Employers sometime seek to misclassify workers as independent contractors to avoid withholding taxes, paying social security, providing unemployment insurance and workman’s compensation benefits.  Massachusetts has some of the most stringent laws in the country governing the classification of workers and presumes that a worker is an employee. A company or business who classifies someone as an independent contractor can rebut this presumption only by meeting all three requirements under the Massachusetts Independent Contractor Law, M.G.L. c. 149, §148B.  Those three requirements are as follows:

(1) that the worker is free from its control and direction in performing the service, both under a contract and in fact;

(2) that the service provided by the worker is outside the employer’s usual course of business; and

(3) that the worker is customarily engaged in an independent trade, occupation, profession or business of the same type.

Unless all three prongs are met, a worker is considered an employee, and thus may be entitled to employee benefits, including, in some instances, holiday pay, vacation pay, minimum wage and overtime benefits.  If it is proven at trial that an employee has been misclassified, such person would also be entitled to treble damages and attorney’s fees.