Papers were filed in court today formally opposing the deal that Lyft agreed to with the lawyers representing over 100,000 Lyft drivers in their class action brought in the federal court in San Francisco.  The objectors were five Lyft drivers and two Teamsters union councils that are seeking to represent…

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…