Tag Archives: West Virginia

08.09.21
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Now is the Time to Add These Safe Harbor Clauses to Your Independent Contractor Agreements

Image by Luca Falvo from Pixabay

I just finished reading The Longest Day, the 1959 book by Cornelius Ryan that tells the story of the D-Day landing from Allied, French, and German perspectives. The book covers June 6, 1944 and the days leading up to it, but it doesn’t get into what happened next. To facilitate supply lines into Europe right after D-Day, the British built two artificial harbors off the Normandy coast. Mulberry Harbours A and B allowed for the transport of up to 7,000 tons of vehicles and supplies to the mainland each day.

A harbor is a place where ships can seek shelter from the open ocean. Switching our focus to peacetime and the law, a “safe harbor” is the legal term for a provision that protects against liability if you meet certain conditions. No ships are required. Know the required conditions, and you can find shelter from a legal storm.

Two states recently passed laws that create safe harbors against claims of independent contractor misclassification.

Businesses using independent contractors in West Virginia and Louisiana should update their contracts immediately to take advantage of these new statutes.

Each state’s law provides a list of conditions that, if met, will make someone an independent contractor, providing a safe harbor against claims that these workers are misclassified and should be employees. The LA law creates a presumption of contractor status; the WV law is conclusive.

One of the conditions in WV, for example, is that the written contract “states…that the person understands” a list of five specific facts. The contract needs to “state” these five things. The WV law has other requirements too.

The LA law requires that 6 of a possible 11 conditions are met to fall within the safe harbor.

Other states are considering similar laws. Missouri and North Carolina are considering similar bills. Oklahoma was headed down the same road during the last legislative section but has not yet passed a bill.

Businesses using independent contractors in these states should amend their agreements to take advantage of these safe harbor opportunities.

At a time when the federal government is pledging to crack down further on independent contractor misclassification, it’s important to have contracts that are built to withstand classification challenges by any governmental body. Even under federal law, which doesn’t have these safe harbors, these recitations can be helpful when trying to meet the Right to Control and Economic Realities Tests used in federal law and in most states.

Your agreements with independent contractors provide an opportunity to build your defense against claims of misclassification. They should not be treated as a mere formality.

You want to be able to point to your agreements as Exhibit 1 in your defense against a misclassification claim. Play offense, not defense. Adding the WV and LA clauses — and even the proposed NC and MO clauses — can go a long way toward protecting your independent contractor relationships.

You might not be into reading books about World War II and that’s ok. But please read your contracts carefully. Now is a great time to amend and improve independent contractor agreements.

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© 2021 Todd Lebowitz, posted on WhoIsMyEmployee.com, Exploring Issues of Independent Contractor Misclassification and Joint Employment. All rights reserved.

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03.29.21
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West Virginia Adopts Pro-Business Independent Contractor Test

Three Fun Facts about West Virginia:

  1. The New River is actually one of the world’s oldest rivers and, unusually, flows south to north.
  2. The nickname and team mascot for Poca High School in Poca, WV is the Dots.
  3. West Virginia just adopted the most pro-business worker classification test in the nation.

While I would love to write about the Poca Dots, I’m going to focus on the state’s new worker classification test, enacted March 11, 2021. It takes effect 90 days later, on June 9, 2021.

The new test creates a safe harbor. If you comply with a list of requirements, including a written contract, your worker is automatically an independent contractor under WV wage and hour law, anti-discrimination law, workers’ compensation, and unemployment.

The bill nearly had a disastrous flaw. In its original form, passed by one chamber, if you failed to meet the safe harbor criteria, you’d automatically be deemed an employee. That would have had absurd unintended consequences, including that a worker would automatically be an employee if there was no written contract or if the contract did not include all required clauses.

I drafted a last-minute amendment that was adopted and inserted into the bill at the eleventh hour. The amendment said that if the safe harbor was not met, the worker would not automatically be an employee. Instead, the worker’s status would determined by using the 20-factor Right to Control Test in IRS Rev. Ruling 87-41. (The 20 factors are explained here in this PDF from the Texas Workforce Commission.)

The bill is very pro-business.

Businesses retaining contractors in WV should review the safe harbor provisions and be sure to comply. Compliance means a free pass for independent contractor status under state law (but not under federal law). Contracts may need to be adjusted to include the required clauses. Now is the time to do that.

Here is a link to the bill. The blue text contains the safe harbor. Read it closely and make sure these provisions are in your WV independent contractor agreements.

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© 2021 Todd Lebowitz, posted on WhoIsMyEmployee.com, Exploring Issues of Independent Contractor Misclassification and Joint Employment. All rights reserved.

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