The case of Jammal v. American Family Insurance, currently pending before the United States Supreme Court, was recently featured in the SCOTUS Blog, a blog provided as a public service and devoted to covering the U.S. Supreme court comprehensively and without bias.
The SCOTUS Blog’s Petitions of the Week column features “petitions that are likely to appear on the ‘Relist watch’ list when they are scheduled for consideration by the justices. ‘Petitions of the week’ are petitions that we have identified as raising one or more questions that have a reasonable chance of being granted in an appropriate case.”
Jammal v. American Family Insurance, an Employment Retirement Income Security Act (ERISA) case, alleges that American Family improperly classifies its agents as independent contractors when they are actually employees, reserving the right to exercise complete control over every important aspect of the agent-employees’ businesses.
In April 2017, an advisory jury returned a unanimous verdict for a certified class in the case. The jury’s verdict was later upheld by U.S. District Judge Donald Nugent. On October 26, the 6th Circuit Court of Appeals denied American Family’s petition for review of the denial of the request to decertify the class, and granted American Family’s petition for review of the advisory jury’s verdict. On January 29, 2019, the 6th Circuit upended Judge Nugent’s decision, ruling that American Family Insurance agents are independent contractors. A petition to revisit the case is currently pending before the Supreme Court.
Plaintiffs in Jammal v. American Family Insurance are represented by Wexler Wallace LLP and co-counsel.