The world’s dirtiest man died last month at the (ripe) age of 94, having reportedly going 60 years without bathing. Covered in soot and living in a cinder-block shack, the Iranian hermit was known for eating roadkill, smoking a pipe filled with animal excrement, and believing that cleanliness would make him ill.
The newest dirtiest man alive may be this guy in India, who as of 2009 hadn’t bathed in a mere 35 years. Instead of water, this man of the people opts for a “fire bath,” in which he lights a bonfire, smokes marijuna and stands on a leg praying to Lord Shiva. The man told a reporter from the Hindustan Times, “Fire bath helps kill all the germs and infections in the body.” Of course it does.
Sometimes when we settle lawsuits, we also feel dirty. Maybe not that dirty, but at least icky. It feels wrong to pay money to a plaintiff when we feel the other party doesn’t deserve it. But settlements are often driven by factors other than the merits of a claim, such as business conditions or considerations other than purely financial.
In independent contractor misclassification cases, a settlement is sometimes the only way to ensure that a lawsuit does not result in forced reclassification of workers. In a settlement, the parties can agree upon terms, including financial payments, without conceding that anyone was misclassified and without requiring a reclassification going forward.
That is what happened in a recent case involving A Place for Rover, which is an app-based gig economy company that connects dog walkers with dog owners.
In May 2021, the app company won summary judgment in a misclassification dispute. The company argued that dog walkers were independent contractors, not employees, even under California law. The company argued that it could satisfy each prong of the ABC Test and that, regardless, it was a referral service under California law, which would exempt it from the ABC Test usually used in California to determine whether a worker is an employee. The company urged the court instead to analyze the classification dispute using the S.G. Borello balancing test, not an ABC Test.
The district court did not reach a conclusion on whether the company was a referral service and instead determined that the ABC Test was satisfied. The court ruled that dog walkers controlled their own work, routes, and prices, making them legitimate independent contractors.
But the plaintiff appealed, and the company may have feared that the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals would revive the case and send it to trial. Instead of taking a chance on a bad outcome, the company settled.
By settling, the company pays money to avoid the risk of a judgment that the dog walkers were employees, an outcome that would likely render the company’s business model no longer viable. The company’s decision makers probably felt a little dirty, paying any money at all after having won at the district court level. That is not a surprising outcome, even if they felt strongly about their case. Because the stakes are so high in misclassification litigation, that’s often how these cases conclude. Icky but sometimes necessary.
But at least in litigation, afterwards you can take a bath.
© 2022 Todd Lebowitz, posted on WhoIsMyEmployee.com, Exploring Issues of Independent Contractor Misclassification and Joint Employment. All rights reserved.
Where I play tennis, there’s a lake with a beach that is open all summer. Like most places in the Midwest, it closes for the season on Labor Day. The weekend after Labor Day, they open it up for everyone to bring their dogs to run around, jump off the high dive (I wish!), and sniff each other’s butts. Because dogs are not typically allowed at the lake, these dogs are unfamiliar with each other, so there’s even more butt-sniffing than you might normally see at a canine networking event.
Who Is My Employee? 