Travel Management Company

Independent contractor classification under ABC and Borello. Multi-state choice-of-law.

A pre-litigation demand alleged misclassification of travel agents as independent contractors, asserting seventeen causes of action across wage-and-hour, expense reimbursement, and waiting time penalty theories. The threshold issue was choice of law: the agents worked remotely across multiple states, but the employer was headquartered in California. Under the ABC test (Dynamex Operations West v. Superior Court (2018) 4 Cal.5th 903), the classification was likely indefensible for California-based agents. But research identified a statutory exemption for licensed travel agents under Business & Professions Code § 17550 et seq. that, combined with the multi-state choice-of-law analysis under Restatement (Second) of Conflict of Laws § 188, narrowed the viable class to a subset of the workforce and eliminated several cause of action categories entirely. The pre-litigation analysis reduced the plaintiff's counsel's initial demand framework significantly before any formal discovery.

The Transferable Point

Before conceding that the ABC test is satisfied, work the exemption framework: the codified scheme at Lab. Code § 2775 et seq. routes a number of occupations back to the Borello multifactor test rather than the ABC test, and a qualifying classification changes the analysis rather than merely softening it. Seller-of-travel registration under B&P Code § 17550 is a licensing status, not itself an exemption — whether it helps depends on the statutory exemption actually invoked, which is a question to brief rather than assume. Paired with a multi-state choice-of-law analysis, a viable exemption narrows the class before the merits are reached.

Methods Applied

ABC test Prong B analysis for travel agent classification
Statutory exemption research identifying B&P Code § 17550 applicability
Multi-state choice-of-law analysis under Restatement § 188
Pre-litigation class narrowing through jurisdictional and exemption analysis
Cause of action category elimination based on choice-of-law determination

Governing Authorities

Dynamex Operations West v. Superior Court (2018) 4 Cal.5th 903 (ABC test)
Lab. Code § 2775 et seq. (ABC test as codified, with the exemption framework at §§ 2776–2787)
S.G. Borello & Sons v. Dept. of Industrial Relations (1989) 48 Cal.3d 341 (multifactor test where an exemption applies)
Bus. & Prof. Code § 17550 et seq. (seller-of-travel registration)
Lab. Code § 2802 (expense reimbursement)

Exposure Narrowed

This matter description is for illustrative purposes only. Details have been generalized to protect client confidentiality. Prior results do not guarantee a similar outcome.