Hearst Publications, Inc. v. United States

GOODMAN, District Judge.

By these four actions, consolidated for trial, plaintiff newspaper publishers seek refund of insurance contributions and unemployment taxes collected from them, for taxable periods within the years 1937-1940, upon the compensation received by vendors of their publications on the streets of the City of San Francisco who, it is claimed by plaintiffs, were not their employees. The single issue to be here determined is the status of these vendors during that period. If their relationship to plaintiffs was one of employment within the purport of the applicable statutes,…