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
/ Civil Rights Act ,
Department of Labor (DOL) ,
Employment Litigation ,
Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) ,
Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA) ,
Freelance Workers ,
Gig Economy ,
Hiring & Firing ,
Hostile Environment ,
Independent Contractors ,
Labor Reform ,
Labor Regulations ,
Misclassification ,
State Labor Laws ,
Title VII ,
Wage and Hour
The most compelling news involving independent contractor compliance and misclassification last month was not a class action lawsuit or a government investigation but rather a government study released by the Bureau of Labor...more
Last month, two key legal developments in the area of independent contractor misclassification and compliance highlighted the risks posed to customer service companies that use an independent contractor business model. The...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
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
As discussed in our QuickStudy of January 9, the U.S. Department of Labor has issued its long-awaited final rule setting forth its version of the test for independent contractor status under the federal Fair Labor Standards...more
It has been well over a year since the U.S. Department of Labor issued its proposed rule entitled “Employee or Independent Contractor Classification under the Fair Labor Standards Act.” The regulation was expressly intended...more
1/9/2024
/ Administrative Interpretation ,
Class Action ,
Corporate Counsel ,
Department of Labor (DOL) ,
Economic Realities Test ,
Employees ,
Employer Liability Issues ,
Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA) ,
Final Rules ,
Independent Contractors ,
Misclassification ,
Wage and Hour
It’s been almost a full year since the U.S. Department of Labor issued its proposed regulation entitled “Employee or Independent Contractor Classification under the Fair Labor Standards Act.” The proposed regulation was fully...more
Case developments last month involved independent contractor misclassification lawsuits in the Southwest, Southeast, and Mid-Atlantic states. While more IC misclassification lawsuits have been brought in California than any...more
In response to the U.S. Department of Labor’s proposed regulation released to the public on October 11, 2022 entitled “Employee or Independent Contractor Classification under the Fair Labor Standards Act,” an unprecedented...more
Among the legal developments we report on below from October is a decision by a federal district court in California certifying a lawsuit for independent contractor misclassification as a collective action under the federal...more
The Biden Administration’s Labor Department earlier today issued a proposed regulation that seeks to define the worker classification test for independent contractor or employee status under the Fair Labor Standards Act...more
The U.S. Labor Department has been playing musical chairs in its approach to classifying workers as independent contractors or employees under the federal Fair Labor Standards Act since the middle of the Obama Administration....more
Since the inception of this blog in 2010, we have reported on independent contractor misclassification class actions filed against hundreds of companies in scores of industries. Yet some industries seem to have been targeted...more
Perhaps the most significant development involving independent contractor compliance and misclassification issues in December 2021 received relatively scant attention: a detailed empirical study based on survey results of a...more
October was a relatively “slow” month for legal developments in the areas of independent contractor misclassification and compliance. But for companies that engage drivers to distribute pharmaceutical products, a nearly $12...more
In the same month that 7-Eleven prevailed in a federal court trial where convenience store franchisees claimed they were not independent contractors but rather employees entitled to the protections of state labor laws, a...more
The first three cases reported below regarding legal developments in August 2021 have four common denominators: the defendants are all large gig economy companies; plaintiffs’ class action counsel is the same; the lawsuits...more
9/15/2021
/ ABC Test ,
Arbitration ,
Class Action ,
Corporate Counsel ,
Employee Definition ,
Employer Liability Issues ,
Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA) ,
Federal Arbitration Act ,
Gig Economy ,
Independent Contractors ,
Lyft ,
Misclassification ,
Wage and Hour
Most class action cases of independent contractor misclassification are brought against corporate entities. Yet many laws also permit plaintiffs to sue company executives or managers for personal liability in such cases. In...more
June was a relatively slow month in the area of independent contractor misclassification and compliance. But it produced what may turn out to be one of the more important judicial decisions in years affecting last-mile...more
Direct sellers and door-to-door salespersons are frequently classified as independent contractors – and that classification is increasingly under attack, both by class action lawyers and the U.S. Department of Labor, as...more
April 2021 was a meaningful month for two industries that are hardly strangers to lawsuits involving the status of workers as independent contractors. A federal district court in the District of Columbia issued an extremely...more
5/12/2021
/ ABC Test ,
Arbitration ,
Class Action ,
Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA) ,
Federal Arbitration Act ,
Federal Aviation Administration Authorization Act of 1994 (FAAAA) ,
Independent Contractors ,
Misclassification ,
Motor Carriers ,
Popular ,
Ridesharing
The U.S. Department of Labor today issued a rule yesterday that withdraws the Trump Administration’s regulation setting forth a test to classify workers as independent contractors or employees under the federal Fair Labor...more
Earlier today, the U.S. Department of Labor formally issued a rule that withdraws the Trump Administration’s regulation addressing the test for classifying workers as independent contractors or employees under the federal...more