Andrew Moriarty was quoted in the Corporate Counsel* article, "The Growing Gig Economy Brings New Worries for In-House Counsel," about the misclassification risk associated with companies strengthening relationships with their independent contractors.

For morale purposes, company leaders may want to include independent contractors who work side-by-side with employees to a lunch or party—but strengthening those relationships can also strengthen a misclassification case, according to Andrew, former senior corporate counsel for labor and employment at Amazon.com Inc.

“One holiday party issue is, ‘Should we invite the independent contractor to the company holiday party?’ The conservative legal advice is no, because that makes the person arguably look more like an employee,” Andrew says. “Do independent contractors get invited to the holiday party? Yes, they do. Not everywhere, but some places. Some places are just taking that risk.”

“On issues like sexual harassment, and safety at the site that the employer controls … people are focusing more heavily on protecting the work environment and making sure there’s a safe work environment,” Andrew says. “Whatever misclassification risk is associated with that, the companies are just accepting that as the cost of doing the right thing.”

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