California: State Supreme Court Applies Dynamex Decision Retroactively

The Supreme Court of California held its earlier decision in Dynamex Operations West, Inc. v. Superior Court, (2018) 4 Cal.5th 903, 232 Cal. Rptr. 3d 1, 416 P.3d 1 , should be applied retroactively. That somewhat controversial decision set forth a three-part "ABC" test for determining if a worker was an employee versus an independent contractor. Dynamex was subsequently codified by the state Legislature [see AB 5], modified substantially [see AB2257], and then further limited by the California electorate in 2020 [see Proposition 22]. The Court said Dynamex should be applied retroactively since it had been a case of first impression. Moreover, no prior decision had determined how the "suffer or permit to work" language in state wage orders should be applied when distinguishing employees from independent contractors.

Thomas A. Robinson, J.D., the co-Editor-in-Chief and Feature National Columnist for the LexisNexis Workers’ Compensation eNewsletter, is co-author of Larson’s Workers’ Compensation Law(LexisNexis).

LexisNexis Online Subscribers: Citations below link to Lexis Advance.

See Vazquez v. Jan-Pro Franchising International, Inc., 2021 Cal. LEXIS 1 (Jan. 14, 2021)

See generally Larson’s Workers’ Compensation Law, § 61.03.

Source: Larson’s Workers’ Compensation Law, the nation’s leading authority on workers’ compensation law

For a more detailed discussion of the case, see

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