In Garcia v. Border Transportation Group, LLC, the Court ruled that the California Supreme Court’s Dynamex “suffer or permit to work” standard for determining whether a worker is properly considered an employee or an independent contractor applies to wage order claims, and the Borello standard applies to non-wage-order claims. The plaintiff filed a wage and hour lawsuit. Some of the claims were based on Industrial Welfare Commission (IWC) wage orders, others were not. The trial court granted defendants’ motion for summary judgment on all eight causes of action on the basis that Garcia was an independent contractor, not an employee. After the appeal was fully briefed, the Supreme Court issued a ruling in Dynamex defendants had to demonstrate that the plaintiff was “customarily engaged in an independently established trade, occupation, or business” apart from his work for defendant, not that he was merely capable of such engagement. As they could not, summary judgment was improper.

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