LISTEN to an Exclusive interview: http://lbishow.com/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=361:the-age-of-greed&catid=51:americas-best-selling-authors-series  

Prominent Trial Attorney, Jack Girardi, Ptr Girardi Keese, and Producer Steve Murphy interview award winning Author Jeff Madrick on his new book, Age of Greed, The Triumph of Finance and the Decline of America, 1970-Present .

Jeff has appeared on Charlie Rose, the Lehrer News Hour, Now with Bill Moyers, Frontline, C-Span, Book Notes, CNN, CNBC, CBS, BBC, and NPR.  He has also served as a policy consultant and speech writer for Sen. Edward M. Kennedy and other U.S. legislatorsJeff is a regular contributor to The New York Review of Books, and a former economics columnist for The New York Times. He is editor of Challenge Magazine, visiting professor of humanities at The Cooper Union, and senior fellow at the Roosevelt Institute and the for Economic Policy Analysis, The New School.  His last book, The Case for Big Government (Princeton), was named one of two 2009 PEN Galbraith Non-Fiction Award Finalists.   

He is also the author of Taking America (Bantam, 1987), and The End of Affluence (Random House, 1995), both of which were New York Times Notable Books of the Year. Taking America was chosen by Business Week as one of the ten best books of the year. His book,  Why Economies Grow (Basic Books/Century Foundation, 2002), emphasized the need for active public investment and a broader understanding of the causes of growth than was popular in academia at the time.  He has written for many other publications over the years,  including The Post, The Times, Institutional Investor, The Nation, American Prospect, The Globe, Newsday, and the business, op-ed, and the Sunday magazine sections of The New York Times.  He is a regular blogger for The Huffington Post and The Daily Beast.

The Age of Greed is a fascinating and deeply disturbing tale of hypocrisy, corruption, and insatiable greed. But more than that, it's a much-needed reminder of just how we got into the mess we're in-a reminder that is greatly needed when we are still being told that greed is good.  As Jeff Madrick makes clear in a narrative at once sweeping, fast-paced, and incisive, the single-minded pursuit of huge personal wealth has been on the rise in the United States since the 1970s, led by a few individuals who have argued that self-interest guides society more effectively than community concerns. These stewards of American capitalism have insisted on the central and essential place of accumulated wealth through the booms, busts, and recessions of the last half century, giving rise to our current woes. Intense economic inequity and instability is the story of our age, and Jeff Madrick tells it with style, clarity, and an unerring command of his subject.

You can contact Jeff Madrick @ http://www.jeffmadrick.com

On July 19, 2011, the Indiana Court of Appeals issued a decision which I found surprising in McCann v. City of Anderson, ___ N.E.2d ___ (Ind. Ct. App. 2011), Cause No. 48A02-1009-PL-1060. At issue was whether a trial court had properly granted summary judgment on the question of whether a warrant officer was an employee of the Anderson City Court. Despite the procedural posture of the case and factors that weighed in favor of finding an employer-employee relationship, the Court affirmed a decision granting summary judgment to the defendants.

In this case, McCann was a police officer, who eventually became warrant officer for the Anderson City Court in 1998. He held that post until 2005, when the judge asked that McCann be reassigned. As a result of this dismissal, McCann filed suit based on the Indiana Wage Statute, arguing that he had been an employee of the Court and was entitled to funds that had been allocated to the position of warrant officer by that court. The parties filed cross-motions for summary judgment and the trial court granted the defendants' motion.

On appeal, the Court quoted GKN Co. v. Magness, 744 N.E.2d 397, 402 (Ind. 2001), for the seven factors that a court should consider when determining whether an employer-employee relationship exists. The Court then analyzed each of these factors and determined that three weighed in favor of the existence an employer-employee relationship and four against, with the "most important" factor weighing against.

Thus, over all, four of the seven factors, including the most important, "Control over the Means Used," indicate McCann was not an employee of the City Court. Because the City Court was not McCann's employer, he cannot be due any "unpaid wages" from the City Court. Therefore, he cannot assert a claim against the City Court under the Indiana Wage Statute.

The aspect of this decision that is most surprising is that the Court reached this conclusion despite the procedural posture of the case. It could have easily held that, viewing the facts in the light most favorable to McCann, the seven factors weighed both for and against a finding of an employer-employee relationship between McCann and the City Court created a genuine issue of material fact. This indicates that the factor the Court identified as being "most important", whether the purported employer exercised control over the means used by the purported employee to perform work, is very important indeed.

Lesson:

1.It will be exceedingly difficult to prove the existence of an employer-employee relationship if the purported employer did not exercise control over the means that the purported employee used to perform his work.

Brad A. Catlin
Price Waicukauski & Riley, LLC

http://www.indianalawupdate.com/entry/When-is-a-Person-an-Employee-of-Another

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