In February 2016, two federal appellate courts ruled in favor of companies in IC misclassification cases: one where the NLRB was reversed in a decision where the agency had found stagehands to be employees and not ICs; the other where an appellate court gave a small but important victory to…

Frances McMorris, who covers the transportation and hospitality industries for American City Business Journals (ACBJ), wrote an article on January 29 about the impact of the latest Uber lawsuit on businesses that use independent contractors and what actions companies can take to protect themselves from IC misclassification risks.  Two approaches…

This Update covers the two-month period of December 2015 and January 2016. The headnote for this period is: don’t classify drivers as ICs unless you do it right!

Eight of the nine cases reported below involve drivers. None of those companies appear to have undertaken a compliance initiative such as…

Yesterday, a federal court in San Francisco issued a ruling invalidating the arbitration clauses in Uber’s driver agreements, which if enforced would have foreclosed thousands of drivers from being covered by the class action and required them to commence individual claims against the company. But, one portion of the ruling…

This month’s news update highlights the increased focus on class action IC misclassification lawsuits brought against transportation industry clients and ride-sharing companies like Uber.  The successes enjoyed to date by most class action lawyers alleging IC misclassification reflects the fact that many companies using ICs have not yet effectively minimized…

Recently, Mary Kay, Inc. was sued in New Jersey for allegedly misclassifying a class of direct sellers as independent contractors in violation of the New Jersey Wage Payment Law. While there are direct seller exemptions from laws governing unemployment insurance, workers’ compensation, and the payment and withholding of employment taxes,…

Judicial and regulatory developments in the months of September and October 2015 vividly highlight the fact that many companies in the U.S., both large and small, continue to fail to structure, document, and implement their IC relationships in a legally compliant manner – and thereby expose themselves needlessly to IC…

Amazon is the latest tech company to be sued in a proposed class action by drivers delivering its products – in this case, goods to be delivered within two hours of being ordered through Amazon’s “Prime Now” app. The drivers claim that they have been classified by Amazon and the…

August 2015 was not a vacation month for independent contractor cases. No less than seven major litigation events transpired this past month, highlighted by more of the same as well as some new developments. Several companies in different industries were subjected to judgments ranging as high as $5 million for…

Today Uber drivers were issued a favorable ruling by the federal district court judge hearing the independent contractor misclassification class action case brought by Uber drivers against the giant ride-sharing company in its own backyard in Northern California. But, there was little doubt as to how the court was likely…