On October 11, 2022, the United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit affirmed the Central District of California’s denial of a motion for a preliminary injunction to restrain the California Attorney General from applying California’s “ABC test,” as codified in California’s Assembly Bill 5 (“AB 5”), to political canvassers. Under precedent established in Dynamex Operations West, Inc. v. Superior Court, 4 Cal. 5th 903 (2018) to prove workers are…
On September 21, 2022, Burlington Coat Factory (“Burlington” or the “Company”) agreed to pay $11 million to settle a class action lawsuit involving claims that the Company misclassified over 1,700 Assistant Store Managers (“ASMs”) and failed to pay overtime wages. The settlement comes after the Company settled two related actions in 2020 for nearly $20 million. In February of 2022, ASM Kim Payton-Fernandez filed a complaint alleging that Defendant violated the Fair…
On September 23, 2022, the Pennsylvania Department of Labor & Industry’s Joint Task Force on Misclassification of Employees (“Joint Task Force”) held its ninth meeting of the year. The Joint Task Force, comprised of seven bipartisan members and their designees, was created in October 2020 as a result of Act 85 (House Bill 716) to evaluate the status of worker misclassification in Pennsylvania and develop recommendations to present to the Pennsylvania General…
Pennsylvania’s Joint Task Force on Misclassification of Employees (“Task Force”) held its eighth meeting of the year on August 26, 2022, the fifth in-person meeting since its assembly in January 2021. The Task Force is a bipartisan group of nominated volunteers representing business, labor, and government seeking to publicize a comprehensive understanding of worker misclassification and its consequences. Deputy Secretary for Safety and Labor-Management Relations and Chairman of the Task Force, Basil…
On July 8, 2022, the United States District Court for the Western District of Washington denied a motion for class certification (“Motion”) filed by Amazon Flex Drivers (the “Drivers” or “Plaintiffs”) in a misclassification suit against Amazon.com, Inc. and Amazon Logistics, Inc. (collectively, “Amazon” or “Defendants”). In the Motion, filed on June 30, 2022, the Drivers argued that they meet all the requirements for class certification: numerosity, commonality, typicality, adequacy, predominance, and…
In a unanimous opinion issued on June 14, 2022, the Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court found it was an error for the Massachusetts Attorney General to certify two proposed ballot initiatives to redefine the employment classification of rideshare app drivers. The Court determined the initiatives contained at least two substantially distinct policy decisions, and that the lumping together of multiple policy questions does not allow voters to answer a single initiative…
The Rise of Mass Arbitration In recent years, U.S. companies have increasingly included mandatory arbitration clauses in their contracts, meaning any disputes between consumers or employees and the company must be resolved through arbitration. As it commonly costs between $300 and $400 for complainants to initiate an arbitration claim and because these clauses also commonly prevent customers and employees from participating in class action proceedings, the move to arbitration was…
Workers of Briggs Traditional Turf Farm (“Briggs” or the “Farm”) have sought sanctions against their employer for misleading employees who could opt into a lawsuit against the Farm. The second amended complaint, filed on December 23, 2021, in the United States District Court for the Western District of Missouri, alleges that Briggs illegally and discriminately withheld overtime pay from workers with H-2A visas by purposely misrepresenting them as agricultural workers.…
Pennsylvania’s Joint Task Force on Misclassification of Employees (“Task Force”) held its fourth meeting of the year on April 22, 2022, the first in-person meeting since its assembly in January 2021. The Task Force is a bipartisan group of nominated volunteers representing business, labor, and government seeking to publicize a comprehensive understanding of worker misclassification and its consequences. This meeting occurred a month after the Task Force released its Annual Report, which…
On February 17, 2022, a class of 1,322 California drivers announced an $8.43 million settlement (the “Settlement”) with Uber Technologies, Inc. (“Uber”) to resolve claims in James v. Uber. The Settlement, which comes in the wake of a $20 million initial settlement between Uber and a class of 15,000 California and Massachusetts Uber drivers in O’Connor v. Uber, compensates drivers for damages incurred after O’Connor and before the enactment of Proposition 22, a period…