The Burr Broadcast: New Independent Contractor Rule
DE Under 3: US DOL's WHD Published Its “Employee or Independent Contractor” Classification Final Rule
#WorkforceWednesday: Employee Privacy and COVID-19, CMS Vaccine Mandate on Hold, Independent Contractor Classification - Employment Law This Week®
#WorkforceWednesday: New AB5 Exemptions, EEOC COVID-19 Updates, Joint-Employer Rule Partially Struck Down - Employment Law This Week®
Employment Law This Week®: FAA Arguably Preempts California Law, New CA Employment Laws for 2020, CA Consumer Privacy Act Amended
Employment Law This Week®: DOL’s Final Overtime Rule, CA Codifies “ABC Test,” Pay Data Collection Beyond 2018, NLRB’s Busy Summer
Legal Minute: Contractor Misclassification
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
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
On June 13, 2023, the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) released a decision, referred to as Atlanta Opera Inc. (372 NLRB No. 95), that marks a shift in the applicable test for whether a worker qualifies as an independent...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
In a recent decision in Kennedy v. Weichert Co., the New Jersey Appellate Division concluded that the “ABC Test” under the Unemployment Compensation Law is inapplicable in determining a real estate salesperson status an...more
The Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals recently affirmed a decision that a group of franchisees are not employees of their franchisor, even though the trial court failed to apply the correct test. Haitayan v. 7-Eleven, Inc., 2022...more
In a recent decision in Bailey v. Millennium Group of Delaware et al, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit confirmed that the ABC Test – long used by the New Jersey Department of Labor – sets forth the...more
The U.S. Supreme Court recently denied the California Trucking Association's (CTA) petition for certiorari related to a case involving federal preemption of California Assembly Bill 5 (AB-5), a law that changed the legal...more
In a decision that further clarifies Massachusetts law with regard to employee classification, the Massachusetts Appeals Court recently held that home inspectors working on behalf of an inspectional services company were...more
For businesses using independent contractor vendors, misclassification claims are usually well-suited for class certification. A plaintiff’s path toward certifying a class can be relatively smooth when all vendors of a...more
In a recent opinion in Hill v. Walmart Inc., the Ninth Circuit affirmed summary judgment in favor of Walmart on Hill’s claim for waiting time penalties under Labor Code section 203, finding there was a good-faith dispute...more
On March 17, Rover—a digital application connecting pet owners with daily pet-care providers—argued to the Ninth Circuit that it should uphold a California federal judge’s finding that a dog-sitter was properly classified as...more
On March 24, 2022, the Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court (SJC) ruled in Patel v. 7-Eleven that the test for independent contractor status set forth in the Massachusetts independent contractor statute applies to the...more
The Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court just held that 7-Eleven franchisees may be employees of 7-Eleven under Massachusetts wage and hour law. The March 24 decision in Dhananjay Patel v. 7-Eleven, Inc. will have significant...more
Massachusetts is one of handful of states to have adopted the stringent “ABC” test for determining whether a worker is an independent contractor or employee. That has made it one of the most fertile battlegrounds over this...more
In a December 13, 2021 decision, the Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court adopted a standard heretofore applied in federal court for determining joint employer status. In Jinks v. Credico (USA) LLC, four plaintiff employees...more
On September 20, 2021, the Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit reversed Grubhub, Inc.’s lower court victory in a class action case involving the alleged misclassification of a former driver. The driver claimed he was...more
On Monday, the Ninth Circuit vacated a judgment for Grubhub, Inc. and against a former food delivery driver, Raef Lawson, who claimed that he was misclassified as an independent contractor when he performed food delivery...more
Micro-mobility company Lime, which provides electric scooter and bike sharing to customers through its mobile app, has been targeted by plaintiffs’ lawyers in class action and representative lawsuits attacking one of the core...more
The California Supreme Court held on January 14, 2021, that its landmark Dynamex decision, which established a rigid standard under California law for companies to classify workers as independent contractors, and later was...more
On January 14, 2021, the California Supreme Court decided Vazquez v. Jan-Pro Franchising International, Inc. The decision holds that the ABC test used to determine independent contractor versus employee status for purposes of...more
On January 14, 2021, the California Supreme Court held in Vazquez v. Jan-Pro Franchising Int'l, Inc. that the ABC test for determining worker classification fashioned in its groundbreaking decision, Dynamex v. Superior...more
The California Supreme Court in Vazquez v. Jan-Pro Franchising International, Inc. ruled on Jan. 14, 2021, that its decision in Dynamex Operations West, Inc. v. Superior Court 4 Cal. 5th 903 (2018) (Dynamex), applies...more