Legislative Analysis: Employees vs Independent Contractors

analyze a piece a legislation - specifically, a California State statute. Knowing how to read and understand statutes is not just a skill for legal professionals - as a business owner/manager, this skill can help save time and money! Please review, "How to Read a Statute", and then proceed to the questions below.

California statutes are the laws enacted by the California legislature and signed by the California Governor. California statutes are binding authority on all individuals and entities in California. After reading the statute, please provide answers to the four questions following the prompt below.

On September 18, 2019, California governor Gavin Newsom signed into law a contentious piece of legislation AB-5 that will potentially reclassify millions of independent contractors as employees and dramatically reshape the future of independent workforces in California and beyond.

As its nickname, the "gig worker bill" suggests, much of the discussion around the new law has focused on its effects on the Ubers and Lyfts of the world. But it is actually far, far bigger than that, with the potential to touch nearly all companies in Californiaand even some outside of Californiathat use independent contractors.

Assignment is to review the bill, and answer the following:

1.AB-5 (Links to an external site- https://leginfo.legislature.ca.gov/faces/billTextClient.xhtml?bill_id=201920200AB5

) codifies a decision by the California Supreme Court in a 2018 case. What was that case called?(Include case citation and headings)

2.Why do you think the state legislature adopted this new law, i.e., what problem(s) were they trying to "fix"?(Included discussion of reason(s) for legislation.)

3.Which California State Code(s) did AB-5 amend? (Correctly identified the relevant Code(s))

4.The law codifies what is now known as the "ABC" test for classifying independent contractors. Describe the 3 prongs of that test.(Correctly described the 3-prong test)

5.Does the new law provide any exceptions? If yes, name two of these exceptions.(Included at least 2 exceptions)

How to Read a Statute article:

Statutes

Statutes are the laws of a state as enacted by the legislature andapproved by, or allowed to take eect without approval of, the governor.Bills, the legislative documents used to pass or amend laws, are read inthe context of existing statutes. Understanding existing law and how it isaected by a bill is fundamental to reading and understanding a bill.With a basic understanding of how to read the statutes, you will bebetter prepared to read and understand a bill.

Each bill passed by the legislature and not vetoed by the governorbecomes eective according to the terms outlined in the bill or generaleective date provisions in the state constitution. Once eective, the textof the bill becomes law. Such law can be found in the 27 codes that areorganized by topic, Vernon's Texas Civil Statutes, or the session laws.

Texas has revised its statutes four times: 1879, 1895, 1911, and 1925. The1925 revision organized the statutes into a unied code. Each statutewas titled and assigned a sequence article number that correspondedwith its alphabetized title. This organization was published and bound inblack volumes known as Vernon's Texas Civil Statutes by the same third-party publisher used todayWest.

Subsequent additions to the law were incorporated into the organizationestablished in 1925. To maintain the integrity of the statutes' numericaland alphabetical organization, West often added letters to the end ofarticle designations for new laws relating to the same subject matter.

Before long the statutes had become unwieldy and illogical in theirnumbering and organization. In 1963, the legislature charged the TexasLegislative Council with conducting an ongoing nonsubstantive revisionof the 1925 statutes. Under the revision program, the statutes arearranged into topical codes (e.g., Family Code or Health and SafetyCode) and numbered using a system that accommodates futureexpansion of the law. In addition, the revision eliminates repealed,invalid, and duplicative provisions. The few 1925 statutes that have not been incorporated into a code may be found in Vernon's Texas CivilStatutes.

In contrast, certain bills enact new law without reference to a code orcivil statute section. These laws can be found only in the session lawvolumes, which are published and bound by West as the General andSpecial Laws. After a bill is signed by the governor or the governorallows the bill to become law without a signature, it is assigned a chapternumber that corresponds with the order in which the bill isled with thesecretary of state. The session law volumes are organized by chapternumber. This chapter designation is often used to identify a specic billfrom a specic session, such as Chapter 981 (H.B. 1125), Acts of the 74thLegislature, Regular Session, 1995. However, most bills amend codes orthe uncodied civil statutes, and the changes they make areincorporated into the appropriate code or Vernon's Texas Civil Statutes.

West publishes the printed sources for the statutesthe Vernon's TexasCivil Statutes (for those laws yet to be codied) and the Vernon's TexasCodes Annotated. The Vernon's volumes contain pocket parts, which aretemporary additions to each volume that reect changes in the statutesthat have occurred since the hardbound volume was last published.Pocket parts are found in the back of the appropriate hardboundvolume. The statutes are most easily accessed online via the TexasConstitution and Statutes website, which is maintained by TexasLegislative Council sta and regularly updated and corrected.

How Codes and Statutes Are Organized

How to Read a Statute

Many statutes are straigh orward and easily understood. Others arecomplicated and dicult to comprehend. Often the diculty is becauseof the way the statute is constructed rather than because of thecomplexity of the subject matter. Long, complex sentences, numerouscross-references, dependent subdivisions, and phrases that exceptapplication of the statute can make the meaning dicult to follow.

Below are a few tips to help you when you rst read a statute. Develop ahabit of reading each statute at least three times. First, read it straightthrough without stopping. Then read it more carefully, using thefollowing techniques to aid in your understanding. Finally, read it straightthrough once more.

Check for the context of the statute. Think of the statute as a unitof law that is part of a series of units of law and scan the table ofcontents to see what sections precede and follow the section youare reading. If there is a short title section (usually at the beginningof the chapter or subchapter), read it.

Look for a denitions section (if present, it is usually found at thebeginning of a chapter or subchapter) and read it. Make sure youunderstand references to general terms like "department,""agency," or "executive director." A denition may be used in thestatutes to avoid repetition of a long term, for example, using theterm "department" to refer to the Department of State HealthServices. Other sources for existing denitions are the CodeConstruction Act (Chapter 311, Government Code), which applies toall codes enacted as part of the legislature's statutory revisionprogram; Chapter 312, Government Code, which applies to civilstatutes generally; and Sec on 1.07, Penal Code, which is amongseveral provisions of that code that apply to penal laws generally.

Read the complete heading (code/title/chapter/subchapter/section)to establish how the section ts into the entire code's organization.

Pay close attention to the statute's format and organization. Lookfor breaks in the text. Assume everything in the statute hasmeaning, including punctuation and format.

Look for keywords:

important "action" words such as "may,""shall," or "must" thatestablish whether a provision requires or authorizes someaction or condition;

exceptions to the application of the statute, signaled bykeywords such as "only,""under,""over,""more than,""lessthan,""if," and "unless"; or

a series ending in "and" or "or" that indicates whether all theelements of the series are included or only one of theelements needs to be included to satisfy the series.

Do not skip over words that you do not know or fully understand.Do not rely on context for the meaning of a word about which youare unsure. Do not assume a word (e.g.,"person") has the samemeaning that it has in everyday conversation.

Read through cross-referenced sections in their entirety. If a cross-reference is to an entire chapter or subchapter, read through thechapter's or subchapter's table of contents and denitions sectionto learn the context. In the following example, without reading thecross-referenced Section 93.011, the reader will not know thecircumstances under which the savings bank has closed.

A contentious piece of legislation AB-5 article: (external link:

https://leginfo.legislature.ca.gov/faces/billTextClient.xhtml?bill_id=201920200AB5