Mass-Peculiarities: An Employers Guide to Wage & Hour Law in the Bay State 2022 Edition

152 | Massachusetts Wage & Hour Peculiarities, 2022 ed. © 2022 Seyfarth Shaw LLP perform detailing and reconditioning work, those individuals were deemed employees because “without the services of the workers, [the employer] would cease to operate.” 894 And when a sales and marketing company hired individuals to engage in sales efforts, such individuals were deemed employees because the services provided “were the very essence” of the company’s business. 895 By contrast, a general contractor properly classified workers as independent contractors when he hired them to perform construction work that he did not know how to do and that he did not perform as part of his own regular business. 896 Notably, the SJC and the First Circuit have held that the Federal Aviation Administration Authorization Act (FAAAA) may preempt the “usual course of business” prong of the Independent Contractor Statute when it comes to motor carriers in the business of transporting property. 897 The FAAAA contains a preemption provision, which provides that “all state laws that ‘relate[] to a price, route, or service of any motor carrier . . . with respect to the transportation of property’ are preempted.” 898 In their analyses, the SJC and the First Circuit observed that Congress designed the FAAAA to deregulate the transportation of property in the trucking industry to facilitate the free flow of property at competitive rates. 899 Given the FAAAA’s language and objectives, “a state statute is preempted [by the FAAAA] if it expressly references, or has a significant impact on, carriers’ prices, routes, or services.” 900 A significant impact “may be proven by empirical evidence or the logical effect that a particular scheme has on the delivery of services.” 901 Applying these principles to the cases before them, the SJC and the First Circuit concluded that the FAAAA preempts the “usual course of business” prong, reasoning that application of that prong would have a significant impact on the prices, routes, or services of the motor carriers at issue. 902 of a workers’ compensat ion claim because College News Service’s ent ire business is dist ribut ion—delivering newspapers obviously is in the usual course of it s business). 894 RainbowDev. , 2005 WL 3543770, at *3. 895 Jinks v. Credico (USA) LLC, et al. , No. 1784CV02731, 2020 Mass. Super. LEXIS 36, *4, *19 (March 31, 2020); see also Hogan , 2021 U.S. Dist . LEXIS 4395, *56 (holding vendor associates who provided retail services to the defendant ’s client s performed in the usual course of business of the defendant because providing retail services was the defendant ’s business). 896 Am. Zurich Ins. , 2006 WL 2205085, at *5. 897 Chambers v. RDI Logistics, Inc ., 476 Mass. 95, 102 (2016); Massachusetts Delivery Assn. v. Healey , 821 F.3d 187, 192 (1st Cir. 2016); see also Schwann v. FedEx Ground Package Sys., Inc. , 813 F.3d 429, 440 (1st Cir. 2016). 898 Schwann , 813 F.3d at 435 (quot ing 49 U.S.C. § 14501(c)(1)); see also Chambers , 476 Mass. at 101. 899 Schwann , 813 F.3d at 436 (citat ions omit ted); see also Chambers , 476 Mass. at 101 (citat ions omit ted). 900 Schwann , 813 F.3d at 435 (cit ing Massachusetts Delivery Ass’n v. Coakley , 769 F.3d 11, 17-18 (1st Cir. 2014)); see also Chambers , 476 Mass. at 101. 901 Massachusetts Delivery Assn. , 821 F.3d at 191 (internal quotat ions omit ted); see also Chambers , 476 Mass. at 101 (not ing that requiring motor carriers to have employee delivery drivers “ likely also would have a significant , if indirect , impact on motor carriers' services by raising the cost s of providing those services” and referencing the cost of minimum wage as an example) (citat ions omit ted). 902 Chambers , 476 Mass. at 102 (holding that usual course of business prong’s “de facto ban [on use of independent cont ractors] const itutes an impermissible ‘significant impact ’ on motor carriers that would undercut Congress's object ives in passing the FAAAA; the statute containing prong two also forms part of an impermissible ‘patchwork’ of State laws due to it s uniqueness.”); Massachusetts Delivery Ass’n , 821 F.3d at 192 (holding that applicat ion of the usual course of business prong “would logically have a significant effect on [the company’s] routes and services.”); Schwann , 813 F.3d at 438 (holding that applicat ion of the