vicarious liability will be imposed in some circumstances: where the contractor injures an invitee to the real property of the employer, the contractor is involved in an ultra-hazardous activity (one likely to cause substantial injury, such as blasting with explosives), or the employer is estopped from denying liability because he has held out the independent contractor as if he were simply an employee or agent. the employer is involved in an operation subject to obligations imposed by a public authority Alternatives Due to the higher expense of maintaining employees, many employers needing to transition from independent contractors to employees may find the switch difficult. There is a transitional status for employees as an alternative to independent contracting known as being a statutory employee. Statutory employees are less expensive to hire than classic employees because the employer does not have to pay unemployment tax. But they are more expensive than independent contractors because Social Security and Medicare taxes must be paid on wages. Similarly to independent contractors, statutory employees can deduct their trade or business expenses from their W2 earnings. Dependent contractor A growing number of workers do not neatly fit the government's categorizations of independent contractors and statutory employees, and are increasingly being classified as dependent contractors. Some of these contingent workforce—independent contractors, temporary workers, and part-time workers, who work when and for how long they want, such as those who work for such companies as Uber, Handybook, Inc., and CrowdFlower—have filed lawsuits that argue that companies that substantially control workers' work and behaviors while working (such as at Handybook, Inc.: when to knock on customers' doors vs. ring the doorbells, and how to use the customers' bathrooms) should be covered by minimum-wage and overtime rules under the Fair Labor Standards Act, as well as receive other traditional employee protections. Wilma Liebman, former chairperson of the National Labor Relations Board, has observed that Canada and Germany have such protections in place for contingent workers. And UK Prime Minister David Cameron has appointed an overseer for freelance workers in that country, to determine how the government should support freelance workers. See also References External links Independent Contractor Rights Independent Contractor vs. Employee – IRS (U.S.) "Self-Employed Individuals" – IRS (U.S.) "The Application of the Fair Labor Standards Act's "Suffer or Permit" Standard in the Identification of Employees Who Are Misclassified as Independent Contractors." U.S. Department of Labor (PDF) Agency law Business