SAN DIEGO — The California Court of Appeals recently handed down a ruling upholding a lower court’s trial decision that found newspaper delivery carriers for the San Diego Union Tribune were not “independent contractors,” but rather employees working for the company.
The defendant sought to have the lower court’s decisions overturned for a variety of reasons, and while they were successful in having the case returned to the trial court for a recalculation of various fees and awards, the Appeals Court upheld the verdict.
The unpaid overtime lawsuit, originally filed in 2009 in the Superior Court of San Diego County, claimed that the defendant improperly misclassified workers as independent contractors and sought compensation under California’s wage and labor code for state minimum wage and overtime pay, unpaid meal breaks, and failure to reimburse for legitimate business expenses. While many of the wage claims were dismissed for a variety of reasons, the trial judge allowed the complaint to proceed and decide whether or not the delivery workers were in fact employees.
According to the lawsuit, the delivery carriers signed contracts stipulating that the workers owned their own newspaper delivery service, were not employees, and that the drivers fully intended to create their own businesses. The delivery drivers’ pay rate was based on how many papers these workers delivered and were required to purchase insurance and bonds to perform their duties. Furthermore, these workers were required to arrive early at the warehouses, assemble the newspapers, and use bags and rubber bands purchased from the defendant to package the final product.
The plaintiffs’ lawsuit contended the workers did not exercise the proper level of control and independence over their own operations to qualify as independent contractors under California law since the plaintiff set various conditions for employment and were essentially told when and how to do their jobs. Both the trial court and Appeals Court agreed with the plaintiffs and decided the defendant was liable for various business expenses the defendant failed to reimburse workers for.
Newspaper Delivery Worker Unpaid Overtime Lawsuit
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