SoylentNews is people
SoylentNews
from the losing-track-of-these-company-names dept.
In what is believed to be the first gig economy case to be fully decided on the merits, Grubhub has beaten back a labor lawsuit filed by one of its former drivers.
In a court opinion released Thursday by US Magistrate Judge Jacqueline Scott Corley, "the Court finds that Grubhub has satisfied its burden of showing that Mr. Lawson was properly classified as an independent contractor."
Both sides had agreed that Judge Corley, rather than a jury, would decide the case in her San Francisco federal courtroom. She heard closing arguments in late October 2017.
[...] Part of what may have doomed Lawson's own case was that, in Judge Corley's estimation, in addition to working for other gig economy companies while simultaneously working for Grubhub, he was fundamentally "not credible."
[...] Lawson, by his own admission, "gamed the app" by scheduling himself for a work shift (a "block" in company parlance) but received few, if any, actual delivery orders by putting his phone in airplane mode, among other tactics.
"Mr. Lawson's claimed ignorance of his dishonest conduct is not credible," Judge Corley wrote. "Mr. Lawson would remember if after he filed this lawsuit against Grubhub he cheated Grubhub. If he had not moved his smart phone to airplane mode, intentionally toggled available late, or deliberately engaged in other conduct to get paid for doing nothing he would have denied doing so at trial. But he did not."
[...] Michael LeRoy, a professor of labor law at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, told Ars that the case has "limited precedential value."
"Going forward," he emailed, "lawyers who bring these types of lawsuits should have reservations about pushing too far or long with a plaintiff who can be shown to cheat and who gives sworn deposition or trial testimony that is not credible."
(Score: 4, Interesting) by vux984 on Sunday February 11 2018, @11:06PM
re:
1. You already agreed 'yes' so we'll move on.
2. "The workers activities are an integral part of the operation" -- you wrote no, but you are mistaken. The criteria here is not whether or not that particular person is critical to show up, but rather whether that persons activities are integral to the business model. A pizza place without someone to make pizza is not a viable business - making pizza is integral to the operation. A pizza place without someone showing up to repaint the signs is still a pizza place. That is what 'integral' means here. Being integral is doesn't automatically make one an employee by itself, but taken with the other criteria does.
3. "Detailed control" - Your raising the question of route selection is kind of nonsensical; if I'm tasked with stocking the shelves at walmart, can i get classified as a contractor if I can choose from a few different paths through the store from the shelves to the stock area? The only real autonomy uber drivers have is scheduling availability.
"In civilized parts of the country, the distinction between employee/contractor is employees have a lot more control imposed on them by the employer."
This is true, scheduling autonomy is a big one as you noted, but lots of bona fide contractors don't have it and lots of employees do.
For example if you are a wedding photographer you are not the wedding couples employee, even though they dictate the event timing and locations. On the other hand, my first IT job, I was a bona fide employee with virtually complete schedule autonomy and I could remote work a lot of the time, but I was on payroll. Scheduling autonomy by itself isn't a deciding factor.
Most governments push towards classifying someone as an employee in grey areas; so if even if its 'questionable' its probably going to land in the 'employee' category.