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Three food delivery startups sued over worker status

Three food delivery startups sued over worker status

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Three food delivery startups — GrubHub, DoorDash, and Caviar — were hit with lawsuits Wednesday over their classification of workers as independent contractors, according to a report in The Chicago Tribune. Filed in San Francisco Superior Court, two of the lawsuits, against GrubHub (which merged in 2013 with Seamless) and DoorDash, are class actions. The third, against Caviar, is a demand for arbitration on behalf of a driver.

The suits are the latest threat to the "on-demand economy," where lawsuits have alleged companies misclassified independent contractors who should have been employees, and entitled to the benefits being an employee requires under the law. It's no surprise, either, that they mirror similar suits filed against companies like Uber and Lyft: the Tribune reports that the lawyer for Wednesday's cases has also taken similar legal action action other companies, including Lyft and Uber, which have been facing high-profile challenges to their classification of workers.