Author Archives: Todd Lebowitz

04.25.19
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Mixed Messages, Misclassification, and My Visit to Ohio E-Check: Just Another Day on My Way to the Office

Independent contractor misclassification e-check mixed messages

Yesterday I was at Ohio E-check. When they use their fancy vehicle emissions testing equipment, they ask you to get out of your car and wait in a small glass-walled waiting area. Inside there are two signs. The first says: “Ohio E-Check. No cell phones!”  The second says: “Ohio E-Check. How are we doing? To comment, use this QR code.”

Regrettably, I complied with the first sign, so I do not have a picture for you of the two signs. (While waiting, I tried like hell to memorize that QR code!)

When waiting for E-Check, mixed messages are funny. When retaining independent contractors, however, mixed messages are no joke. If enough signs suggest that a contractor is really an employee, the risk of a misclassification finding is heightened, and the consequences of misclassification can be severe.

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04.22.19
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“There was boxes back there”: How a flood and a healthy dose of incompetence sank a strip club’s plan to force a dancer into arbitration

Independent contractor

Nope. Not that Godfather.

Forgive me in advance if I sound condescending. And skeptical. And incredulous. But above all, I am amused.

This is the story of a strip club called the Godfather. When one of its dancers, a young lassie named Tassy, tried to sue, alleging that she had been misclassified as an independent contractor, the Godfather asked the court to send her claims to arbitration, as required under the Godfather’s dancer agreement.

But the Godfather had one small problem. It could not produce the agreement because, it claimed, the agreement was washed out in a flood caused by a rusted-out water heater in the back room. As everyone knows, the flood-prone back room with the rusted-out water heater is the best place for storing corporate legal documents. (Note to self: update template document retention guidelines.) Preferably, as the Godfather did, store them in unmarked boxes with no index or system for determining exactly what was in the boxes. But Tassy’s agreement was in there. They’re pretty sure, anyway.

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04.18.19
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Poor Planning Dooms Pet Owner; Good Planning Saves GrubHub’s Arbitration Agreement

35D2D59B-89A6-40D6-8727-7C4C7D87BC9Findependent contractor arbitration agreement GrubHub Wallace

Why did the cassowary cross the road? To get to the other side.

Careful planning and foresight are important. For example, it would have been a good idea for a Gainesville, Florida man to have read up a little more on cassowaries before choosing to own one as a pet. A cassowary is a large flightless bird that grows up to six feet tall and can weigh 130 pounds. It has a four-inch claw on each foot, used to slice open its prey. (Infomercial: It’s both a fork and a knife!) The bird has powerful legs that it can use to kill its prey with a single kick — or chase it down by running at speeds up to 30 mph. Think Big Bird meets Edward Scissorhands meets pissed-off hungry crocodile in a go-cart.

Anyway, some guy in Gainesville bought one as a pet. It promptly killed him. Poor planning. I would have recommended a labradoodle.

A better example of planning ahead is GrubHub and its independent contractor arbitration agreements.

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04.15.19
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The Stones, the Dalai Lama, and Arbitration: How Not to Get What You Need in an Arbitration Agreement

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Not Mick Jagger

You can’t always get what you want, said a wise English sage in 1969. This advice still holds true. For example, Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman Lu Kang recently declared that the reincarnation of the Dalai Lama must comply with Chinese law.  Good luck with that.

The enforcement mechanism for Lu’s edict is unclear, but the Chinese Communist Party knows what it wants. (Allow me a brief diversion. My favorite sentence in the cnn.com story: “It isn’t completely clear whether the Dalai Lama will allow himself to be reincarnated after he dies.”  You and me both, brother!)

Another example arose in a recent court case, in which a messenger service required its independent contractor messengers to sign an arbitration agreement. Like spokesman Lu, the messenger service may have demanded a bit too much. A California Court of Appeal declared the arbitration agreement invalid, ruling that it was both procedural and substantively unconscionable.

What makes an arbitration agreement so one-sided that it’s unconscionable?

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04.11.19
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Can You Offer Paid Vacation to Independent Contractors?

Can you offer paid vacation to independent contractorsVacation is all the Go-Go’s and their misplaced apostrophe ever wanted. Vacation, had to get away. Vacation, had to be spent alone.

Employees want vacation too, and so do independent contractors. Should your company’s vacation policy apply to independent contractors too? Can you grant your independent contractors a certain amount of paid vacation?

Not a good idea.

In the various tests for Independent Contractor vs. Employee, one of the recurring themes is that a contractor is in business for himself/herself.  The contractor is supposed to be able to work when he or she wants, so long as deadlines are met.

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04.08.19
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Slip Slidin’ Away? Truckers’ Fall Short in Bid to Overturn California’s Dynamex Standard (Plus: Bonus Quiz for Paul Simon Fans)

Truckers Western States dynamex independent contractor misclassificationIt seems a little presumptuous that when Paul Simon released the single, “Slip Slidin’ Away,” he released it as one of two new songs on his 1977 Greatest Hits, Etc. album. How is it a greatest hit before it’s been released? But sure enough, the song rose to #5 on the Billboard charts. Today’s Challenge: Ten bonus points will be awarded to anyone who can name the other new song that debuted on Simon’s 1977 Greatest Hits, Etc. compilation. The answer is at the end of the post.

In July, we wrote about “Convoy,” a 1975 song about a fictional trucker rebellion, as a way to introduce a new lawsuit filed by the Western States Trucking Association. The lawsuit seeks to invalidate California’s burdensome ABC Test (the Dynamex test), which is now used to determine who is a contractor and who is an employee under California wage and hour law.  The truckers argued that the law — as applied to truckers — was preempted by federal laws that seek to promote uniformity in the interstate transportation industry.

Based on a recent decision in a California federal court, the truckers’ hopes of invalidating Dynamex may be Slip Slidin’ Away.

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04.04.19
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“This is a Cabinet”: DOL Proposes New Definition of Joint Employer, Seeks to Clear Up a Confusing Label

This post was originally published as a BakerHostetler Employment Alert on April 3, 2019. Cabinet joint employmentSometimes it’s obvious what something is, and you don’t need a label. Other times it’s not so obvious, and you do need a label. Then there’s the rare instance when it’s obvious what something is, but someone feels compelled to supply a label anyway. That third scenario is what I saw when I went to my daughter’s volleyball tournament last weekend and snapped this photo of a cabinet in the lobby. The label is small, but if you look closely, you’ll see that it helpfully declares the item to be a “cabinet.” It further announces, in red handwriting, that the item has been “sold,” thereby allaying my concerns that my daughter was spending her Saturday playing volleyball in a den of cabinet thieves.

The second scenario – label needed – is the focus of this Alert. And the territory is familiar ground ‒ joint employment.

It’s rarely obvious what that phrase means, and companies that use workers supplied by other companies have been seeking clarity for some time now. Ignoring Ronald Reagan’s famous quip about the nine most terrifying words in the English language, the Department of Labor (DOL) announced on Monday that it’s here to help.

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04.01.19
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Too Many Beef Livers? NLRB Addresses How It Will Review 29,000 Comments on Its Proposed Joint Employer Rule

NRLB Ring too many beef livers avocadosToo much of a good thing can be a bad thing. For example, according to this article in Popular Science, consuming 240 avocados in one sitting would put the average man at risk of sudden death by potassium poisoning. (It doesn’t say how many avocados an above-average man could eat, but presumably the number is similar.) 

A similarly bad outcome can result from over-consumption of beef livers, although it would take approximately 431 pounds of beef livers before the toxicity of excessive vitamin A might cause a man to think he should have stopped after 430.

Lots of comments can overwhelm an administrative agency’s internal organs as well. As we discussed here, the NLRB has proposed a new regulation that would make it harder to establish joint employment under the National Labor Relations Act. In response to the Notice of Proposed Rulemaking, the Board has received nearly 29,000 comments from interested organizations, unions, academics, business owners and individual workers (like Cindy, perhaps) about the proposed new rule.

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03.25.19
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Independent Contractor Misclassification Claim Fails, in Part, Due to Plaintiff’s Goat Farm

Goat independent contractor misclassification

The face that sunk a lawsuit?

In my house, we sometimes have bizarre but short conversations about job functions.  A recent example:

Lindsay: I think I want to do a job that helps people.

Andy: Doesn’t every job help people?

Me: Not executioner.  

This post is about a case involving directional drilling consultants.  And while that sounds like the job title of a scene director in the porn industry, it’s actually a job involving subterranean oil and gas exploration.  Directional drilling consultants (DDs) advise drilling companies how to aim their directional drills when drilling a well that starts down a vertical path, then switches to horizontal.  This allows the company to drill discretely in areas away from home.  Like Josh Duggar.  

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03.18.19
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Don’t be a Hirtle: Here’s Why You Should Avoid “Works Made for Hire” Clauses in Independent Contractor Agreements

independent contractor works made for hireDon’t shoot yourself in the foot, Adam Hirtle of Colorado Springs. It’s an expression, not a thing to do with a real firearm. According to this article, Hirtle did it because he wanted to see how it felt. Presumably: Bad.

Shooting yourself in the foot is something many companies may be doing when trying to protect their intellectual property in independent contractor agreements. Generally, there are two ways to protect copyright: “works made for hire” and assignment.

Many independent contractor agreements use both. Intellectual property clauses often say that anything created by the independent contractor is a “work made for hire,” which would mean that the company — not the individual — owns the copyright. These clauses will also typically say that anything not deemed a “work made for hire” is assigned to the company. This is supposed to be a belt-and-suspenders way to ensure that the company owns the intellectual property created by the independent contractor.

Did you know that clause can turn the contractor into an employee?

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