It’s Valentine’s Day. You and your sweetie want to get away for the weekend. Your high school offspring will stay home. They seem responsible, promise not to break the law, and promise if they break anything they will pay for it. So you’re good, right?
Come on, wake up. Have you seen Risky Business? American Pie? House Party (very underrated movie, by the way)? Continue reading
Let’s talk about good old-fashioned 1099 Independent Contractors — you know, those individuals who are happy to be called contractors until they’re released and then decide they should have been treated as employees.
When retaining a contractor, one of the goals, of course, is to ensure that the contractor is properly classified and is not really (factually) an employee. A secondary goal, however, is to limit liability if the contractor is misclassified.
Today’s question sits at the intersection of these two goals. Continue reading
You knew that college athletes were not employees of their schools, but did you know the legal reason why?
Let’s look at a recent case that arose under the Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA).
In early 2015, a group of student-athletes sued several schools and the NCAA, alleging that they had put in thousands of hours of work for the benefit of their school, without compensation. The student-athletes alleged that they should have been paid at least a minimum wage, as required under the FLSA.
The Economic Realities Test seeks to determine whether, as a matter of economic reality, the worker is reliant on the hiring party, or is in business for him/herself.
[UPDATED 10/9/2021, 3/15/22: See Notes in red, below.]
The Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA) uses an Economic Realities Test to determine whether a worker is a contractor or an employee. If the worker is an employee under this test, then the federal minimum wage and overtime rules apply, subject to any exemptions. This test is also used to determine who is an employee under the Family and Medical Leave Act (FMLA). Continue reading
Who Is My Employee? 