This week we are learning about agency.As we learned last week, a business entity is a legal fiction that exists separate from its owners.As a legal fiction, it needs people to act through.These people are agents of the business entity.In other words, the agent is someone acting on a company's behalf.

An employee acting during the course of their employment is an agent of the employer.This means that if an Amazon employee is driving an Amazon delivery truck to deliver packages to Amazon customers and causes a car accident, Amazon the company could be liable to anyone injured in the car accident.But what if Amazon hired an independent contractor to manage Amazon deliveries, and that independent contractor then contracted with numerous other smaller independent contractors to drive and deliver Amazon packages?Arguably, Amazon will not be liable for car accidents caused by the driver independent contractors because they are not "agents" of Amazon.

Another benefit companies get from using independent contractors instead of employees to conduct their business is that independent contractors are less expensive.You may have heard of the term "gig worker" to describe Uber drivers, Door Dash drivers, babysitters, dog walkers, etc.Gig workers, unlike employees, generally do not receive benefits like health care or retirement benefits and they do not benefit from an employer's payment of payroll taxes (Social Security, unemployment) for an employee.Some workers prefer to be independent contractors because they want flexibility over the additional benefits of an employee.Here's anarticle(Links to an external site.)

on how company titles are changing (like "dasher" or "tasker") to reflect the increasing use ofindependent contractors over employees.

The discussion prompt for this week is this:Have you ever worked for a company OR in the gig economy as an independent contractor?If so, please share your experiences and whether you would recommend that form of work to others.If you don't have work experience yet, please share your opinion on whether you think companies should be allowed to have a work force that is mostly independent contractors.Thanks!