Legal Question in Business Law in California

Re: Common Law employment

There are two possibilities. The fence builder can be an employee of the individual, or, of course, can be an independent contractor. When you call a plumber to fix a leaky faucet, the plumber isn't your employee; he is either self-employed or the employee of a plumbing company.

More likely than not (maybe 70/30), a person you hire on a one-time basis to build a fence for you is an independent contractor. Determining the employee-vs.-independent contractor status of someone who does work for you is sometimes a very difficult thing, and there is often litigation over this issue, because, as you probably know, it makes a huge difference on withholding, workers comp, liability, need for a license, and other issues.

The IRS and various state agencies, notably EDD, have lists of factors to be analyzed to determine or point in the direction of determining employee vs. contractor status. Some of these factors are the degree of supervision, the right to discipline, whether the worker has other jobs and other clients, who furnishes the tools, whether the worker is set up in a business, and things like that. Common sense has a lot to do with it, but not everyone likes the decisions coming out of the regualtory and taxing bodies.