In the spirit of the season, we are using our annual "12 days of the holidays" blog series to address new California laws and their impact on California employers. On this tenth day of the holidays, my labor and employment attorney gave to me: ten lords a-leaping and AB 1506 and 1561.
AB 5 went into effect on January 1, 2020. It codified the ABC test delineated in Dynamex Operations West, Inc. v. Superior Court of Los Angeles. A worker can only be an independent contractor if the hiring entity can meet three criteria: A) the worker is free from the control and direction of the hiring entity, both under the contract for the performance of work and in fact; B) the worker performs work that is outside of the usual course of the hiring entity's business and C) the worker is engaged in an independently established trade, occupation or business that is of the same nature as the work performed for the hiring entity. If the hiring entity cannot meet these criteria and there is no applicable exemption, the worker must be considered an employee. If a worker is covered under an exemption, the prior Borello test is applicable to determine if the worker can be rightfully classified as an independent contractor. Under Borello, the main test involves the right to control.
However, AB 5 did come with exemptions for certain industries. After its enactment, much litigation ensued with non-exempt industries such as the gig economy and trucking attempting to secure an exemption due to the...
The U.S. Department of Justice on Thursday announced charges against 15 people, including six medical professionals, for allegedly participating in schemes that collectively submitted $2 billion i...