Employee v. Independent Contractor

Anthony Thoms was hired by Jonathan Quick of Sun Vacations, Inc., to create a computer program for Sun Island to use in maintaining records of its cash receipts, inventory, sales, figures, and other data. No agreement was reached as to ownership rights in the program that Thoms developed, called CRISOD. Thoms did most of his programming at the Sun Vacations office. Although Quick gave Thoms frequent instructions as to what he wanted from the program, Thoms generally worked alone and enjoyed considerable autonomy in his work. He worked fairly regular hours, but he was not always paid by the hour occasionally, he submitted bills (invoices) to Sun Vacations for his work. Thoms never received any employee benefits, such as health insurance, and Sun Vacations never withheld federal and state taxes from Thoms paycheck; nor did it pay any Social Security taxes on Thoms' earn­ings. When Quick unilaterally cut Thoms hours in violation of an alleged oral agreement, Thoms left Sun Vacations and demanded compensation for Sun Vacations' use of CRISOD. Quick refused to pay Thoms for the programs use and also stated that he would not pay Thoms $14,560 in back wages unless Thoms signed a form releasing all rights in CRISOD. Thoms then sued Quick and Sun Vacations for copyright infringement, and the court had to decide who owned the copyright in the program.

Central to the determination of this issue was whether Thoms was an employee of Sun Vacations or an independent contractor.

Please do not discuss copyright law.