One need only glance at the court cases we report on below to understand why some businesses choose to settle independent contractor misclassification cases.  Three of these cases highlight the unpredictable approaches appellate courts have taken in deciding IC misclassification cases.

To illustrate, in February, one federal appellate court reversed…

This past month may well be regarded as one of the more legally satisfying for businesses using independent contractors.  Courts issued three decisions in favor of companies on the issue as to whether certain workers are ICs or employees: the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit found insurance…

For the past 18 months, insurance companies have been holding their collective breath to see if an appellate court would affirm or reverse an Ohio federal district court decision concluding that thousands of current and former agents for American Family Insurance Company were employees and not independent contractors under ERISA,…

Earlier today, the National Labor Relations Board issued a decision overturning a union-friendly test for independent contractor status that had been adopted by the Board during the Obama Administration. In its decision in SuperShuttle DFW Inc., the NLRB, which is now controlled by a majority of Board members appointed by…

Shortly after the issuance of the Supreme Court’s decision earlier today in New Prime Inc. v. Oliveira, some commentators have referred to it as a watershed opinion preserving the right of workers including independent contractors to have their class action cases heard in court instead of before an arbitrator. Others…

As reported six months ago in an article in the E&P Journal, the oil and gas industry is one of those that is under attack by plaintiffs’ class action lawyers filing independent contractor misclassification lawsuits. My colleagues Bill Swanstrom and Mike Rose joined me then in commenting on some…

There were only a handful of independent contractor misclassification cases of significance in December and each of those matters relates to the subject of prior comprehensive posts on this blog.

The first involved FedEx Ground, which has paid hundreds of millions of dollars to settle dozens of class action lawsuits…

While there were no headline-grabbing cases or developments in the area of independent contractor misclassification and compliance during the past month, the first four court decisions reported below provide the basis for two useful strategies for companies to consider when using an independent contractor business model or supplementing their workforces…