Newspaper Boys - Independent Contractors?

Sunday, July 21, 2002 | 0

The Wall Street Journal (WSJ) reports a curious anomaly in an exception to child labor laws, and the problems that occur where a child newspaper delivery person is hurt on the job typically they are not covered by workers compensation.

In Children Injured on Paper Routes Often Go Uninsured (Friday, 7/19/02, page 1, section 1, column A) several cases where children delivering newspapers were severely hurt or killed in the course and scope of delivering papers were examined. The cases highlight not only one of the only exceptions to child labor laws, but the irony that an industry so vigilant in reporting abuses of children and child labor refuse to take care of young workers.

Among the cases: a 14 year old boy with a disfigured leg and $80,000 in medical bills after being hit by a van while delivering papers; a 12 year old girl sexually assaulted while on her paper route; a 12 year old boy killed when hit by a car while delivering the paper; a 12 year old girl left in a vegetative state after being struck by a car while on the paper delivery route; a 14 year old boy who required 7 operations and is legally blind in the left eye after being hit by a snowball thrown from a passing auto while he was delivering papers.

16 children have been killed delivering papers between 1992 and 2000 according to Department of Labor statistics, and their families have no worker's compensation recourse. The DOL doesn't keep any statistics on kids injured doing their paper delivery jobs. In 1990 children made up 68% of the paper delivery force. By 2000 that number decreased by 35% which still leaves 140,000 unprotected youth doing this job, the vast majority of which have no medical or disability recourse if they are hurt or killed.

The newspaper industry has a long history of lobbying against child labor laws, and has been successful in carving out exceptions to workers' compensation laws as well as other child labor laws (such as hours and wages). Child paper delivery persons have for decades been considered little merchants, i.e. independent contractors, who buy papers wholesale and sell them at retail, responsible for collecting on their accounts in order to make money.

The only states that require workers' compensation coverage for paper delivery children are New York, Wisconsin, Nevada, Kentucky and Maryland, according to the WSJ. Parents have on occasion challenged the newspaper industry's position that children carrying the papers are 'little merchants' though with mixed results.

One case in Nebraska, reports the WSJ, involved a 12 year old who was struck by a car. On life support and with medical bills over $1 million, her parent sought workers' compensation benefits. The workers' compensation judge sided with the parents, and the paper appealed though the Supreme Court. The Nebraska Supreme Court affirmed the WCJ, who originally wrote in his decision that, [I]t is beyond sophistry and closer to outright dishonesty to characterize a 10 year old party to a contract as a 'little merchant' and thus an independent contractor.