The Employee Handbook - A Human Resources Podcast by 2 Lawyers
"The Employee Handbook - An Human Resources Podcast", hosted by attorneys Arta Wildeboer and Ryan Ellis, offers expert insights into human resources issues and their legal implications, providing valuable guidance for navigating the complex intersection of HR practices and employment law. This informative series is essential for HR professionals and business managers seeking to understand and prevent legal challenges in the workplace.
The Employee Handbook - A Human Resources Podcast by 2 Lawyers
Sllippery When Wet: On the Unintended Perils of Artistic Pursuit
Welcome back to The Employee Handbook (formerly the HR Podcast—we changed it for the SEO, let’s see if it works). To kick off 2026, Arta and Ryan take a trip north of the border to analyze a case that involves contract law, trade shows, and copious amounts of baby oil.
We examine Newsham v. CanWest Trade Shows, where a male exotic dancer suffered a knee injury after slipping on stage. While the Canadian courts ruled one way, we break down why California’s "ABC Test" would view this "artistic pursuit" very differently.
Whether you are running a trade show, an accounting firm, or a trampoline park, this episode is a masterclass in why you cannot simply "waive" away negligence. We discuss the critical differences between invitees and trespassers, why the Workers' Compensation system is actually an employer's safety net, and why—in California—that independent contractor is probably legally your employee.
In this episode:
- The ABC Test: Why doing business in California means almost everyone is an employee (especially if they are central to your show).
- Premises Liability: From body paint to carpet types, who is responsible when the stage gets slippery?
- Waivers vs. Reality: Why you can’t contract out of ordinary negligence, no matter what the paper says.
- Civil Suit vs. Workers' Comp: Why staying out of civil court is worth the insurance premiums.
Disclaimer: The hosts of this podcast are licensed attorneys, but they are not your attorneys. This episode is for entertainment purposes only.
The hosts of this podcast are licensed attorneys, but we are not your attorneys. If you'd like to retain our services, please contact us to discuss your matter and execute a formal engagement agreement. Let's get right into it. Welcome back to the The Employee Handbook, a human resources podcast by two lawyers. I changed the name from HR podcast to human resources podcast for SEO purposes. Uh so let's see if it makes a difference, right?
Ryan Ellis:Yeah, 100%. And I like to celebrate 2026. We're talking about you guessed it, strippers.
Arta Wildeboer:Can you this is I can't hear anything. Well, we're Ryan is trying to play some sort of sound effects, but I can't hear them. And Matt will put them in later.
Ryan Ellis:But you couldn't hear it?
Arta Wildeboer:No, I couldn't hear a thing.
Ryan Ellis:How they're right to the microphone.
Arta Wildeboer:No, I don't know. I'll just pretend like we're jamming over here, but yeah, no.
Ryan Ellis:Insert cherry pie clip here. She's my jam. Sorry, I just thought it was it was necessary given the stereotypes of that song at strip clubs. Okay.
Arta Wildeboer:But before you say anything, I just want to say we are so excited to talk about strippers. Very excited. We love strippers. Why? Because strippers give you so many different hypotheticals in the employment law realm. And uh it's something that we are going to uh explore today. Strippers, we're gonna explore strippers. Yeah, I I I call them uh by profession of exotic dancers. But before they accuse us of being misogynists, our example comes today by way of Canada, and it's a male exotic dancer.
Ryan Ellis:Yes, agreed. And it wasn't even uh in such an exotic dance that you would expect from the way that we're talking about it right now. So um it's gonna be a good show today, I think. It's gonna be a lot of hypotheticals, like Artis said. You can literally go through any, almost any, if not all, sorts of legal issues with an exotic dancer and how they run those businesses, um, from contracts to business formation to bankruptcy to employment law to workers' comp to personal injury, all of it, all of it.
Arta Wildeboer:And yes, this this nice example that uh Google found me from 2012 is a case from Canada. It's newcham versus Canned West Trade Shows. Uh back in, I don't know, this is probably 15 years ago. This nice gentleman um was operating uh slice drippers. And uh he sued Canned West Trade Shows after he blew out his knee when he slipped on an oily substance um while performing at the naughty but nice sex show.
Ryan Ellis:Insert P. Diddy joke here.
Arta Wildeboer:They found so much baby oil at Diddy's place. Johnson Johnson sent him a thank you card and a W-2. Go on. Um so instead of paying booth rental fees, he had agreed to perform at the show because I guess he brought a booth and he was selling stuff. Uh so uh he signed an exhibitor contract that contained a release of liability and some indemnification clauses on the back page. Standard stuff. And all standard stuff exactly. And a little twist here uh for the facts uh to make it more interesting. He had significant pre-existing knee injury from 1998. Um and so that uh that goes into part of our analysis here for um whether or not the Canned West Trade Show owes him any money for him blowing out his knee on stage. So first thing uh we want to just get this out of the way. Uh as I said, he was an exhibitor there, and instead of paying exhibitor fees, uh Mr. Newsham agreed to dance at the show. So there was a waiver included, um, but the waiver applied to him only as an exhibitor, so we can get this out of the way. The waiver doesn't apply because here is on a performer, and I'm not really interested in this stuff anyway, because it's not the end, it's just contract stuff, which is just really cried. Unlike negotiation who was very oily.
Ryan Ellis:Can you imagine that negotiation though? It's like, okay, you got a booth fee,$25,000. He's like, how about instead of that? I'll put on a show. Well, how many minutes? Well, do you want a show or do you want a show? It's six minutes or seven minutes, your choice. It's like, ah, I'll go for the seven, see.
Arta Wildeboer:25 grand seems like a lot for a booth there, but uh Yeah, I mean they definitely got their money's worth because they'll never forget the show that he put on up there. Um we gotta find a video. We gotta find a video of this. Getting hired to come pro getting clashed with oil as Charlie Brown full send slip goes down.
Ryan Ellis:Like Joe Thisman. Like I've been to a lot of conventions, just like for clients or for whatever. Like I'm just imagining like an exhibitor hall with like the end of it's got like his performance stage, and like a bunch of people with badges gathering getting their like really crappy coffee and like walking over and seeing this show. You may look over like oil and dried paint. They like look down on their like business casual shirts and there's like splattering of oil. They're like, How am I gonna explain this to my wife?
Arta Wildeboer:Like that's a shame.
Ryan Ellis:They just they're just so disinterested, they're just gonna like, oh, is he okay? Oh, whatever. They walk around like, oh look, look, uh look at that, they're giving away free zip drives over there on those phone cases.
Arta Wildeboer:Get a zip drive after you see Mr. Newsham unzip. Okay, sorry, laughter out of the world. We digress. Um okay, so uh a few things about the case. Um Mr. Newsham claimed that it was body paint that caused him to slip uh from other performances that were completed earlier in the night. Uh the body painting demonstration occurred at 6 20 p.m. and Mr. Newsom was on at 10 40 four hours later. This is this thing goes long, no pun intended. Um and I guess there were other performances that happen in between, and there was no reported incidents. Um, Newsom also admitted walking over the same area at least once early in his performance, and he didn't slip. Um, he admitted to putting baby oil all over his body as one does uh before performing.
Ryan Ellis:And that that request for admission. Please admit you apply copious amounts of baby oil to your body before your performance.
Arta Wildeboer:Court found uh that it was equally plausible that any slippery residue came from his own baby oil as it uh would from body paint. That was just must have been quite a deliberation in chambers. Uh stage was carpeted. Uh, which is yeah, that's weird. Not very slippery. Yeah, that's very weird. And the stage manager watched all the performances and didn't see Noosham slip. Uh, when he spoke to the show manager afterwards, he mentioned hurting himself, but said nothing about slipping on his substance. So that dramatically changes things. I thought this was gonna be some hilarious slapstick, yeah, you know, like do three flips in the air before falling down, you know, like the uh wily coyote or something like that. But this is really boring. This seems like he just like, you know, buckled his knee, or oh, it says it's knee locked up. That's what he told the doctors. This is so boring compared to what we had pictured, but um the rest of the podcast is good, I promise. Uh basically the court said you were dancing around on carpet with a bad knee, you didn't even slip, nobody saw you fall. Uh, and um, we're not uh gonna award you any money. Um so the interesting question for us is how would this shake out in California? Because in California, this would end up very differently. Uh Mr. Newcham's relationship here with uh uh what is it called? Cal Cannes trade shows is gonna have to be looked at in a very different light uh due to California laws being very different from Canadian laws. Um so uh Ryan, why don't we jump into a little bit of analysis? Uh, what's the first thing, if this happened in California, that we would look at um between the relationship of Mr. Newsom and uh and Can West here?
Ryan Ellis:Yeah, so in California, just as an overarching theme, you know my answer, which is that that whoever is being sued by the employee, the person claiming to be an employee or hurt is going to lose. The employer will lose. 99% of the time they lose. And that's that's that's shown here by by multiple cases that we'll talk about later. But um, after 2018, the case of dynamics operations west versus superior court established what we call in California the employee killer employer killer, which is the ABC test. The ABC test um really makes simple, hence ABC, the test to determine whether or not an employee or a person um is classified properly as an employee or an independent contractor.
Arta Wildeboer:And let me just stop you. Why is that important for employers? Why would you care uh if you're classifying someone as an employee or an independent contractor if you're an employer?
Ryan Ellis:Well, all the things. Um, as the what is it, the rhinoceros said in in Toy Story, uh, all the things, all the questions. Because in California, if you're an employer, you have an employee, you have significant rights um, versus if you're an independent contractor, you do not have those significant rights and protections. And so before the ABC test was a test called the Borello test, which had multiple factors and you didn't have to take all factors into account. It was really a court's weighing process as to the factors to determine whether or not an employee was an independent contractor. But uh labor code 2775 here in California uh codified the ABC test, where in California a worker is presumed to be an employee, so already stabbing the employers, um, unless the hiring entity proves these three prongs of the ABC test. Um, A, that the employee or the person is free from control and direction in performing the work. B direction, direction, right? Yeah, free from direction because we're free from control and direction in performing the work. I know it was I was trying to make a mail sister club direction.
Arta Wildeboer:Oh, uh shit. This is this is a bad episode.
Ryan Ellis:No, no, no, this is actually a very important episode. Um free from control what it's meaty. Okay, go on. It was a girthy episode here. Okay. Free from control and direction in performing the work. Is performs the work outside the usual course of the hiring entity's business, which we will get into a lot in a minute. And C that the person or the person being hired can customarily engage in an independently established trade, occupation, or business of the same nature. So in California, uh, most of the time, and I say most, meaning uh essentially all, the ABC test will cause the employee, the employer classification of independent contractor to fail. And again, the presumption is the person or uh, I guess the hiring entity is an employee. So I there's a lot to talk about on the ABC test. Um, I don't know how far you want me to make some more more stripper jokes.
Arta Wildeboer:No, I think we're we've reached our quota for uh now. I think let let's talk about the prongs, prong A. Um, whether or not uh Mr. Newsham was free from control and direction performing the work uh while he was on stage at the trade show.
Ryan Ellis:Um so so I'm gonna jump in on this one because although it's not as as meaty as you say to talk about as prong B, the the problem we have with or the the A prong essentially says, well, the person you're hiring can do whatever they want in performing the work. So, like for example, and this is a bad example, but it's an example. You hire this stripper or this exotic dancer to dance, right? You're a trade show. I'm with you. What?
Arta Wildeboer:I'm with you, still with you.
Ryan Ellis:Yeah, so you have this trade show, which means you have a scheduled order of events. So prong A, you're gonna hire this guy, again, assuming it's in California, as an independent contractor, you have to essentially say, Look, we're hiring you as an independent contractor to exotically dance, and that's it. You you don't get to tell them when. But here, because that's what the rule says, here, um, Can West told him, Hey, you're going on at 10 40 p.m. at the main stage, and you have X amount of time to do it. So, period. That they told him to do it, and then they're gonna say, Well, the the counter-argument there is that, well, we had to do that, that as an employer or the trade show, we had to do that because otherwise, you know, we just have a bunch of random exotic dances running up on stage when it was convenient for them, and we needed that to comply with our performance schedule.
Arta Wildeboer:That would be chaos.
Ryan Ellis:Oh my god, can you imagine people fighting over the lube and trying to get on the stage and body paint flying and baby oil flying and I mean people clapping? I don't know. It's like a WWE main event.
Arta Wildeboer:I think the problem is is securing the rights to the theme to the Benny Hill show. Um I think that would take mostly the budget. So uh Prong A failed uh in in that sense. So Can West basically told him uh get your groove thing up there at a certain time, shake it for a certain amount of time, and uh basically this was required for him to be able to have an exhibition booth there at the Can West um the uh what is it, uh conventional a trade show.
Ryan Ellis:But but that's the thing, is like this is another example, and I know that I've been told to kind of dial down that I hate California speeches, but like how do you hire somebody to do something without providing any diction of guideline of how they perform the work? Like that doesn't work, especially in California with how lazy people are. Like a lot of just normal employees are lazy. So you go out here and you're like, look, I need you to do something for me. Here's some here's the money. I'm gonna hand you like reluctantly over this money, so do it. But I got to like shut my mouth the rest of it. It's like I told you to do X now, do it, and then just quiet and just hope that it comes. That's insane.
Arta Wildeboer:But also, I mean, it it seems like this is not a long-term agreement. It doesn't seem like either party here is contemplating a relationship um that's gonna last beyond this, you know, dance that that lasts what five minutes. Uh so it also seems unfair to put this employer relationship uh on on the uh on the trade show company here when you know each party is only contemplating being together for a very short amount of time. Just yeah, we have this one thing that we're doing and that's it.
Ryan Ellis:Yeah. Which is which again is is insane because imagine being just playing this out just from prong A. If you fail prong A, meaning that means you don't have to worry about B and C. The person is an employee and therefore is entitled to all the protections of employees in California. If you don't pay that person up front, then that person then is entitled to of an hourly rate based on the amount of money that that booth might be worth. Let's say it's a thousand dollars. So then as$8,000 for that day, let's assume that's the hourly rate the establishes. And then if you don't pay that person within 30 days, you're up to a 30, what, eight,$240,000 penalty for not paying under the labor code.
Arta Wildeboer:Yeah, they have the new labor penalty, which triples, what is it, triples the the damages?
Ryan Ellis:Well, not even tripled. I'm just talking about the waiting time penalties of the the daily rate for 30-day cap. So, like if again, I've seen it where we're independent. We I've had cases specifically I can name them, I'm not going to, where I have tried these cases. The person who was suing was was a model for a photo shoot. It was a flat rate for the day. But that person sued, and the jury found that there wasn't an employee. And the employee they took the hour the daily rate and made it into an hourly rate, which then caused my client to be penalized 30 days of that rate because the the model wasn't paid, which is insane for a couple hour photo shoot.
Arta Wildeboer:Exactly, because they didn't contemplate that that model would be working every day like that. This was not a continued relationship that was contemplated. That's why this this is a bit onerous, I think. Uh, just being generous there. Um, so for prong B, let's sorry, can I make one last point?
Ryan Ellis:No, I want to address the haters out there that will say, well, then just pay like you can do that, and that would avoid that the penalty potentially from accruing. But remember, all the risk that an employer is taking by paying somebody who is not necessarily a professional and may be flaky and may not want to be there for whatever and just has all this money, they don't want to show up. So that's that's a big risk for a business to take.
Arta Wildeboer:Sorry, go ahead that's all right. All right, so uh prong B uh performs work outside the usual course of the hiring entity's business. So here we have a uh employer Can West, or well, I shouldn't say employer yet, because we're pretending like we don't know yet. So we have an entity Can West that is a business that is producing trade shows. Um and trade shows entertainment is the you know what they provide. They have a main stage schedule with acts throughout the day. Um performers are are basically what they are promising to people coming there uh to the trade show. You know, for they have a main stage with a schedule. People are expecting performers. Uh Mr. Newsham is a exotic dancer. Uh I think Brian, it it's safe to say he fits uh the description of someone who uh performs work inside the usual course of the hiring entities business.
Ryan Ellis:Yep. Sorry, I'm looking up the trade show that they performed at, which is called the Naughty But Nice Sex Show.
Arta Wildeboer:Yeah.
Ryan Ellis:So there's an argument there clearly that he was performing in the same industry of what this employer was, which was putting on shows, right? And that's what he did. Yeah. So I think again in California with Prong B, the question isn't whether this person, this plaintiff, newsham is essential, but whether the type of work is what the business does. And that's that's it. And that's the killer, and that's the end-all be-all for what I said earlier, the foreshadowing of you will lose as an employer if you hire somebody to do the type of work that you do.
Arta Wildeboer:So which is again I wanna say let's come up or let's give an example of um how this would look in the contra uh of this, which would be let's say you are an accountant and you hire a cleaner to come once a week. Uh do you have a uh employer relationship, employer-employee relationship? Um, because this person is coming every week to your office. Uh, say you agreed with them that it makes sense for them to come at 10 o'clock on Wednesday morning every week to clean your office. Um what what does this does this pass B?
Ryan Ellis:Uh I think the the accountant hiring a cleaner would pass B. Um, I think that you have arguments on A and what we're going to, I guess, get into C, depending on the person you're hiring and the kind of work they do and the formation of entity, but which again we'll talk about. But I think it would pass B because as long as the in this example, the accountant um hires this person to do the work that is not part of what the accountant does. So again, the accountant, presumably in this hypothetical, is doing accounting work, bookkeeping work, tax filing, stuff like that. The cleaner they're hiring as presumably not doing the same type of work, um, and it's not part of what the business does, then that would pass B. Now, I think though, that a very shrewd plaintiff's attorney might argue well, trash is incidental to the business, and therefore accountants are in in the picking up the trash and cleaning.
Arta Wildeboer:Yes, I mean that that's a thing. It's more to point out how granular and absurd it can get. Because, like, for A, free from control and direction in performing the work. Like, are you allowed to tell them, like, uh, well, I don't want you to use a vacuum because it's too loud. You know, well, is that controlling their work? I think I don't I don't understand.
Ryan Ellis:Well, no, and I think you're you hit a you've hit a goldmine of information here, which I think you're right, is that you're not part A requires you requires the control at the employer. What I'm gonna say employer employee because they're presumably employees. Part A requires the employer to I'm sorry, the employee to be free from control and direction in how they perform the work. So technically, again, granularly, the employee could come in and vacuum, and I'm using air quotes, with a leaf blower. And you couldn't tell them to stop you couldn't tell them to stop because they have to be free from control and direction performing the work. Like, yeah, you could sue them later for like damaging your office or like for breach of contract for not performing the services right, or like not, you know, you didn't clean my office, you made it dirtier. I want my money back. You could do presumably do that, but you can't necessarily control them.
Arta Wildeboer:So I I think like this this is more for a situation it it's easier to to contemplate. I think like if you have a cleaner that comes in at night while you're not there and cleans up, you know, at like two in the morning, then you're not controlling them. You don't tell them when they get in there. They have a key, they can come at two, they can come at three. That's what California is really trying to uh impress upon employers as that's a true independent contractor relationship. And and that goes with Prong C as well, that um the person performing the work is customarily engaged in an independently established trade occupation or business of the same nature. So uh if uh you say, Well, I'm an accountant, I'm just hiring this person to come once a week to clean my office, and she gave me a business card that says Anne's cleaning services, and uh Ann has 30 other customers because she was uh actually referred to me by my neighboring office. So that that's something where you're like, okay, this is an independent contractor, that they have their own business where they hold themselves out to the public in doing uh the service that your business is not customarily engaged in.
Ryan Ellis:Yeah, and sorry, sorry, there's a leaf blower outside, so I'm trying to minimize my noise on my side. But yeah, agreed. So it's just that's why I came up with that example. So, but so to twist what you're saying, I agree with you. But the, you know, the neighbor, the next door suite mate in your office refers you to a cleaning company that does it. Imagine a situation where you have 50 employees, right? You have a pretty big suite, and one of the, you know, you pay them good wages, but one of your employees um also has a cleaning business on the side that they have two jobs. You know, they they work as an accountant during the day or a bookkeeper or whatever, uh, admin assistant, whatever position. And then at night, they, you know, they clean offices. Um, if you hired that person to do your work, would that be the same? Would you see that as a as a meeting prong C of the test? Or would that be something that you might be worried about?
Arta Wildeboer:I would be very worried about it, uh, especially in California, because uh I I would feel that everything is going to be construed against me as an employer uh almost automatically. Uh and plus uh all the expectations that California has for investigations and and the burdens that are put on uh employers for what they need to do, I feel like even if you had a chance of escaping some sort of liability, uh the way that you've conducted the investigation or didn't conduct an investigation subsequently uh is gonna get you in trouble somehow too.
Ryan Ellis:Yeah, agreed. And just to kind of bring this back to the uh to the case that we what we talked about, Minoosham had his own business. Did you already talk about that? He had his own business? Yes. Uh yeah, okay. So sorry, and I also just Googled when the Canwest uh trade show is gonna have a naughty but night show next, and guess where it's gonna be in 2025? Tell me. San Diego. Whoa. January 28th to 30, it's San Diego. Uh either naughty or naughty, K-N-O-T-T or Y or Nice appears to be a specific themed art and music event at a venue called Trade in Denver. That doesn't make any sense. Well, Google's Google seems to be confusing, but San Diego 2025. Let's go see some some new shims break some knees.
Arta Wildeboer:I'm getting my thumb ready to hay track over to you.
Ryan Ellis:But um so so I guess just overall kind of wrapping the the the prong C up is that prong C can be easily met. I think prong C is the easiest one to meet. So like you hire you hire somebody to do something. Meet for who? What do you mean? Sorry, the the the easiest one to to pass for an employer or hiring entity is C. Because technically and facially, if you go out and you you Google cleaning service in our accounting example, you Google clean, you're an account, you need your office clean, you Google cleaning services in my area, enter. And the first things that come up are like, I don't know, cleaning service A, cleaning service B. You call the places, they have a business, they they clean for other people, they have insurance, they have a bond, you know, they have references, you know, whatever you call it references or not, but like you hire this third party that you have no connection to to perform cleaning at your office, pretty much you're gonna pass the test, right? I think we can agree on that, that that's the easiest one. Now, just because that's easy doesn't mean you're gonna pass the ABC test, clearly from what we said before, but I I think the C of like, look, you're hiring somebody or an entity that's customarily engaged in an independently established trade, again, cleaning uh of the same nature, cleaning to do the cleaning work. Um, yes, that that's easy to pass.
Arta Wildeboer:Okay, so we've decided pretty much since it's California, we I mean, we already knew this was like um the most obvious thing ever. This is like the the hero, you know, is gonna win at the end or uh the black character is gonna die first in the horror movie. This is just like it's inevitable that he's gonna be an employee in California. But why? Why? One of the reasons uh is that it saves California a ton of money if uh people are employees rather than independent contractors, because at that point um workers' compensation kicks in. Uh workers' compensation insurance is very important um for keeping costs down for uh at the state uh and for employers and for people themselves and for insurance costs, medical costs, um, because workers' compensation is basically a pre-negotiated, predetermined system where employees are paid uh much more quickly for injuries sustained at work um than uh they would if they would have to go through regular litigation and and prove negligence of their employer and things like that. So this is kind of workers' compensation was uh developed as a um almost like a bone to throw to employees so uh you know they they could get money much faster and get on with their life. Um so now that we know he's an employer, uh, we have to decide uh if you are Mr. Newsom in California, are you gonna sue uh in civil court or are you gonna have to make a worker's compensation claim for your knee injury here? And of course, being Mr. Newsham, you want to you want a personal injury case because there's a lot more money in personal injury because you can get pain and suffering, which you can't get in workers' compensation. Um and uh and so let's go over a little bit first about uh which uh path you would have to take, workers' conversation or PI. So uh let's talk a little bit about that. Ryan, what do you think? Is he gonna have to go through the work comp system or or can he sue?
Ryan Ellis:Well, in California, I think if you're using employee, then he's going workers' comp. Um we talked about or we didn't talk about, but there's something in employment relationships provide you with um with certain things you can and certain things you can't do. Here, uh workers' comp um is an exclusive remedy for injuries against your employer. So what that means is that if you're an employer, excuse me, employee, like we've said in California, Mr. Newsham would be, he has to go uh and proceed for damages if for his injuries against the company through workers' compensation, which would mean he has no personal injury lawsuit against Can West. You don't have to do any analysis of who's at fault for the injuries because it's a no-fault system. Um, you don't get damages for things like pain and suffering and like punitive damages in workers' comp. But regardless of how that turns out, you're you know, you he will be compensated or provided benefits for um for what he suffered through work for his damages for his his need here. So um this, unfortunately, for Mr. Newsham is protection for the employer, where you know, the employer has to have workers' comp compensation insurance, and then this injury goes through the work comp system, and that the um what is it called? The can Ken West gives up their like the defenses to, well, hey, this wasn't my fault because he did, you know, he danced on a on a slippery pole or he slipped on body paint and or he assumed the risk in exchange. Like all those kind of claims and defenses are waived from the employer side in exchange for this, you know, insurance-covered, uh, capped and predictable liability phase of workers' comp.
Arta Wildeboer:Yeah, and just to give people a little bit of perspective, uh, it would take a long time to be able to attribute the percentage of negligence to the employer versus, say, like the uh venue that put the floor down versus like the oil company, maybe they made it too slippery. There'd be all these different parties that you could point to for liability here and uh percentage of liability, and this deals uh that all away. Um now instead of having to hire all these experts to prove this and prove that, uh, it's just shown like, hey, you had a job at the time, you were injured on the job, it's gonna be covered. It doesn't matter that you had prior injuries and stuff like that, we're gonna overlook it. So, in a way, it does benefit uh the worker as well. Uh, you get all the treatment you need, probably get a surgery. Um, you know, you get temporary disability, which is two-thirds of your weekly wages. It's capped, of course, at about$1,600 a week, but I mean, it's it's not the worst thing. Uh, you get paid while temporarily unable to work. Um, and uh you also could get permanent disability and supplemental job displacement benefits. So you do get some benefits of going through the work comp system uh because if you were on your own, um you would have to go through your own health insurance if you had it and uh bear all the costs for the medical problems and then go sue afterwards, which like I said, could take years.
Ryan Ellis:And well, in speaking of kind of being provided benefits, like it's not just is it I I'm not telling you it's not like is it one of those systems where like it doesn't matter, like he got hurt, so he gets all these things, or does the pre-existing injury that he had with his knee come into come into play at all in the work comp system?
Arta Wildeboer:It does come into play in the sense that um if you're in the work comp system and you have a permanent disability, you could get money to compensate you for that um percentage of disability that say would uh make you less uh able to perform at a next job. Um but uh in in this case, uh being able to get medical treatment paid for would not uh be affected by the previous injury. Like uh if this was like a regular negligence case from a car accident, they could say, well, uh your knee was already busted up, so you didn't lose uh uh all this uh functionality of your knee from this accident, it already happened before, so we don't want to pay for uh all of it or certainly that. There would be a point for them to be able to uh try to negotiate you down, whereas here they just have to take the pre-existing uh injury as as uh part of the deal and perform the surgery.
Ryan Ellis:So if I heard it correctly, it's essentially that there's an apportionment analysis that goes that is then undergone in the work comp process where if some portion of the problems existed before the that he injured is is knee on stage at the the trade show, then then CanWest would only have to pay in that situation whatever um portion was not there before. So, like if 50% of the problems existed before the work injury, then then CanWest would have to pay the 50% of permanent disability if if that was established.
Arta Wildeboer:Yes. And this all would have to be through experts and tons of different doctors, and he would have his own doctor, the company would have their doctor in a lawsuit, and it would take just absolutely years to get anything uh done where uh this is also probably gonna take a long time, but there is not gonna be all the fighting over uh the causation aspect of it, um, which is usually what all the uh fighting is about in in civil litigation.
Ryan Ellis:Yeah, literally the entire thing. Um and do you want to go through the process of how the the work on process is investigated, or do you just want to skip over that?
Arta Wildeboer:Yeah, I I think let's just we could do a quick thing of again. I think we did an episode on this before. What happens if one of your employees is hurt at work? Um, yeah, let's just go through a run. You want to want to, what do you do? Uh let's say uh on the day of the injury, they come to you and tell you they're injured, what do you do?
Ryan Ellis:Well, I think first you do is you have them uh administered first aid or send them to a hospital if it's an emergency. Um, a supervisor would have to prepare some sort of incident report and that we can hearken back to our um if it was a dangerous condition that caused it, like a fight or something, we'd have to harken back to our episode on on the the uh the dangerous conditions logs and the the IWPP processes. Uh and then you provide the employee with um a DWC one form in California um within one working day to make sure they're aware of their rights and and what they can do or what they need to be doing.
Arta Wildeboer:So that's a work comp claim form. And and now in California you also have to inform your employees that they have the right to seek out um legal representation in their work comp injury case.
Ryan Ellis:Which is crazy too, because I mean I I have limited knowledge of work comp stuff, but I do know that one of the biggest things in work comp is when you when an employee is hurt, they assume the employer is gonna help them. So they send them the employer sends that person to their doctor or their insurance doctor. More specifically, their work comp insurance doctor, which I'm I'm sure you can name a few of them, a few of the companies that do that. But the number one goal for an attorney that represents the employee, the injured employee, is to get that employee out of the the company or the employer's doctor to their own doctor. Is that right?
Arta Wildeboer:Yeah, basically, I don't know if that's the number one goal. I mean, you know, your goal is not necessarily to advocate for them or prove where the injury was that is the injury is the fault of the employer, but your job is to make sure that um the employee gets uh a doctor um that is going to be favorable to to plaintiffs or at least not unfavorable to plaintiffs and not just a defense shill doctor, which those don't really exist necessarily. Yeah, doctors if you're listening to this. Um and uh and and just basically make sure that the insurance company is not taking advantage of them. Um so it's a little bit of a limited role. Uh in a PI case, you're finding doctors um uh and helping the client navigate the medical process where uh this is uh just making sure that the insurance doesn't screw over uh the client.
Ryan Ellis:Well, I think and I think that's where I was going too with like again, my limited knowledge, don't quote me on these things, but like the employer doctor, which is usually covered, which is covered by insurance, but obviously insurance companies don't want to pay, that's why they're so large. It's like casinos, they're they're very large because they don't pay jackpots a lot. But like they're gonna send you to a doctor who they trust will really scrutinize the injuries and not provide palliative treatment unless it's something that's absolutely necessary.
Arta Wildeboer:Yeah, exactly. Their their job is uh to keep the the cost down. You know, if you're a doctor working for Concentra, you just want to get the person in and out and back to work as soon as possible. Yep. Because um, as much as you want to bill as well as Concentra and get money to do uh different surgeries and all this stuff and make a bunch of money, um, you also want to make sure that you're not uh making your uh customers angry by approving too much treatment and uh keeping their employees out of work.
Ryan Ellis:Yeah, exactly. And and you you named it up there, and that's exactly what I was going for, is that I've tried to go to urgent care once like, oh, do you have a work injury? I'm like, no, I just I'm having a problem with my head, I'm bleeding out of my head. It's like, sorry, we don't treat those kinds of injuries here. Yeah, exactly.
Arta Wildeboer:And that's uh whenever you go to the R or urgent care with an injury, they're gonna ask you if it happened at work because um that insurance is gonna kick in and precede any other type of insurance or payment for that injury. So that's why it's so important. Uh, and and we've talked about it before a lot of employers, especially for like construction jobs or or labor jobs, they try to convince their employees not to make work complaints. Do not do that. That's very illegal. Uh, do not get yourself into dumb trouble for doing that. Uh, if you're an employer, you have to accept the fact that you are um putting people in a situation where they might be hurt by virtue of employing them. And that's one of the risks that you have to take as an employer. If you want to be an employer, those are things that you have to deal with. People working for you are gonna get injured. And yes, you're ultimately responsible for that. And you deal with that by getting insurance. Like this is not something that you need to be lashing out against, as you know, oh my God, I can't believe they're ricking us up. No, this is otherwise, you can't have a society. If people are not uh going to be treated well when they go to work and feel like their employer is gonna be able to get away with just breaking their body and leaving them be, then nobody's gonna do any work.
Ryan Ellis:Well, and that's I think that you hit that on right, is that civilized society requires like certain protections from employers to employees. And I think, and I don't know if the word illegal is is correct, but I think it's illegal or unlawful for a business to not have um workers' comp coverage with certain limits of liability, um, which with can with which comes significant penalties and possibly jail time for employers in certain circumstances for their non-compliance.
Arta Wildeboer:I think yeah, yeah, you probably have to do something like I don't know, super child.
Ryan Ellis:Well, again, as lawyers, it's funny. My mom was a nurse. Growing up, my mom was a nurse. So like one day I'd be like playing football outside with my with my friends or whatever, um, or skateboarding or something, and my mom would come home and be like, You can never skateboard again. And I'm like, What? What are you talking about? She's like, Well, I had this patient come in who who like broke his arm and like had a brain hemorrhage because he fell off a skateboard. Like the next day it's like, you can't play football anymore. It's like, why? Well, I had a patient come in today who you know died from a football accident or something. And so like I that example is kind of like lawyers where like we see the weirdest of things come to our desks because you know, usually as lawyers, especially litigation, most of the stuff doesn't come to us, like a run-of-the-mill crap, right? Like, oh, like we have an employee who hits somebody. Like, that's usually handled by insurance. The employers usually handle that correctly, but like we see the weirdest of things, and that's why these case the cases that come out, like dynamics, where it's like we never analyzed like the Borello test needs to be simpler. We never analyzed like the stripper case, the apportionment of fall between one to another. Like those things come to us because they're not run of the mill. So we see these weird examples of like, well, hey, this client is a sole proprietor of a gas station, had no insurance coverage, and 10 10 employees later that all got killed on the on the at the job, like now it's the 11th, and he's facing jail time for not having insurance. Like we would see those kind of cases.
Arta Wildeboer:That's true. Yeah, you we're only gonna see um the the special edge cases, and also the the people we're gonna deal with are also nuts uh because the the people get themselves into these situations um are usually um difficult to deal with, I should say.
Ryan Ellis:And then and this to wrap up kind of the investigation process of work comp is that so we talked about what happens the day of the injury within 14 days after the employer must report uh uh the injury or the uh the yeah, the injury to the claims administrator. That claims administrator has 90 days to accept or deny it. And then at that point, the there's a an Authorization that begins with medical treatment for the employee if there's continuing treatment needed. And then every case goes through the kind of a normal process of was it were there witnesses, you know, what happens? Uh was there surveillance systems that caught it on video? Um, what did the the employee actually report at the time? Was it just like a general, oh, I hurt myself, or was it, oh, I slipped in my left meniscus was torn three degrees? Uh, was there a prior claim history or injury from the employee who reported it? And then questions and analysis of whether the injury arised out of or occurred in the course of that employee's employment.
Arta Wildeboer:So let's talk a little bit about Mr. Newsham's uh activities and if they were arising out of the course of employment and uh during the course of employment. So was the injury caused by a risk of the employment? So he blew out his knee while dancing. Is blowing out your knee an inherent risk while dancing? Yes, I would say so.
Ryan Ellis:If you're unless you're dancing on your hands, I mean Oh, that's a good point. I mean, right? Like if if you're but that's the thing though, it it depends on the situation. I make a crazy example. Um, like Cirque du Soleil people, like maybe you know, breaking your neck while doing uh is not really inherent to a ballet performance, but breaking your neck is absolutely inherent to like a Cirque du Soleil show or like a a trapeze artist show, right?
Arta Wildeboer:Yeah, yeah. And then so when he blew out his knee, was he performing work duties at the time? Yes, he was dancing on stage as he was contracted to with uh that uh trade show company, and um he was on stage that they put on on the time slot that they gave him uh under lights, presumably, that they turned on with uh carpet that they laid down. Exactly. Um so even with the causation problems that uh made this difficult for uh for a tort case uh originally in Canada, he'd have a worker's compensation uh claim in California for sure. Uh it doesn't matter in California what he slipped on, if it was his own baby oil for it was some paint from another performer or some inherent defect uh within the carpeting on the stage, uh it's covered.
Ryan Ellis:The Berber was too thick. Yeah. Sorry. I have a really extreme knowledge of carpets. Or North Africans. I'm not really sure. Is that Berber? Is that is that the same term? Oh, I didn't know that. Right, learn something new every day.
Arta Wildeboer:So if he was an independent contractor, would he be able to sue? So, of course, we know this is kind of a a legal fiction that we have to indulge ourselves in for a moment, a temporary suspension of legal disbelief. Um, to say that Mr. Newsom was a legitimately a contractor. Um, but let's say he was. Um, would he be able to sue for negligence? Um, and if he was able to sue for negligence, what would he have to prove?
Ryan Ellis:Yeah, so the answer is yes. Um I guess the listener should have figured that out because when we spoke about employees, their sole remedy is workers' comp. So the answer is yes, independent contractor. Um and the negligence is is a four-pronged test. Uh there must be a duty from the uh the party that you're suing towards the person who is suing, so defendant to plaintiff. There must be a breach of that duty. Uh, there must be causation, and there must be injury. Um that's very a very blanket term. So, like a the duty, like let's talk about a car accident. A duty uh of someone who hits you in their car, they have a duty to drive safe, right? Um, the cause uh the breach of that duty is that person was not driving safe. They're speeding the see the speed limit, they're driving on the wrong side of the road, they they blew a stop sign, blew a red light, whatever. Um, the causation is your injuries were caused by that person's breach of the duty. So the person ran a red light and hit you. Um, that's the causation. The injury obviously is the injury you suffered as a result of the breach of the duty.
Arta Wildeboer:So here's the question I have. This is a little bit different though, because like in your example, let's say somebody hits you in a car, you don't have a contract with them, uh, presumably, um, for them not to hit you with their car. Uh there's no piece of paper that says this stranger is uh agreeing not to hit you, and so that's where the breach arises from. No, that's not it. Um in uh in this case, um, there is a contract between Mr. Nuchon, the dancer, and the trade show company Can West, that he's gonna go up there and um for his exhibitor uh rights in in exchange. But uh in California, uh, would it apply? Um and uh well, would the waiver apply to this injury? And uh there's a general rule that you can't contract out of ordinary negligence. That's not something you do. You can't have a contract or a waiver that says you uh waive any rights uh to sue me for damages uh if I've been negligent in any way. You can't do that as a business.
Ryan Ellis:Yeah, that this is why I don't read the waivers when I go take my kids to like the trampoline parks. They don't know. Yeah, because if if my kid does something stupid and breaks their neck, that's one thing. But if they break, they they fall through a trampoline because it wasn't maintained properly, they they jump somewhere and it wasn't protected properly, that was general negligence. You can't waive that.
Arta Wildeboer:Yeah, you can't have a a shitty run, shittily run business and then have somebody sign a piece of paper and when they hurt themselves because of your shittily run business, say, Well, you signed this piece of paper, so I can't get that's not how it works.
Ryan Ellis:Yeah, I remember but when I was in law school, we learned this, and I remember signing waivers that I provided to people for the clubs that we were running, the the sports clubs we ran. And I remember telling people, you gotta sign a waiver. And then I learned the rule, and then I realized after, as I signed every waiver for two or three years after that, I just signed and said audibly, can't wave negligence. I just signed in anyway, because it didn't matter. Didn't matter.
Arta Wildeboer:Yeah, you cannot waive ordinary negligence. Sign whatever you want uh and uh happily sue them afterwards if they tell you you can't tell them to screw off and uh to listen to our podcast.
Ryan Ellis:Yep, that's that's a big one to get new listeners too. And also um that this is a good time for our disclaimer, which we need to automate. Well, you press a button and it says it like with cool, like a cool you know the guy that does like the the super cross or like the the uh like like monster supercross. We are not your lawyers, this is not legal advice, and it's for entertainment purposes only. Our own entertainment because I don't yeah, hey, the listener, that's why I keep saying listener singularly.
Arta Wildeboer:I'm missing Dallas.
Ryan Ellis:Yeah, this I mom. But yeah, so again, this is our waiver, our our typical disclosure here that we are not your we are attorneys, we are not your attorney. Um, do not take anything we say on the show as legal advice. It is simply for entertainment purposes only. We'd love to be your lawyer or lawyers, but we do not have a relationship with you yet. So you have to call us and sign an agreement and agree to all of our terms and pay us, all that crap. But point being is that uh don't take this any of this seriously. We are just doing this for entertainment purposes, and we are not your lawyers, and this is not legal advice. Okay, so going back. Um, so I think here the issue not is not the car accident, like I said, a duty to drive safe. The the issue here, because it was more of like a slip and fall case or a slip and twist case or a pull twist case, that it comes down to premises liability. And then there's an analysis depending on um what the law would classify Mr. Newcham as. Um, if he's an invitee, there's a certain duty. If he's a licensee, then there's a different duty, and if he's a trespasser, there's no duty. So um which one do you think would apply here, Ardo? Was he an invitee, a licensee, or a trespasser?
Arta Wildeboer:I think in California there's no distinction anymore between licensee and invitee, isn't that right? I uh yeah, that's something I remember from Torque. Sounds right. Um not a trespasser. Obviously, he's not a trespasser. He's been invited to be there. Um that's a term of arc. Uh and um and they put him on stage uh to wiggle around for a little bit. So uh obviously they knew he was gonna be there. They probably put him on some poster that said uh he's gonna be wiggling around at 1040. And uh I I feel like um at least that part uh would be satisfied. Um uh and I I think what are their duties is the important thing uh between each performer. You probably have to have like a stage hand go and check uh the stage surface uh to make sure it's safe or uh inspect it before um people go on, especially if you see them using the liquid and stuff like that. It's gonna be obvious uh you're gonna be on notice that that there's gonna be substances that could cause people to slip and and possibly injure themselves.
Ryan Ellis:Yeah, and I and that's exactly right. You have the highest duty you owe to your invitees, you know, you have duty to inspect, you have a duty to make them safe, your duty to warn, all that crap, high duty. And then trespasser, it would be hilarious if like uh a potential attendee to the show. I'm just trying to give an example for our listener here, is that the attendee to the show didn't have a badge and didn't want to pay the presumably not high fee to get in uh for a tag and just ran past the the hired security guards who said, I ain't chasing that guy, it's not I'm not pay for that, and ran onto the stage and did their own little number and hurt themselves. If that happened, uh there's generally no duty because of one, you can't really prevent from unknown things, right? And two is that you you don't you can't warn the person that's running in as fast as they can to get onto the stage before um before they do so.
Arta Wildeboer:So we've got so in your example was this person uh sneaking in. So they snuck in, let's say they they they were walking by the exhibition hall, they see that it's um, you know, what what was this like naughty, nice night?
Ryan Ellis:Naughty but nice sex show.
Arta Wildeboer:Okay, so they're naughty, but and they say to myself, listen, just my chance, I'm gonna finally get up on stage and I'm gonna break in, right? So that was okay. So what happens? That's clearly a trespass because they didn't pay for a ticket, they weren't allowed in in any capacity, uh, they're not performing there, they're not selling anything, they're not cleaning up, they don't work there, whatever. So what if it was somebody who was already like lawfully allowed to be there? Are they then a trespasser? Like let's say you're an attendee and then you decide to run up on stage. Does the act of running up on stage turn you into a trespasser?
Ryan Ellis:Uh, I believe so. I mean, that's a great question. I mean, you have a certain situation where you can protect against your invitees. Like, for example, if you if there's a big hole in the middle of the convention floor, you have a duty to make it safe and to warn them if you can't and all that stuff. But if that invitee is not expected to go in like the back rooms where like you have, you know, dangerous sex toys hanging all over the place that could fall and hurt you, um, I I don't know. That's a great legal question. And I don't know the answer, but I think my answer would be that no, at a certain point, their license, uh their licensee status would be changed or invitee status would be changed once they exceeded the scope of that permission and they would then become a trespasser. And then the second question I would have that I would need actually need to know before I answered would be Is that person or or group of persons who exceeded their scope of their permissions? Did are you, did you know that was gonna happen? Like, did you know that every show you have, everybody sneaks into the dildo room? Is that something that happens? We don't know. And if you know that's gonna happen and you know that's part of the the um uh that they will exceed that scope, then is there a difference between you don't owe someone a duty that you know seeks in, you've never saw this person before, they didn't have a badge, versus you know this is gonna happen because everybody does it at every show. Is there a different duty?
Arta Wildeboer:Again, it gets very complicated. Uh most of this stuff is just gonna get settled before it gets to trial and any of the legal questions actually get answered. So nobody worry about it. It all just comes down to um what will the plaintiff take uh to shut up?
Ryan Ellis:Yep, agreed. And just so everybody knows we we know the answers to these questions. Like generally to trespassers, you don't owe a duty, and there are exceptions if you know there's a trespasser. And a lot of times, like at least from a business perspective, you see this where if you own a bunch of land um and you have a warehouse on part of it, and then your land is between like a road and the ocean, but you know a bunch of surfers go through your land to get to the ocean, there's a different standard if you know versus if you didn't know, and if those people rangers. So just again, we're not dumb uh well in that regard. But Leno. Yes, exactly. Anyway, uh so now that we know that um this person could sue, uh, I know you said that you don't think the waiver would work, um, and that actually it wouldn't work, and you can't really sue sue for you can't prevent someone for suing for for normal negligence. Um, is there anything uh regarding causation that we need to talk about, or is it just they're they're hurt, they're then you're liable?
Arta Wildeboer:Um yeah, I I mean I think uh wait in terms of work comp, yes, you're hurt, they're liable because it would happen in during work. Um with the PI one, it's it's gonna be a lot more uh difficult to answer the question because you're gonna have to bring in experts to talk about the surface of the carpet and how it reacted with the oil and if the paint did anything and find out uh from a paint expert if it was slippery and have all these tests done and uh check out the surface of uh his shoes or if he was barefoot or you know what the situation is. There's gonna be so many things that go into proving this that uh as a plaintiff's attorney, um, I don't even know if I want to bother with this unless I have a bunch of younger attorneys where I can make them do stuff and and don't care about their mental health.
Ryan Ellis:Yeah, agreed. I mean, I and just to kind of to to emphasize what you said, like I think the questions of causation absolutely matter in the PI context, right? Because you're an a shrewd attorney or an insurance attorney would say, well, wait a second, what who like how'd you slip? Like, let's analyze this body paint. And then you're gonna buy some of the body paint. You're gonna have that expert, like you said, do the analysis on the carpet that they had. Um, and you're gonna have the body paint sit there for four hours and determine if it's still slippery. Like, who brought the baby oil? Did Mr. Nousham bring the baby oil? Did the company provide the baby oil? Was it left over baby oil? Did P. Diddy leave the baby oil? Nobody knows. Uh, what else was in the baby oil? I mean, that's the questions that we're, I guess the the listener here wants to know today that we don't even know. Um, and also like this pre-existing condition, I think, is a huge issue he's gonna have to face because again, work comp is a little different because the pre-existing condition wouldn't come in until the permanent disability stage. But here, the pre-existing condition would uh would be a lot more, I think, benef beneficial for the employer uh for damages. And then in causation in civil cases, you have to show that the causation was a substantial factor in causing the harm that a reasonable person, again, I funny in this context, would have considered to contribute to the harm. It has to be more than remote or trivial. So that here newsham would need to establish that the slippery substance to the extent that even existed was a substantial factor in causing his injury, given that multiple performances uh after the body paint, between you know, the four hours that it was the stage was used by the body painting in him, that you know, his own uh the times he kind of walked on or danced on the same area of the carpet and didn't hurt himself, his use of the baby oil and whatever was contained in that baby oil, um, and then you know his document of the history of his knee locking up and being injured. So a jury would would have to make a decision hilariously as to all those things. I can imagine being on the jury uh sitting in a room with 11 of my peers saying, Well, what kind of baby oil was this? We're gonna need some examples. Let's let's run some tests here and determine factually what happened.
Arta Wildeboer:Yeah, Johnson and Johnson versus store brand, all the all the different baby oils. Um okay, so let's wrap up here. Uh, what do we want to tell people for the big picture? Uh basically, if you're in California, uh don't think that uh just because you have a contract with somebody that says they're an independent contractor, that they are not going to be considered an employee and that you're uh not going to have to cover them with work comp insurance.
Ryan Ellis:Yeah, and I think yeah, that the best way to do that is by doing an audit, do a classification audit. Um, you know, obviously red flags we talked about. If you set their schedule and you tell them where to be and how to perform or how to dance or how to use baby oil, that's one thing. Um, you know, if in the example of this of the exotic dancer, if entertainment is a regular part of your event, or if you're an HR company that hires an HR person to as an independent contractor, you know, clearly that's that's a red flag in California. If you provide them with equipment or computers or baby oil, I can't get over that one. Or if um, you know, things like that, you want to make sure that that you you red flag that and you reclassify. Because again, reclassification, if you don't do it and you get sued for it in California, they'll undo that classification of independent contractor and come after you for all the other things, like overtime, meal periods, rest periods, all those things. Um if you want someone to be an independent contractor, you make sure you use people who have their own established business. They have to control how they work and perform, have them have their own insurance or own their own supplies, their own computers, their own tools, their own baby oils, all those things. And then make sure you hire someone outside of your normal course of business. So again, accountant hires a cleaner, not accountant hires an accountant.
Arta Wildeboer:And uh look and you know, honestly, get work comp insurance if you're an employer. It's so important because it's gonna save you a lot of headaches. Because if you get sued uh in civil court, it's it hurts a lot more uh than going through the work comp system. Um just be very careful uh with uh the things that you do for your business and and the things that you try to skip out on because you couldn't afford it. Yep.
Ryan Ellis:And this is where another thing we've told you in a few episodes is hire an attorney. Like, yes, paying an attorney sucks. It's gonna cost you money. Like paying money to anybody sucks, really, for things you don't think you need. But I guarantee you hiring an attorney will be a lot cheaper in the long run than just hoping for the best. Because if you think stuff isn't gonna happen, look at this case from 20, uh, was it 2012, uh, about this or 2014 or whatever, the stripper exotic cancer falls on the stage at a trade show. I'm I guarantee you that Canwest trade shows and whoever agreed to have this guy perform on stage in exchange for the fee for the booth never thought this was gonna happen. And now you have two guys talking about it on a podcast that two people listen to. So, I mean, imagine just a couple hundred dollars, maybe even a thousand dollars, would have saved them so much time and effort. Um, because I guarantee you again that a thousand dollars, again, if if you would have paid someone up front to give you legal advice and done it correctly, a thousand dollars would have saved hundreds of thousands of dollars in litigation costs.
Arta Wildeboer:And you're a business owner, again, you this is stuff that you have to deal with. You are not gonna be able to skirt this responsibility. If you're out trying to hire members of the public to help you make money, you have a responsibility to them that you can't get out of. You can't hurt them, you can't do things that damage them uh financially, can't do any of these things. They're protected for it. And again, this this needs to be in place for society to be able to work because otherwise nobody is gonna want to risk working.
Ryan Ellis:Yep, agreed. And then specifically as like dangerous work environments, make sure you investigate and provide a safe working environment for your employees, you know, give them that high, that high level of duty that you owe.
Arta Wildeboer:Again, I guess you can still hate them. Oh, it you could still hate your own. Oh, yeah, yeah, of course. Give them all the like the insurance stuff.
Ryan Ellis:Yeah, but but do your jobs. I mean, like, that's the worst part, is it comes down to laziness. Like, imagine owning a trampoline park and never inspecting the trampolines. Like eventually something's gonna go wrong. Like, imagine owning a strip club or a or a dance show and never inspecting the stage. Like, you have to do these things, that's just part of the job.
Arta Wildeboer:So, anything else that you want to talk about before we wrap up here or no, I'm good.
Ryan Ellis:I I wish everybody a happy new year. I I hope that uh everybody follows the law and doesn't need an attorney ever. But if you do, I know of a good one, Law was a Wildborough. Google it.
Arta Wildeboer:And uh thank you so much, Ryan. Uh, if you are looking for a great lawyer in San Diego, Ryan Ellis Law Corporation is available to serve all your legal needs. Well, not all of them, but he'll find somebody to do it if uh he can't do it and then take the referral fee. Awesome. Absolutely. Anyway, so. Signing off this time, and uh hope you guys have a great twenty twenty-six. And um I don't know if anybody's ever listening this far. Matt, all you Happy New Year. All right.
