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 deliveries for a big box store. In addition, last month the U.S. Department of Labor recovered a sizeable amount of damages from a local Alabama health care company, while a court in California approved a $30 million settlement between a nationwide cleaning franchisor and its franchisees. These lawsuits show that IC misclassification lawsuits arise in every region of the country and cover an endless array of industries. Why? Because the use of independent contractors has become ubiquitous in the U.S. While states and cities have enacted laws over the past decade to curtail the misclassification of workers as independent contractors, they have now begun to pass laws to protect independent contractors that have been properly classified as such. The most recent state to do so is New York, which last month passed an independent contractor payment protection law, as we report below, affording ICs double damages if they have not been paid all their fees in a timely manner. Now, when advising businesses how to enhance their compliance with laws affecting independent contractors, we not only use a process such as IC Diagnostics (TM) to minimize misclassification exposure, but also provide suggestions for ensuring that those companies don’t expose themselves to liability under these new IC pay protection laws.   …