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Eric Avogardo Case

Decent Essays

The issue is whether Eric Avogardo is barred from a direct claim against the gas station because his employment falls under a casual employee and/or independent contractor?

An employee is defined as someone that performs a “service for an employer for financial consideration.” N.J.S.A. 34:15-36. The definition of an employee should be broadly construed by New Jersey courts. Hannigan v. Goldfarb, 53 N.J.Super. 190, 195 (App. Div. 1958). Most importantly, the employment relationship requires an expectation of payment. Cerniglia v. City of Passaic, 50 N.J.Super. 201, 208 (App. Div. 1958)

I. Casual Employment

The New Jersey Workers Compensation Act (“Act”) does not apply to employees whose work was casual in nature or not in the regular …show more content…

John H. Geaney, Geaney’s New Jersey Workers’ Compensation Manual for Attorneys, Physicians, Adjusters and Employers (2017). The courts in the majority of those cases find that the injured workers to be employees. Id. New Jersey courts developed flexible tests to define the independent contractor defense very narrowly. Id. Additionally, New Jersey courts focus on different factors as opposed to the analysis performed by the Internal Revenue Service. Id.

New Jersey courts define an independent contractor as one who “contracts to do a piece of work according to his own methods, and without being subject to the control of his employer as to the means by which the result is to be accomplished, but only as to the result of the work.” Cappadonna v. Passaic Motors, 136 N.J.L. 299, 300, (Sup. Ct. 1947), aff'd, 137 N.J.L. 661 (1948). There are two tests used to determine whether an employee was an independent contractor: (1) the control test and (2) the relative nature of the work test.
A. Control …show more content…

The relative nature of the work test is “essentially an economic and functional one, and the determinative Criteria [sic] not the inconclusive details of the arrangement between the parties, but rather the extent of the economic dependence of the worker upon the business he serves and the relationship of the nature of his work to the operation of that business.” Marcus v. E. Agr. Ass'n, Inc., 58 N.J. Super. 584, 603 (App. Div. 1959), rev'd. Marcus v. E. Agric. Ass'n, Inc., 32 N.J. 460 (1960). There are two fundamental questions that have to be explored: (1) is the work an integral part of the regular business, and (2) is the employee economically dependent on the

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