Opinion of the Court
the term “contracts of employment” addressed them alone. Instead, Congress spoke of “workers,” a term that everyone agrees easily embraces independent contractors. That word choice may not mean everything, but it does supply further evidence still that Congress used the term “contracts of employment” in a broad sense to capture any contract for the performance of work by workers.
B
What does New Prime have to say about the case building against it? Mainly, it seeks to shift the debate from the term “contracts of employment” to the word “employee.” Today, the company emphasizes, the law often distinguishes between employees and independent contractors. Employees are generally understood as those who work “in the service of another person (the employer) under an express or implied contract of hire, under which the employer has the right to control the details of work performance.” Black’s Law Dictionary, at 639. Meanwhile, independent contractors are sometimes described as those “entrusted to undertake a specific project but who [are] left free to do the assigned work and to choose the method for accomplishing it.” Id., at 888. New Prime argues that, by 1925, the words “employee” and “independent contractor” had already assumed these distinct meanings.[1] And given that, the company contends, the phrase “contracts of employment” should be understood to refer only to relationships between employers and employees.
Unsurprisingly, Mr. Oliveira disagrees. He replies that, while the term “employment” dates back many centuries, the word “employee” only made its first appearance in English in the 1800s. See Oxford English Dictionary (3d ed., Mar. 2014), www.oed.com/view/Entry/61374 (all In-
- ↑ See, e. g., Atlantic Transp. Co. v. Coneys, 82 F. 177, 178 (CA2 1897); Nyback v. Champagne Lumber Co., 109 F. 732, 741 (CA7 1901).
