A legal test that business groups and Republican lawmakers said would hamper job growth, hurt small businesses, and wreck the franchising model has only been applied in handful of cases, a Bloomberg Law analysis of decisions in the three years since reveals.
Using the standard introduced in Browning-Ferris Industries—whether the employer has even indirect control over another’s workers—potentially makes it easier to hold big companies accountable for labor law violations by staffing firms, subcontractors, and other associated businesses that provide outsourced labor. The old test required employers to have direct control to be liable for another’s workers.
Companies ...