The Assignments are only released on the week they are due – but as I’ve shared this assignment with one student I am posting it here. It is complex and we will return to it later in the course – so an early start can’t hurt:
This assignment requires you to analyze a set of hypothetical facts under a set of legal rules and reach a conclusion that you can defend.
The exercise aims to present you with a set of facts that you might reasonably encounter as an HR professional, and its objective is to help you develop the ability to critically analyze these facts and persuade a reasonable observer that you have reached the correct conclusion.
RELEVANT COURSE OBJECTIVES:
Identify and define relevant legal concepts and explain their applications in a realistic, hypothetical fact pattern.
Apply critical thinking, analytic, and communication skills through case analysis, research, problem solving,
Develop applicable skills and knowledge in the relevant cross-curricular initiatives, including effective writing and information literacy
TOTAL POSSIBLE POINTS FOR RAW SCORE: 100
The Facts
Make-a-Bed is a furniture manufacturer and distributor with plants in Maryland, Pennsylvania and Delaware. The company’s president believed the company could save money by streamlining the manufacturing process and consolidating facilities. To accomplish this, the company advertised through regular want ads for a consultant/industrial engineer to oversee this process.
John Engineer applied for the job; his resume indicated that he ran his own consulting firm as a solo practitioner and had consulted on this type of project before.
The president decided that it would be better to hire John as an independent contractor than as an employee, as originally planned, because John was wrapping up some projects for other clients and couldn’t begin full-time work right away.
John was told that he would be expected to study the employer business and make recommendations as to how to accomplish the consolidation within one year. He was required to report regularly to the president on his work (every month), but was responsible for scheduling his own meetings and travel. It was agreed that John would budget approximately 20 hours of his time every week to the project and would be paid on an hourly basis, upon submission of an invoice each month.
John’s other business dried up and after a few months, he was devoting all his time to Make-a-Bed, though he continued to bill only 20 hours a week. John travelled frequently to the three factories, but was not reimbursed for his travel expenses.
After one year had passed, John had not made any formal recommendations about how to accomplish the consolidation project wanted by the business and was replaced by an outside professional consulting agency.
John filed a claim for unemployment benefits showing Make-a-Bed as the last employer. The company supplied a 1099 form to the unemployment office showing that John had been paid as a contractor, not an employee. The claim was denied, but John appealed and a hearing was held.
