Employee or Independent Contractor: The Need for a Reassessment of the Standard Used under California's Workmen's Compensation
![handle is hein.journals/usflr10 and id is 145 raw text is: EMPLOYEE OR INDEPENDENT CONTRACTOR:
THE NEED FOR A REASSESSMENT OF THE
STANDARD USED UNDER CALIFORNIA'S
WORKMEN'S COMPENSATION
INTRODUCTION
Workmen's compensation legislation was passed in California
to supplant the cumbersome body of common law rights and obliga-
tions which had governed the employer-employee relationship.
While upholding an early constitutional challenge to this new
legislation, the California supreme court remarked that The
change thus made is radical, not to say revolutionary.' All of the
notions embodied in the common law, however, were not swept
away with the passage of this new social welfare legislation.
One of the most troublesome survivors for the courts has been
the means by which the proper scope and definition of the employ-
ment relationship is to be delineated. In particular, the criteria for
determining whether an injured worker is an employee, entitling
him to coverage, or an independent contractor, and thus excluded
from coverage,' have resisted substantial change from their pre-
workmen's compensation origins. The significance of this resistance
is that criteria developed in another context, that of common law
tort liability, are still being used to decide whether a worker is an
employee or an independent contractor for purposes of workmen's
compensation. Only recently, it seems, is the notion that the bounds
of the employment relationship are coextensive in all contexts be-
ginning to erode in prominence in California. The test used to dis-
tinguish an employee from an independent contractor under work-
men's compensation, however, has yet to undergo meaningful reas-
sessment.
This comment will trace the history and mechanics involved in
a determination of whether one is an employee or an independent
contractor within the context of workmen's compensation law. In
addition, an effort will be made to articulate the purposive ap-
1. Western Indem. Co. v. Pillsbury, 170 Cal. 686, 692, 151 P. 398, 401 (1915). The
inadequacies of the earlier common law remedies for an injured worker have been well chroni-
cled. See, e.g., 2 W. L. HANNA, CALIFORNIA LAW OF EMPLOYEE INJURIES AND WORKMEN'S
COMPENSATION § 1.02 (2d ed. 1974) [hereinafter cited as HANNA]; W. PROSSER, HANDBOOK OF
THE LAW OF TORTS § 80, at 525 (4th ed. 1971) [hereinafter cited as PROSSER].
2. See CAL. LABOR CODE §§ 3353, 3357 (West 1971).](ViewImageLocal?handle=hein.journals/usflr10&div=13&collection=&method=preview&ext=.png&size=3)
What Is HeinOnline?
Contact us for annual subscription options:
Already a HeinOnline Subscriber?
profiles profiles most
Employee or Independent Contractor: The Need for a Reassessment of the Standard Used under California's Workmen's Compensation
Contact us for annual subscription options:
Already a HeinOnline Subscriber?
profiles profiles most