an arbitration agreement under the interstate transportation worker exemption in the Federal Arbitration Act (FAA)? That was the question that the U.S. Supreme Court addressed in...more
Two court cases we summarize below, decided in March 2024, demonstrate that while some companies may prevail in an IC misclassification lawsuit, others do not. Why? As a starting point, the legal test for IC status under the...more
In early 2015, New Jersey borrowed the state’s strict ABC test under its unemployment law and adopted it as the new test for independent contractor status under its wage laws. That change in the law was not an act by the...more
We have had the opportunity, in the course of our independent contractor practice, to represent clients in over 75 diverse industries including some in rather esoteric businesses. These clients have included musical bands,...more
This past month, new independent contractor misclassification lawsuits were filed in Illinois, Maryland, New Jersey, and Washington by EMTs, cellular service “drive testers,” home health aides, and app-based couriers making...more
Companies can use two independent grounds to compel arbitration of independent contractor misclassification lawsuits: the Federal Arbitration Act (FAA) and state arbitration laws. The FAA, however, includes an exemption for...more
Every so often a large settlement of a class action lawsuit reverberates in the independent contractor world – but last month there were two mega-settlements. The first was between Flowers Foods, a large nationwide baked...more
Last month, Illinois became the first state to enact legislation requiring companies using independent contractors to offer contracts to ICs with prescribed terms and to pay such freelance contractors all of their fees within...more
We report on three case developments during July 2023 that raise the question whether last-mile, logistics, and delivery companies alleged to have misclassified drivers as independent contractors can compel arbitration of...more
The lead case in our review of last month’s legal developments in the area of independent contractor compliance and misclassification is a decision by the U.S. Court of Appeals for the First Circuit, in which it addresses the...more
We reported in our October 10, 2022 blog post that Uber had agreed to pay $100 million in back unemployment taxes to the New Jersey Department of Labor for having classified drivers as independent contractors. Another state...more
Ever since the New Jersey Supreme Court issued its 2015 decision in the Sleepy’s case, establishing an ABC test for wage and hour lawsuits, class action lawyers have targeted companies operating in that state for IC...more
Half of the court cases that we report on below from last month involve legal proceedings related to the sports industry: golf caddies, tennis pros, and sports editors. Misclassification within the multi-faceted sports and...more