Opinion ID: 4578731
Heading Depth: 3
Heading Rank: 4

Heading: Opportunities for profit or loss

Text: This factor examines whether workers have “opportunit[ies] for greater profits based on [their] management and technical skills.” Keller, 781 F.3d at 812. One example would be a worker who can “improve his efficiency such that he c[an] complete more” jobs per day. Id. at 813. -8- Case No. 20-3287, Agment, LLC v. Gilbo Drawing customers to Brass Pole is “the critical factor in determining the profits and losses” of everyone involved in the business. See Lester, 2016 WL 1588654, at ; see also Hart v. Rick’s Cabaret Int’l, Inc., 967 F. Supp. 2d 901, 920 (S.D.N.Y. 2013). Brass Pole handled the advertising, marketing, aesthetics, location, and maintenance of its building. Brass Pole therefore had substantial control over what opportunities the dancers had to make profits. Brass Pole’s only argument to the contrary is that Gilbo and Smith “were free to solicit their own patrons to perform dances if they so chose.” Strip club owners often suggest that a dancer’s ability to “hustle” for more customers gives the dancers significant opportunity for profit or loss, but “[t]his argument . . . has been almost universally rejected.” McFeeley v. Jackson St. Ent., LLC, 825 F.3d 235, 243 (4th Cir. 2016); see also Levi v. Gulliver’s Tavern, Inc., No. 15-216, 2018 WL 10149710, at  (D.R.I. Apr. 23, 2018) (calling this argument “ill-fated” and noting that “nearly every court to consider this argument has rejected it”). This makes sense. Ultimately, what a dancer earns is “limited by the bounds of good service” and the nightclub itself “takes the risks and reaps the returns.” Thompson v. Linda and A. Inc., 779 F. Supp. 2d 139, 149 (D.D.C. 2011) (quoting Harrell, 992 F. Supp. at 1352). This factor weighs in Gilbo’s and Smith’s favor.