If you’re anything like me, you spent the first few months of the COVID-19 Pandemic watching reality TV shows that captivated global audiences to discuss with friends, family, and on a host of online forums. One of those shows, Love is Blind, follows participants looking for love in which they meet in “pods” where they develop romantic connections before ever seeing one another.
Since Netflix released season one of Love is Blind on February 13, 2020, an estimated 30 million people streamed the show. Netflix has since released five total seasons with season 6 appropriately dropping on Valentine’s Day of this year. The show has been renewed for season 7 as well. However, while the show has garnered a massive fanbase, it has also garnered massive controversy - two lawsuits have been filed against the show by former contestants. Here, I will focus on the first of the two, a lawsuit alleging that the show violated California labor laws in its treatment of cast members.
On June 29, 2022, Jeremy Hartwell, a cast member of the second season of Love is Blind, filed a lawsuit against Netflix, production company Kinetic Content, and casting company Delirium, alleging “inhumane working conditions” and pay below the minimum wage while working on the show. Hartwell filed suit in the Los Angeles County Superior Court of California, seeking declaratory and injunctive relief as well as compensatory damages.
In his complaint, Hartwell explains the three primary ways in which the defendants violated California labor law: (1) inhumane working conditions, (2) low pay, and (3) scare tactics. First, Hartwell argues that cast members experienced “inhumane working conditions” through “sleep deprivation, isolation, lack of food, and an excess of alcohol all either required, enabled or encouraged by the defendants” while the show was filming.
Second, Hartwell argues that defendants paid cast members less than half of the minimum wage in Los Angeles where the show is filmed. Defendants paid cast members on Hartwell’s season a flat rate of $1,000 per week, for which the defendants regularly worked 20 hours per day. The differential between the payment and hours worked resulted in a rate of pay of $7.14 per hour, while the minimum wage in Los Angeles is $15 per hour. Hartwell seeks “unpaid overtime compensation, unpaid minimum wages, waiting time penalties, and statutory penalties” as a result of this allegation.
Third, Hartwell argues that defendants exerted control over contestants through financial scare tactics. The contract for each contestant on the show contained a provision for $50,000 in liquidated damages if cast members left filming early, a fact that producers did not hesitate to invoke.
These three major allegations by Hartwell bring us to the California Law underlying his arguments. Hartwell specifically references California law, including but not limited to the California Labor Code and applicable wage order in the state as protections to which cast members on the show were entitled. However, in order to be protected by those laws, cast members would need to be classified as employees under California state law as opposed to independent contractors.
Whether the contestants can legally be classified as employees instead of independent contractors, the status they hold per their contracts, is a major deciding factor in the protections to which they are entitled. This analysis hinges on recent changes to California law. As of January 1, 2020, California independent contractor law, known as Assembly Bill 5, went into effect and controls the issue. The change in law aims to clarify the classification of workers for both workers themselves and employers. It’s in the best interest of businesses as well as the employee to be correctly classified - as this lawsuit shows misclassifying workers can be extremely costly.
Assembly Bill 5 defines an independent contractor as an individual who works for themselves, and is able to decide issues like compensation, work schedule, location, and other factors. An employee, on the other hand, is classified as a worker employed by a business or individual to perform a particular job for salary and benefits. Employees don’t have the same control over their work as independent contractors - employers set their hours, conditions, wages, benefits and other factors. To determine a worker’s status, AB5 lays out a test called the ABC test. The test consists of three requirements a worker in California must fulfill before their employer can designate them as an independent contractor.
The three factors in the AB5 test are the following:
If an employer is unable to confirm the three factors provided by the AB5 test, the worker in question is considered an employee. Hartwell alleges that the defendants in his suit exerted “substantial control” over himself and the other contestants, but time will tell in the lawsuit if the allegations can be confirmed.
As of October 2023, Hartwell and the defendants were in settlement conferences to resolve the case, but no additional information has been released.
Reality TV, like Love is Blind, is my favorite thing to watch, and people across the internet love to make fun of the contestants and crazy situations they experience. As it turns out, from the vantage point of a former contestant, the conditions of filming a reality TV show really are no joke. If you have questions about the classification of workers or other labor issues, contact Steve Setliff (ssetliff@setlifflaw.com) at (804) 377-1261.
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