Opinion ID: 165179
Heading Depth: 5
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: Joint employer analysis

Text: 29 Sandoval claims, in the alternative, that the City and the BRCC Executive Committee were joint employers, and that the City can be held vicariously liable for the discrimination of which she accuses the BRCC. As we explained in Bristol, the single-employer test asks whether two nominally separate entities should in fact be treated as an integrated enterprise, while the joint-employer test assumes that the alleged employers are separate entities. 312 F.3d at 1218. We treat independent entities as joint employers if the entities share or co-determine those matters governing the essential terms and conditions of employment. In other words, courts look to whether both entities exercise significant control over the same employees. Id. (internal quotation marks omitted); see also Swallows 128 F.3d at 993 n. 4 (The basis of the [joint employer] finding is simply that one employer while contracting in good faith with an otherwise independent company, has retained for itself sufficient control of the terms and conditions of employment of the employees who are employed by the other employer.) (quoted in Larson, supra, § 5.03[1][c], at 5-24). Most important to control over the terms and conditions of an employment relationship is the right to terminate it under certain circumstances. Bristol, 312 F.3d at 1219. 30 While the single employer test looks at the overall relationships of the two entities, joint employer status is determined by focusing on the entities' relationships to a given employee or class of employees. The joint employment relationship, in other words, is employee-specific. See Sizova v. Nat'l Inst. of Standards & Tech., 282 F.3d 1320, 1330 (10th Cir.2002) (When a worker is formally employed by one organization, but important aspects of his work are subject to control by another organization, both organizations are employers of the worker.... Thus two entities may both be a worker's employer if they share or co-determine those matters governing the essential terms and conditions of employment. (internal quotation marks omitted)). 31 Sandoval claims that she was discriminated against when the BRCC Executive Committee failed to hire her as its Executive Director. For the City to be even potentially liable for that failure to hire, however, Sandoval must be able to show not merely that the City and the EC might have been joint employers of the other BRCC staff, but that the City and the EC were joint employers of the position for which Sandoval applied — that of BRCC Executive Director. This she cannot do. 32 Under the terms of the IGA, the Executive Director was hired by the EC, paid out of the BRCC budget, and served at the pleasure of the EC. The City's only control over the terms and conditions of the Executive Director's employment was through its representation on the EC, where two out of seven seats were occupied by City officials. Those two seats on the EC did not give the City control over the hiring decisions of the EC, as Koby's unsuccessful efforts to persuade his colleagues to appoint Sandoval as Executive Director amply demonstrate, and there is nothing in the record to indicate that the City or its representatives on the EC could have forced the removal of whomever was hired as Executive Director. Sandoval has not pointed to any disputed material fact that could show the City shared or co-determined the essential terms and conditions of the Executive Director's employment. Thus, we conclude that the City and the EC were not joint employers for purposes of Sandoval's failure to hire claim. Since the City can be held neither directly nor indirectly liable for the allegedly discriminatory hiring decision of which Sandoval accuses the BRCC, 4 we AFFIRM the district court's entry of summary judgment. 5 , 6