Determination of employment relationship for purposes of FLSA requires analysis of scope of “whole activity.”

The plaintiffs filed a collective action under the FLSA alleging that they were misclassified as independent contractors when in actuality they were employees of the defendant, even though their contracts specifically delineated their status as being independent contractors. In dismissing the claim, the judge employed the six-factor analysis adopted by the 3^rd Circuit in Martin v. Selker Bros and concluded that the “circumstances of the whole activity” between the plaintiffs and the defendant did not support a finding of an employer-employee relationship. The court also noted that the contract language defining the relationship was not determinative of the issue.

Case Law Alerts, 4th Quarter 2013