Law Commons^™

Employment By Design: Employees, Independent Contractors And The Theory Of The Firm, Richard R. Carlson

Arkansas Law Review

Employment laws protect “employees” and impose duties on their “employers.” In the modern working world, however, “employee” and “employer” status is not always clear. The status of some workers and the firms they serve can be ambiguous, especially when the workers work as individuals not organized as firms. Individual workers might be “employees,” but they might also be self-employed individuals working as “independent contractors.” Even if it is clear that workers are someone’s “employees,” the identity of the employer can be unclear. If one firm pays “employees” to work mainly or exclusively for another firm that pays the first firm …