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NELF Has Filed a Second April “Amicus” SJC Brief in Support of the Massachusetts “Gig” Economy, This Time Backing the Attorney General in Her Certification of Two Ballot Questions for the 2022 Election

BOSTON – The New England Legal Foundation has, for the second time in April and for the sixth time overall, filed an “amicus curiae” friend-of-the-court brief in a case with potentially profound effect on the burgeoning Massachusetts “gig” economy and its thousands of workers. The new brief was written by NELF Staff Attorney John Pagliaro and supports Attorney General Maura Healey in her certification of two initiative petitions that would be on the state’s 2022 November ballot.

Supported by Uber, Lyft, Instacart, and DoorDash, the questions, if passed, would create for drivers of those companies a new status of independent contractors and give them specific new employee benefits. In the Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court case, Koussa et al. v. Attorney General, opponents of the ballot questions argue that the Attorney General did not certify the questions properly.

“This case is of concern to NELF,” Foundation President Dan Winslow said, “because it involves the regulation of business and in particular the kind of legal status Massachusetts workers may have in relation to the businesses with which they work.”

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About John Pagliaro

John Pagliaro is a Staff Attorney at New England Legal Foundation and has twenty-five years of experience in civil litigation. Before joining NELF in 2008, John had been an associate at Nixon Peabody and at several Boston boutique law firms. As a trial lawyer, he represented corporations and individuals in all phases of civil litigation and dealt with a wide range of legal disputes, including breach of contract, business torts, securities law, trade secrets, non-competes, close corporation law, construction law, and consumer class actions. At NELF John has filed amicus briefs in the courts of Massachusetts, New Hampshire, Rhode Island, and Connecticut. His federal practice includes the U.S. Supreme Court and the U.S. Courts of Appeal for the First, Second, and District of Columbia Circuits. His briefs have dealt with such issues as Fifth Amendment takings of private property, federal preemption of state law, federal and state employment law, and insurance law. He frequently focuses on statutory interpretation, especially the significance of statutory silence and the Chevron deference courts grant to agency interpretations of federal statutes. John served in US. Army military intelligence and later received his B.A. from the University of Wisconsin-Madison, an A.M. and Ph.D. from Harvard University, where he was a lecturer in the History and Literature Program for three years, and his J.D. from Boston College Law School.

About the New England Legal Foundation (NELF)

For nearly 50 years, NELF has been the leading voice of the New England business community and entrepreneurs in advocating for the foundational values of free enterprise, property rights, good and limited government, and inclusive growth in the New England region. The Foundation has an in-house staff of lawyers who file amicus briefs to help shape judicial decisions to favor these foundational values. As a non-partisan, non-profit 501c3 organization, membership is open to all law firms, corporate legal departments, and individuals who support NELF’s mission.

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