Q. What is the standard for determining if an individual is an employee or an independent contractor in California?
A. On April 30, the California Supreme Court adopted a new and more onerous test (the ABC test) for determining whether individuals are employees or independent contractors. In its decision in Dynamex Operations West, Inc. v. Los Angeles County Superior Court, 2018 Cal. LEXIS 3152 (Cal. 2018), the court abandoned the test that it had applied since 1989 from S.G. Borello & Sons, Inc. v. Department of Industrial Relations, 48 Cal. 3d 341 (1989). Although the Dynamex case arose from claims under California wage orders — which govern, among other things, the duty to pay the minimum wage and to compensate for overtime hours worked — the decision has broader implications.