When will a court certify a class action based on misclassification of common law employees as independent contractors?

Certification of class claims based on the misclassification of common law employees as independent contractors generally does not depend upon deciding the actual scope of a hirer's right of control over its hirees. The relevant question is whether the scope of the right of control, whatever it might be, is susceptible to classwide proof. Bypassing that question, the trial court instead proceeded to the merits.⁵ In so doing, the court made the same mistake others have when deciding whether to certify claims predicated on common law employee status, focus[ing] too much on the substantive issue of the defendant's right to control its newspaper deliverers, instead of whether that question could be decided using common proof. ( Dalton v. Lee Publications, supra, 270 F.R.D. at p. 564.) Moreover, by purporting to resolve on a classwide basis the scope of Antelope Valley's right to control its carriers, the trial court contradicted its own conclusion, that classwide assessment of Antelope Valley's right to control is infeasible.