Gig Worker Test’s Legal Challenges Undercut by Standing Ruling

A federal judge’s decision to toss out a lawsuit challenging the US Department of Labor’s new independent contractor rule over standing issues spells bad news for other legal challenges to the regulation, attorneys say.

Georgia-based Judge Richard W. Story found earlier this month that four freelance writers and editors didn’t have standing to sue over the worker classification rule because they weren’t harmed by the policy change.

They argued that the rule created uncertainty around their status as contractors, chilling publishers from wanting to work with them. Story wasn’t convinced, characterizing those fears as “hypothetical and conjectural.”

“By definition, the ...