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Joint Employer Liability


2016.08.25  Paymaster Role does not Establish Joint Employer Status- 11th Circuit.  In Peppers v. Cobb County, the 11th Circuit found that --

  • The County played no role in hiring, supervising, firing, establishing pay, or setting the duties and responsibilities of the prosecutor’s employees. 

Accordingly, the court held as follows:

  • As we see it, the County is a legally separate and distinct entity that did not control the fundamental aspects of the employment relationship between the office of the District Attorney and its criminal investigators, nor did it act as a joint employer with the District Attorney. Because its role as paymaster [limited to cutting paychecks, providing employee benefits, and instituting pay raises approved by the District Attorney] is wholly insufficient to establish that Cobb County was Peppers’s employer, he could not sue the County under the federal antidiscrimination laws.

2015.09  NLRB Broadly Expands Joint Employer Standards. See this Alert for a summary of the NLRB's jettisoning of a 30-year old standard in favor of a new test that --

  • broadens the joint-employment standard by adopting an “inclusive approach in defining ‘essential terms and conditions of employment.’” In addition to hiring, firing, discipline, supervision, and direction, the Board stressed that the “controlled” terms of employment that can trigger joint employer status can extend much further, including wages and hours; the number of workers to be supplied; scheduling; seniority; overtime; assigning work and determining the manner and method of work.