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Independent Contractors Class Action Employment Litigation

Independent contractors are individuals or entities that perform work for other individuals or entities, but are not employees of those individuals or entities. Whether a worker is an employee or an independent... more +
Independent contractors are individuals or entities that perform work for other individuals or entities, but are not employees of those individuals or entities. Whether a worker is an employee or an independent contractor is not always an easy determination. However, due to differences in tax and liability treatment, misclassifying an employee as an independent contractor can have serious consequences. Autonomy is the defining feature of independent contractor arrangements. Independent contractors control the manner and method of how work is performed while payers control the desired result. Control over schedule and number of hours worked, ownership of equipment or tools, permanency of relationship, and acceptance of jobs from multiple entities are all possible factors in determining whether a worker is an employee or independent contractor.   less -
Bennett Jones LLP

No Common Employer Means No Class Action—Ontario Court of Appeal

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The Ontario Court of Appeal has concluded that a client's influence over a service provider's processes does not establish an employment relationship between the client and the service provider's employees. The plaintiffs in...more

Troutman Pepper Locke

Artificial Intelligence Industry Targeted for Independent Contractor Misclassification Lawsuits: May 2025 IC Legal News Update

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Five months ago, we reported about a class action lawsuit against an artificial intelligence (AI) company that engages workers to perform data labeling and content creation and classifies them as independent contractors (ICs)...more

Troutman Pepper Locke

Republican-Backed Congressional Proposal in Congress Seeks to Allow Companies to Offer Benefits to Independent Contractors: April...

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Last month, the most significant legal development in the area of independent contractor (IC) compliance and misclassification was on Capitol Hill. Bill Cassidy of Louisiana, a Senate Republican who chairs the Senate Health,...more

Troutman Pepper Locke

The Legal Landscape of Independent Contractor Misclassification May Be About to Change: March 2025 IC Legal News Update

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The most significant development last month in the law of independent contractors was not one of the four cases we summarize below but rather a bill passed by the New York Senate. ...more

Troutman Pepper Locke

Travel Industry Exposed to Independent Contractor Misclassification Claims: February 2025 IC Legal News Update

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Few industries are immune from class actions alleging IC misclassification of workers paid on a 1099 basis. One industry that has not yet been besieged by these types of lawsuits is travel, but that may be changing. ...more

Vedder Price

Federal District Court Says Class and Collective Action Waiver Survives Unenforceable Arbitration Agreement

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On February 12, 2025, the U.S. District Court for the District of Oregon issued an important decision in Porteous v. Flowers Foods, Inc. regarding the enforceability of class and collective action waivers contained in...more

Troutman Pepper Locke

Artificial Intelligence Industry Faces Independent Contractor Misclassification Claim: December 2024 IC Legal News Update

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As the business of artificial intelligence is expanding, it seemed it was only a matter of time before the AI industry became the subject of an independent contractor misclassification lawsuit. Last month, one of the leading...more

Proskauer - California Employment Law

You Can’t Spell “Aggrieved Employees” Without an “I”: PAGA Claims Cannot be Headless

In yet another attempt to avoid arbitration agreements, plaintiffs’ lawyers in the wake of the blockbuster court decisions in Viking River Cruises, Inc. v. Moriana and Adolph v. Uber Technologies, Inc. began filing so-called...more

Stikeman Elliott LLP

Meal Delivery Service’s Mandatory Arbitration Clause for Couriers Unconscionable: Manitoba Court of Appeal

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The Manitoba Court of Appeal (the “Court”) in Pokornik v. SkipTheDishes Restaurant Services Inc., 2024 MBCA 3, recently upheld a lower court decision dismissing a large online meal delivery service’s motion to stay a class...more

Lathrop GPM

California Federal Court Declares Arbitration Clause Unenforceable

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In Munoz, v. Earthgrains Distribution, LLC, 2023 WL 5986129 (S.D. Cal. Sept. 13, 2023), the plaintiffs, members of a class of independent distributors of baked goods for Earthgrains and other bakeries, alleged that they were...more

Ogletree, Deakins, Nash, Smoak & Stewart,...

Federal District Court in Virginia Rejects Familiar Two-Step FLSA Collective Certification Approach

On April 14, 2023, the United States District Court for the Eastern District of Virginia (Ellis, J.) declined to conditionally certify a collective of USA Today sports website editors, ruling that the familiar two-step Fair...more

Troutman Pepper Locke

New Jersey is Becoming the Next California: February 2023 Independent Contractor Legal News Update

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Ever since the New Jersey Supreme Court issued its 2015 decision in the Sleepy’s case, establishing an ABC test for wage and hour lawsuits, class action lawyers have targeted companies operating in that state for IC...more

Littler

Savings Clause Results in Oregon Supreme Court Affirming Enforceability of Arbitration Provision

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On July 8, 2022, in Gist v. ZoAn Management, Inc., the Oregon Supreme Court affirmed the decisions of the trial court and court of appeals granting the defendants’ motion to compel arbitration.  The court concluded that...more

BakerHostetler

Dead End for Class Certification? Ninth Circuit Provides Roadmap for Defending Independent Contractor Misclassification Class...

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For businesses using independent contractor vendors, misclassification claims are usually well-suited for class certification. A plaintiff’s path toward certifying a class can be relatively smooth when all vendors of a...more

Troutman Pepper Locke

Arbitration Clauses May Not Work in All States if Not Well Drafted: March 2022 IC Legal News Update

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A decision by a federal court in New Jersey last month is a reminder to companies that arbitration clauses need to be drafted well in order to succeed. New Jersey courts for many years have been perhaps the most finicky in...more

Fisher Phillips

Snapshot on Manufacturing Industry: February 2022

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Welcome to FP Snapshot on Manufacturing Industry, where we take a quick snapshot look at the most significant workplace law developments over the past month with an emphasis on how they impact manufacturers. OSHA Penalties...more

Fisher Phillips

Top 10 Wage and Hour Trends for 2022 – and What Employers Should Do to Prepare

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We recently provided our predictions for what employers could expect to see in the wage and hour field over the next year as part of our FP Forecast series – but we had too many insights to fit into that edition. So we’ve...more

Stikeman Elliott LLP

Successful Dismissal for Delay Under the Class Proceedings Act: Ontario Court Examines New Automatic Dismissal Provision

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In Bourque v Insight Productions, 2022 ONSC 174, the Ontario Superior Court of Justice (the “Court”) dismissed a proposed class proceeding for delay. The decision is noteworthy as it’s the first reported decision that...more

Sheppard Mullin Richter & Hampton LLP

Ninth Circuit Reversed Grubhub’s Victory on Independent Contractor Classification in Light of the Retroactive Application of...

On Monday, the Ninth Circuit vacated a judgment for Grubhub, Inc. and against a former food delivery driver, Raef Lawson, who claimed that he was misclassified as an independent contractor when he performed food delivery...more

Holland & Knight LLP

Fifth Circuit Shakes Up Standard for Certifying FLSA Collective Actions

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The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit issued a potentially landmark decision in Swales v. KLLM Transport Services, L.L.C. on Jan. 12, 2021, rejecting more than 30 years of case law related to conditional...more

Troutman Pepper Locke

Baked Goods Companies Targeted by Distributors in Independent Contractor Misclassification Class Actions: June 2020 News Update 

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We highlight in this past month’s news update two class action settlements entered into by bakery companies alleged to have misclassified product distributors as independent contractors. One of those baked goods companies has...more

Fisher Phillips

The Top Non-COVID Workplace Law Stories You May Have Missed: March/April 2020

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While you have been primarily focused on COVID-19-related matters since mid-March, that doesn’t the world of labor and employment law has taken a timeout. While the pace of new developments has slowed somewhat, there are...more

Orrick - Employment Law and Litigation

New Year’s Resolutions: Cases To Watch For California Employers in 2020

With the new year comes the likelihood that the U.S. Supreme Court, the California Supreme Court, and the Ninth Circuit will issue a number of significant decisions spanning a range of topics in the employment arena. ...more

Seyfarth Shaw LLP

5 Key Trends In Workplace Class Action Litigation For 2019: Trend #2 The Impact Of U.S. Supreme Court Rulings

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Seyfarth Synopsis: The second key trend from our 16th Annual Workplace Class Action Litigation Report involves rulings by the U.S. Supreme Court. Over the past few years, the Supreme Court has issued a number of rulings that...more

Robinson+Cole Class Actions Insider

Ninth Circuit Reverses Class Action Settlement Based on Notice Concerns and Insufficient Scrutiny

Class action settlements are complicated. They often take months to negotiate. The last thing the lawyers or their clients on either side want to happen is for the trial court to deny approval or, even worse, for an appellate...more

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