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."
Related Stories
Grubhub is faking which restaurants it actually partners with:
Grubhub has a new "growth hacking" strategy that includes creating a restaurant listing on its platform for places it doesn't even partner with. According to a new report by the San Francisco Chronicle and tweets by restaurant owner Pim Techamuanvivit, Grubhub has been allowing customers to order food from its websites from restaurants that haven't technically signed up to be on Grubhub or its subsidiaries' platforms. (Disclosure: my parents own a restaurant that partners with Grubhub.)
Techamuanvivit explains in a Twitter thread that over the weekend, she received a call from a customer claiming their order hadn't been delivered. The only problem: Techamuanvivit's restaurant, Kin Khao, doesn't offer takeout or delivery.
I told him we've never been on it, not in our entirely lifetime as @kinkhao. He sounded really confused, so we said goodbye and I hung up the phone. Then I got a little curious, so I went into the office and googled "kin khao delivery", and guess what came up.. pic.twitter.com/cptMoYtoZu
— Pim Techamuanvivit (@chezpim) January 26, 2020
Previously:
Grubhub's New Strategy Is to Be an Even Worse Partner to Restaurants
Grubhub Says its Contract Allowed It to Create Fake Restaurant Websites
Grubhub Drivers Are Contractors—Not Employees—Judge Rules
Trial to Decide Whether Ex-Grubhub Driver Should be Classified as Employee
(Score: -1, Troll) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday February 11 2018, @05:41PM (2 children)
the idiot either got one tax form or the other. how in the hell is this unclear? why are taxpayers paying to even have this case heard? what is wrong with this country? something in the water?
(Score: 1) by khallow on Sunday February 11 2018, @06:37PM (1 child)
No, it's not that simple. Being classified as an employee would likely entitle the plaintiff to back pay (due to minimum wage and overtime pay) and other sorts of compensation. In California, that could be rather expensive for the business.
(Score: 2, Interesting) by Sulla on Monday February 12 2018, @03:41AM
It would also cause trouble for the new employer who were required to collect income taxes on the "employee" for the year but did not.
My wife was an indipendent contractor at an aflac office as the office manager. When we were doing taxes I realized that she qualifed as an employee. I talked to the two people paying her and one of them gave my wife a massive bonus to cover the taxes. He didn't understand the system and felt bad how bad it hit us.. I imagine most employers would have been dicks about it. I helped him figure the system out so when my wife left the job he could correctly hire employees and collect the taxes.
Ceterum censeo Sinae esse delendam
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday February 11 2018, @06:11PM (1 child)
I hope grub hub and the government get this fool back into court for his attempts at fraud.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by Whoever on Sunday February 11 2018, @07:44PM
What fraud?
It was only fraud if he was an employee. Since the court found that he was a contractor, there was no fraud.
(Score: 2) by hemocyanin on Sunday February 11 2018, @07:18PM (3 children)
How is signing up for a block of time for gigs, and then being unavailable to receive the gigs, gaming the system? If he didn't get a gig, he didn't get paid or did they pay a flat rate for being available? This is not explained her in the TFA.
(Score: 4, Informative) by Whoever on Sunday February 11 2018, @07:29PM (2 children)
Had he been classified as an employee, he would have been paid for those shifts (blocks) that he had scheduled himself for.
(Score: 2, Insightful) by frojack on Sunday February 11 2018, @11:47PM (1 child)
Not if he was unavailable to work.
Even salaried people can't sneak out and sleep in the store room and expect no consequences when found out.
No, you are mistaken. I've always had this sig.
(Score: 2) by TheRaven on Monday February 12 2018, @11:36AM
sudo mod me up
(Score: 3, Interesting) by Whoever on Sunday February 11 2018, @07:26PM (12 children)
Note that CA law starts with the presumption that the person is an employee. This presumption must be rebutted.
From the CA Department of Industrial Relations website:
Applying this to Uber:
1. Yes.
2. Yes.
3. Yes.
In non-lawyer-ly and naive analysis, it appears that Uber drivers are employees.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by Entropy on Sunday February 11 2018, @08:00PM (9 children)
First of all, this is using California as a model. California should never be used as a model for anything but failure. Their government is bankrupt, and constantly getting bailouts from everyone else. But enough on that:
1. Yes. Uber does control the operation as a whole.
2. No. They worker can not come into work with no notice on any day they choose. They can never return to work, or work every day in a given week completely.
3. Questionable. I suppose it depends on what "detail control" is. Is it that they need to drive from A, to B or drive from A, to B along a certain route?
In civilized parts of the country, the distinction between employee/contractor is employees have a lot more control imposed on them by the employer. Contractors can often come into work whenever they want, stop work without notice, etc. Here's an example:
Employer-Employee: I need you do do XYZ on monday from 8am-5pm.
Contractor: I need you to do XYZ by Tuesday.
That's much simplified, of course. Contractors are not always screwed, either. They have huge tax advantages over employees.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by Knowledge Troll on Sunday February 11 2018, @09:26PM (1 child)
What are you talking about?
(Score: 2, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Monday February 12 2018, @01:51AM
To expand: By itself, Progressive Cali subsidizes the existence of several of the Reactionary states.
My guess is that where Entropy is is among that "taker" lot.
...and AC#636494, below us, really wails on this.
.
The only major example of where NOT to follow Cali's example I can think of is the "deregulation" of electricity and the resulting rolling blackouts (Enron). [google.com]
N.B. The City of Los Angeles didn't have that problem.
(The Los Angeles Department of Water and Power is publicly-owned.
Natural monopolies should have been socialized from Day 1.)
-- OriginalOwner_ [soylentnews.org]
(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.
(Score: 5, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday February 11 2018, @11:55PM (2 children)
Because you're talking out of your ass.
California has the highest GDP of any state and, if it were an independent country would have the sixth highest GDP in the world. [wikipedia.org]
The state of California is also one of the least dependent on Federal funds, either 46th out of 50 [wallethub.com] or 43rd out of 50 [taxfoundation.org], take your pick.
N.B: I do not live in California or anywhere near it. I am, however, rather fond of facts.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday February 12 2018, @06:35PM (1 child)
California is dependent on the rest of the country for water though.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday February 12 2018, @10:11PM
California is dependent on the rest of the country for water
You're talking about -Southern- California.
...but we still produce manufactured goods for the rest of the nation, are a major handler of imported goods via our ports, and refine a lot of petroleum for the western states.
We also export electricity to Arizona (where Big Electricity has stymied the uptake of solar capture).
Yeah, -SoCal- is a net importer of water.
We started out with engineer William Mulholland getting water from Mono Lake in Kern County (which might be considered part of SoCal).
...but there's no particularly good reason for our dependency.
We do have folks who came here from elsewhere who just HAVE to have a big green lawn.
The City of Santa Ana, when it did a rework of a major street, put in Astroturf where there had been grass.
During our extended drought, some folks have taken to using a water-based paint solution to make their brown grass green.
...and the natural foliage for this area is succulents (aloe vera, cactus, etc.)--many of which are edible and/or otherwise useful (e.g. medicines).
Going back several years, you might remember that guy in Orange County who got in a pissing match with the gov't of the City of Orange when he xeriscaped his front lawn. [google.com]
Eventually, he lost that case.
The let's-mandate-the-use-of-extravagant-amounts-of-water folks are looking really stupid these day.
...and we've got a big giant ocean right next to us.
The City of Huntington Beach is kicking around the idea of a desalination plant.
(I don't agree with their choice of a vendor with a troublesome history, but I can easily imagine a point in the near future when the notion of such a facility can be shown to have considerable merit.)
Some cities are already turning black water (sewage) into potable water.
Now, they've stopped 1 step short and are only using that to e.g. water golf courses and parks.
...and when it rains here, the big concrete ditches that we call rivers are just swollen with water flow--and most of that goes right out to the sea.
-- OriginalOwner_ [soylentnews.org]
(Score: 4, Informative) by TheRaven on Monday February 12 2018, @11:38AM (2 children)
You remember the article a couple of days ago about people on the right being more likely to repeat fake news without engaging in any critical thinking? Thanks for providing a case study.
sudo mod me up
(Score: 3, Informative) by Entropy on Monday February 12 2018, @11:08PM (1 child)
I'm sorry. I thought it was common knowledge that the California government is both bankrupt, and regularly receives bailouts from the federal government. is it not? If I say California has amazing weather, would I need a citation for that too?
Here are a couple very easy to find citations. Which point were you saying I was not applying critical thinking to? That they are broke, that they are receiving outside money bailouts because they are broke, or both?
California government bankrupt:
https://www.theatlantic.com/business/archive/2012/08/the-biggest-reason-why-california-is-bankrupt/261524/ [theatlantic.com]
http://www.weeklystandard.com/give-states-a-way-to-go-bankrupt/article/518378 [weeklystandard.com]
($7 billion bailout by the feds..)
California government receiving bailout:
https://www.cagw.org/thewastewatcher/california%e2%80%99s-7-billion-bailout [cagw.org]
"Indeed, California’s lackadaisical use of federal funds is one reason for its current situation."
https://www.forbes.com/sites/realspin/2012/06/27/the-silent-bailout-of-the-states-the-greatest-threat-to-our-economic-freedom/#36e26f6d626c [forbes.com]
"In contrast profligate states, such as California and Illinois, have failed to reduce the growth in their own spending and continue to face sizeable deficits and accumulate debt."
https://www.huffingtonpost.com/2010/01/09/california-needs-multi-bi_n_417318.html [huffingtonpost.com]
"asked for $6.9 billion in federal funds in his state-budget proposal Friday and warned that state health and welfare programs would be threatened without the emergency help."
(Score: 2) by TheRaven on Tuesday February 13 2018, @10:01AM
No, it's often repeated but not actually supported up by evidence when you look at which states are net contributors to the Federal budget.
An article from 8 years ago and most of your other citations are in relation to the same issue, so let's look at the balance of payments. I can't find the 2010 numbers, but in the preceding year, California was one of the top net contributors to the Federal budget [blogspot.co.uk]. They received back $0.78 for every $1 they paid in. To put those in absolute terms, in 2002, California had paid $58bn more to the Federal government than it received back and had been a net contributor for every year since 1987 [calinst.org]. I couldn't find more recent numbers for the absolute amount, but that was a sharp increase from preceding years and even if it had stayed constant and not increased even in line with inflation, then a $7bn 'bailout' would be around 10% of the the net contribution of California to the Federal budget. To put that in perspective, California would have gone from getting back about $0.78 for every $1 it paid into the Federal budget to getting back about $0.81 for every $1. Even with this bailout, California would still have been in the top ten contributors to the Federal budget.
The budget deficit in California from your articles was around $25bn, or less than half of the net that California pays into the Federal budget. If California dropped their contribution to the Federal budget to the middle of the pack, where it received about the same back as it paid in, then it would be running with a budget surplus of around $35bn annually.
Oh, and in case you don't want to click on the links, the states that rely the most on Federal handouts are (dollar amounts are the amount that they receive back for every dollar paid into the Federal budget):
Not exactly a list of the most liberal states in the US, is it?
sudo mod me up
(Score: 2, Informative) by khallow on Sunday February 11 2018, @10:44PM (1 child)
Uber doesn't control when or how much drivers work, or who else (like Lyft) that they solicit contract work for, doesn't control drivers' vehicles or their behavior, and doesn't control ratings of passengers. It takes a lot more than just running an app to get people from point A to point B. While others have noted that Uber retains a degree of overall control of the operation, that control doesn't extend to control over their drivers' operations, including whether or not they work for other ride hailing services at the same time.
As others have noted, the worker can decide on the spur of the moment to just stop driving for Uber without notifying Uber, and this is a planned feature of the relationship.
Work is issued by Uber at a high level of detail.
While I see the point of your post, something similar can be said of most contract work for a business. Overall control is not pervasive control. IF you getting paid, you're doing something important though not necessarily integral. And detailed control is kind of opposite of how a lot of contract work goes (you contract out precisely because you don't want detailed control over work that you don't understand, for example).
(Score: 1) by Sulla on Monday February 12 2018, @03:31AM
California's laws as to what determines employee vs contractor seem to indicate less people would be employees than the fed? Or maybe the other way around? If I recall the feds stipulation is that if the company controls when you show up for work, where you show up for work, and how long you work, you are an employee. I guess calis rule is pretty much the same but said different..
To me Uber is pretty clearly not an employer, the drivers are contractors that control their own schedule. Uber exists as a middleman to link people who want to go from place to place and drivers.
Ceterum censeo Sinae esse delendam
(Score: 5, Interesting) by bradley13 on Sunday February 11 2018, @07:57PM (2 children)
People sign up to do work for these companies. Some people apparently do well, others less so. It doesn't matter - no one forces them to do the work. If they find it's not worth their time, or - in the worst case - they are even losing money? Then stop, and go do something else.
Key strawman arguments about how there's no other work to be had. Nonsense. If you're reliable, as in you show up to work on time, don't call in sick when you're "not feeling it", and you actually work when you're on the clock, then you can get and hold a job.
This guy is the poster child for trying to have your cake and eat it too. He signs up for gigs, then blows them off. He wants to claim he's actually an employee? If he were an employee, he would have been fired. I'm glad the court shot him down. I wish his attorney would be disciplined for filing a stupid lawsuit.
Everyone is somebody else's weirdo.
(Score: -1, Troll) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday February 11 2018, @09:29PM
Shhh, baby, shhhhhhhhhhhhhh! It's all okay now, because my fetid-as-fuck cock has just breached your fecal cervix. Ahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh! Your nasty, rancid, diseased rectum belongs to me now, and soon you will join it! Get pregnant! Get pregnant! Get pregnant, you filthy sow!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday February 12 2018, @01:59AM
Yeah, that individual got the proper verdict.
If, however, this decision is broadly applied to gig workers who work for only 1 company and aren't slackers, that would be a travesty.
Bad cases make for bad case law.
-- OriginalOwner_ [soylentnews.org]
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday February 11 2018, @09:35PM (1 child)
Do you really want random gig workers handling your food with nobody else around? A lot of small restaurants have their own delivery people who are at least accountable to the boss there.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by NotSanguine on Monday February 12 2018, @12:08AM
Where I live, GrubHub/Seamless people doing the deliveries is the exception rather than the rule.
I've deduced that if you aren't allowed to tip in cash, the delivery person is likely a Grubhubber. Which sucks even more for them, given how tips recorded on credit/debit cards are generally abused by employers, as was discussed at length here [soylentnews.org].
No, no, you're not thinking; you're just being logical. --Niels Bohr
(Score: 2) by MichaelDavidCrawford on Monday February 12 2018, @06:40PM
- between the consultant and client, or employee of manager.
There a number of factors that go into the distinction.
If your employer sets your working hours then you're an employee.
If you bear the financial risk of the project then you're a consultant.
If the employer tells you how to perform your work you are an employee.
If you supply your own equipment then you're a consultant.
There are some other factors.
Note that this is just the IRS' rules. There are other federal and state agencies that care about knowing which relationship you have.
Yes I Have No Bananas. [gofundme.com]