California law SB 459 imposes a civil penalty of $5,000 – $15,000 for each violation on a person or employer that willfully misclassifies an individual as an independent contractor. Willful misclassification is defined as avoiding employee status for an individual by voluntarily and knowingly misclassifying that individual as an independent contractor. The penalty increases to $10,000 – $25,000 for each violation if the person or employer has engaged in a “pattern or practice” of willful misclassification.
The law also subjects paid, non-attorney advisors to joint and several liabilities with the employer if they knowingly advise the employer to treat an individual as an independent contractor and the individual is not found to be an independent contractor.
A new California labor law designed to punish employers for misclassifying workers has broad legal language that can possibly impact insurance agents and brokers who knowingly advise clients on employee classifications to the tune of thousands of dollars per misclassified worker.