Articles Posted in Employee Misclassification

Numerous laws protect the rights of employees in the workplace. For those laws to apply to a particular individual, they must have an employment relationship with their employer, as defined by law. Not everyone in a workplace is necessarily an employee. Some might be independent contractors. While employees have a wide range of legal protections, independent contractors often only have whatever protections are included in their contracts. Employers sometimes falsely claim that an employee is an independent contractor, which is known as employee misclassification. New Jersey employment law uses a test to distinguish between employees and independent contractors that generally favors employees. At the federal level, the definition used by the U.S. Department of Labor (DOL) for wage and hour claims has changed several times in recent years. The DOL’s Wage and Hour Division (WHD) recently published a final rule regarding “employee” status under the Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA). The new rule is more employee-friendly than its predecessor.

Employers might misclassify employees as independent contractors to avoid legal obligations like minimum wage or overtime pay. New Jersey uses the “ABC test” to determine whether an individual is an employee or an independent contractor. The test gets its name from the definition of “employee” found in § 43:21-19(i)(6)(A)-(C) of the New Jersey Revised Statutes. An individual is presumed to be an employee under the ABC test unless an employer can demonstrate all of the following elements:
A. The individual exercises total control over when and how they do their job.
B. Their work is either outside of the scope of the employer’s usual business, or they do their work away from any of the employer’s regular worksites.
C. They have their own business, occupation, or trade separate from the employer.

The WHD’s new employee classification rule applies to wage and hour claims under the FLSA. It replaces a rule that the WHD put into place in January 2021, less than two weeks before the end of the previous presidential administration’s term. That rule, which took effect on March 8, 2021, was generally more favorable to employers. Independent contractor status was based on two “core factors”:
1. The amount of control that an individual has over how they do their job; and
2. Their ability to increase their income without working longer hours or producing more output.
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New Jersey employment laws strive to ensure that employees receive a minimum wage, additional payment for overtime work, and other rights. For a worker to recover damages for unlawful actions by their employer, they must demonstrate that an employment relationship exists between them and their employer. Laws that address matters like wages and overtime pay apply to employees, but not independent contractors who have a less formal legal relationship with their employers. Employers sometimes engage in “misclassification,” meaning that they wrongfully classify employees as independent contractors to avoid obligations under state and federal employment laws. New Jersey employees can sue employers for misclassification. A law passed by the state legislature in 2021 allows the state to sue employers who allegedly misclassify employees. In December 2023, the New Jersey Attorney General (AG) filed the first lawsuit under this law seeking back pay and other remedies for the defendant’s employees.

Independent contractors do not enjoy the protection of many employment laws. Their recourse is often limited to the terms of their contracts. Employees, on the other hand, have broad protections under New Jersey law. Defining who is an “employee” and who is not can be tricky. The New Jersey Wage and Hour Law, for example, defines the term as “any individual employed by an employer.” Most other state and federal statutes are not much more helpful. It has largely fallen to the courts to develop ways to distinguish employees from independent contractors.

The New Jersey Supreme Court issued a ruling in 2015 that adopts the “ABC test” in employee misclassification cases. The test gets its name from a section of the state’s unemployment law that contains a three-part definition of “employee” with subsections labeled A through C. A New Jersey court will presume that an individual is or was an employee unless the employer establishes all three of the following:
A. The employer did not have the right to exercise control over how the worker did their job, nor did they exercise such control.
B. The worker’s services were either performed away from the employer’s usual place(s) of business, or they were outside of the employer’s usual type of business.
C. The worker has their own profession that does not depend solely on the employer, meaning that they may continue to work for others if their relationship with the employer ends.
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New Jersey’s employment laws protect workers whose employers try to classify them as independent contractors instead of employees. Independent contractors do not enjoy the full range of safeguards offered by state law. Wage and hour laws, for example, only apply to employees. Some employers may try to misclassify employees as independent contractors as a way of avoiding various legal obligations. Employment misclassification is a violation of state law. The New Jersey Supreme Court recently ruled against a business in a misclassification claim. It ruled that workers who operated as separate business entities were still employees under state law.

A 2015 decision by the New Jersey Supreme Court applied a three-part test, known as the “ABC test,” to the question of whether a worker is an employee or an independent contractor. The test is notable for being very favorable toward workers claiming to be employees and placing the burden of proof on employers. It gets its name from the definition of “employment” found in the New Jersey Unemployment Compensation Law, codified at N.J. Rev. Stat. § ​​43:21-19(i)(6)(A) through (C).

The ABC test presumes that an individual is an employee unless an employer can establish all three of the following:
A. The employer does not direct or control how the worker does their job.
B. The services provided by the worker are either outside of the scope of the employer’s usual business activities, or performed somewhere other than the employer’s regular place of business.
C. The worker’s services are part of a business or trade that the worker has established apart from the employer.
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State and federal laws protect New Jersey employees’ rights to minimum wage and overtime compensation. The term “employees” is important here, because these laws’ protections are not available to independent contractors. The distinction between an employee and an independent contractor has been the subject of much employment litigation, both in New Jersey and around the country. Employers may attempt to classify employees as independent contractors in order to avoid various legal obligations, a practice known as “employee misclassification.” New Jersey has developed a reasonable clear definition of “employee.” Federal law lags behind, with different definitions for different statutes. Recent litigation addressed the definition of “employee” under the Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA), which sets a national minimum wage and standards for overtime pay. The current White House administration withdrew an employer-friendly definition of “employee” put in place by the previous administration. In March 2022, a federal judge vacated this move, reinstating the earlier rule.

The FLSA defines “employee” in quite general terms as “any individual employed by an employer.” It defines “employ” as “​​to suffer or permit to work.” The FLSA’s definition of “employee” goes into more detail for individuals employed by the government. It excludes most elected officials, political appointees, and volunteers for government agencies. The statute also exempts employees in various roles from its provisions on minimum wage and overtime pay. For workers who are neither excluded from the definition of “employee” nor exempt from the FLSA’s protections, questions often still remain as to whether they are “employees” in the specific context of the FLSA.

New Jersey uses the “ABC test” to determine whether an individual is an employee or an independent contractor. The test is named for the three-part definition of “employee” found in §§ 43:21-19(i)(6)(A) through (C) of the New Jersey Revised Statutes. New Jersey employment law presumes that a worker is an “employee” unless the employer can establish all three of the following:
A. The worker has control over how and when they do their job;
B. The worker performs the services away from the employer’s usual premises, or their services are not part of the employer’s regular business; and
C. The worker has an “independently established” business.
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New Jersey employment laws ensure that employers pay minimum wage to all non-exempt employees, as well as a greater rate of pay for overtime hours. These laws only apply to “employees.” Employee misclassification happens when an employer wrongly classifies an employee as an “independent contractor.” State law has a clear definition of “employee” for the purposes of wage and hour law, which sets strict limits on employers’ ability to designate someone as an independent contractor. At the federal level, the definition is not as clear. Beginning in late 2020, the U.S. Department of Labor (DOL) developed a rule defining “employee” and “independent contractor” for the Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA). The final rule, published in January 2021, was far more favorable to employers than New Jersey’s rule. When the new presidential administration took over in late January, it postponed the effective dates of all new administrative rules. The DOL has since sought to withdraw the new rule.

The FLSA requires employers to pay their non-exempt employees a minimum wage of $7.25 per hour, and to pay them at one-and-a-half times their usual rate for work that exceeds forty hours in a week. See 29 U.S.C. §§ 206(a)(1), 207(a). Exemptions include people employed in professional or executive capacities, and various other specific jobs. Id. at § 213. The statute is specific about only applying to “employees,” but it does not provide particularly clear definitions of “employ” and related terms. It defines “employ” as “to suffer or permit to work,” and “employee” as “any individual employed by an employer,” with some exceptions. Id. at §§ 203(e)(1), (g).

New Jersey law states that employers should consider their workers to be employees unless they meet all three parts of the “ABC test,” named for the definition of “employee” found in N.J. Rev. Stat. §§ 43:21-19(i)(6)(A), (B), and (C):
A. The worker, not the employer, controls the time and manner of their work;
B. The worker’s services are either not part of the employer’s “usual course of business,” or they do their work away from the employer’s regular business premises; and
C. The worker has their own “independently established” business operation.
This definition tends to favor classification as an employee. The New Jersey Supreme Court adopted it for wage and hour claims in a 2015 decision. State regulators and the New Jersey Legislature have incorporated it further into state law.

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