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A comment on California Labor Bill, Near Passage, Is Blow to Uber and Lyft. Parent comment

Re:California Labor Bill, Near Passage, Is Blow to Uber and ... by jdavis703 on Tuesday September 10, 2019 @10:34AM (#20928667)
Let's say the bill is amended with a 10-hour or less "side hustle" carve-out. Do app-based taxi companies start gaming the system?

For example in the Bay Area Uber could start five shell companies for the East Bay, SF, Peninsula, South Bay and North Bay. Then each driver is restricted or algorithmically encouraged to work in a different zone for each 10-hour segment.

The TNCs already (or at least used to) operate different companies for different markets. This scenario doesn't seem to far fetched.

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Re:California Labor Bill, Near Passage, Is Blow to Uber and ... by zorked on Tuesday September 10, 2019 @10:36AM (#20928682)
Does American law really fall for that sort of cheap scheme? In most other places that would be an additional law broken.
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Re:California Labor Bill, Near Passage, Is Blow to Uber and ... by jdavis703 on Tuesday September 10, 2019 @11:12AM (#20929076)
Yes we fall for it. We have people setting up LLCs (essentially"disposable" shell companies) to buy up real estate. Then to avoid real estate taxes they sell the LLC, which avoids triggering a "sale" of the real estate property. This is perfectly legal. Every landlord I've rented from in California has done this.
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Re:California Labor Bill, Near Passage, Is Blow to Uber and ... by yifanl on Tuesday September 10, 2019 @11:08AM (#20929026)
This is the whole word vs spirit of the law thing.

A reasonable court could easily spot this scheme, the law shouldn't be enforced by a series of if statements.

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Re:California Labor Bill, Near Passage, Is Blow to Uber and ... by jdavis703 on Tuesday September 10, 2019 @12:00PM (#20929668)
Like software engineers, lawyers make big bucks because they can spot problems in complex logic. A smart legislator is going to do everything to make sure the courts interpret the law as intended. Othetwise, what's the point of passing laws?
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