PAGA Lawsuit Spotlights Continued Independent Contractor Challenges in California
July 1, 2023
A recent trend in the arena of direct sales is an increasing number of lawsuits under California’s PAGA (private attorney general) statute, alleging that the independent contractor status of multilevel marketing distributors is inconsistent with California law. In its July 2023 issue, a leading trade publication for direct selling and multilevel marketing companies, Social Selling News, features extensive commentary on this trend by Larry Steinberg, chair of Buchalter’s MLM Industry Group. Mr. Steinberg notes, among other things, that “These PAGA cases are a very serious matter for the direct selling channel in that they strike at the heart of the independent contractor model, which treats each distributor as an independent business owner.”
