SACRAMENTO, Calif.—In a ruling one labor-side lawyer called “an earthquake, a seismic shift,” the 
California Supreme Court on Apr. 30 drastically revised its standard about when employers can classify workers as independent contractors. “When a worker has not independently decided to engage in an independently established business but instead is simply designated an independent contractor,” Chief Justice Tani Cantil-Sakauye wrote in the unanimous decision, “there is a substantial risk” that the business hiring them is attempting to evade the labor-law requirements for wages and hours. To be a legitimate independent contractor, the court held, workers have to be in a genuinely separate business, “such as an independent plumber or electrician—who would not reasonably have been viewed as working in the hiring business.” The ruling involved drivers at Dynamex Operations West, a Southern California delivery company that had reclassified them as independent contractors in 2004—but it could affect thousands of workers in California, including drivers at FedEx, Lyft, and Uber. “If I were a gig-economy employer, I’d be taking a deep breath today and I’d be on the phone to my lawyers to discuss risk assessments,” Oakland lawyer Beth Ross told the San Jose Mercury News. Read more
