NOTICE: All slip opinions and orders are subject to formal revision and are superseded by the advance sheets and bound volumes of the Official Reports. If you find a typographical error or other formal error, please notify the Reporter of Decisions, Supreme Judicial Court, John Adams Courthouse, 1 Pemberton Square, Suite 2500, Boston, MA, 02108-1750; (617) 557- 1030; SJCReporter@sjc.state.ma.us SJC-12368 IVES CAMARGO'S CASE. Suffolk. January 10, 2018. - May 10, 2018. Present: Gants, C.J., Lenk, Gaziano, Lowy, Budd, Cypher, & Kafker, JJ. Workers' Compensation Act, To whom act applies, Independent contractor. Appeal from a decision of the Industrial Accident Reviewing Board. The Supreme Judicial Court on its own initiative transferred the case from the Appeals Court. Michael A. Fager for the claimant. Paul S. Kelly (Bruce J. Barker also present) for Publishers Circulation Fulfillment, Inc., & another. Catherine K. Ruckelshaus, of New York, Audrey Richardson, Janette Ekanem, Emily Spieler, & Ingrid Nava, for Brazilian Women's Group & others, amici curiae, submitted a brief. KAFKER, J. The claimant, Ives Camargo, seeks review of a decision by the reviewing board of the Department of Industrial Accidents (department) concerning her claim for workers' compensation benefits pursuant to G. L. c. 152. The reviewing 2 board affirmed the findings of an administrative judge, concluding that the clamant was an independent contractor and therefore was not entitled to workers' compensation. The reviewing board made this determination on the basis of the definition of "employee" contained in the workers' compensation statute, as articulated in the twelve-part test from MacTavish v. O'Connor Lumber Co., 6 Mass. Workers' Comp. Rep. 174, 177 (1992), and Whitman's Case, 80 Mass. App. Ct. 348, 353 (2011), rather than the definition of employee found in G. L. c. 149, § 148B, the independent contractor statute. The claimant appealed, and we transferred the case to this court on our own motion. The claimant argues that the reviewing board erred in (1) failing to use the definition of "employee" under G. L. c. 149, § 148B, to determine whether the claimant was an employee eligible for workers' compensation under G. L. c. 152; and (2) finding that the claimant was an independent contractor rather than an employee. We conclude that the independent contractor statute, G. L. c. 149, § 148B, does not determine whether a claimant is an employee for the purpose of workers' compensation benefits under G. L. c. 152. The reviewing board correctly applied the workers' compensation statute's definition of employee to determine whether the claimant was an employee under G. L. c. 152, and therefore the claimant was properly classified as an 3 independent contractor for the purposes of workers' compensation.1 1. Background. a. Facts. The claimant began working as a newspaper delivery agent for Publishers Circulation Fulfillment, Inc. (PCF), in 2001. PCF provides home delivery services for newspaper publishers and pays delivery agents to deliver newspapers to subscribers. PCF does not publish its own newspapers. Instead, it acts as a middleman to deliver published newspapers. The claimant was hired by ...
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