Bryson Vs Middlefield Volunteer Fire Department: Case Study

I. Narrative I started by analyzing the problem by listing key facts and possible search terms. Possible key facts include that she was in a school-sponsored internship, that Pepper supervised her in several areas, that she was not paid, and that she received various benefits including use of the company car, participation in the firm’s life insurance policy and training. Possible Google search terms might include “intern(ship),” “Title VII employee,” “unpaid,” and “workplace.” Because this case will be brought in the Eastern District of Wisconsin, it will be in the 7th Circuit. I found this out by Googling “Circuit Court map.” The results yielded the U.S. Courts’ “Court Locator” map. I decided to start by looking for some secondary
Since it is the most recent, I decided to start with Bryson v. Middlefield Volunteer Fire Department. While reading through the opinion, I noticed that it cited to the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission, so I went to that website and looked around to see if there was anything useful there. There was a section about volunteers, and it said what most of the cases seems to be saying. Volunteers are usually not considered employees, unless there is significant remuneration. It lists a few examples, including participation in employee insurance programs and access to professional certification, which would both apply to our case. (After looking at one of the later cases, Pietras v. Board of Fire Commissioners, I think that the EEOC was just paraphrasing that case. From Bryson, it looks like there are two tests to go through to determine whether or not a person is an employee or a volunteer, whether there was significant remuneration is one, and then the common law test of agency is the other. The dissent goes on to explain the issue in greater detail, listing a few of the cases I already have as well as a couple that I had yet to
I though the local place to start would be the O’Connor case, since it has been cited by so many of the cases I have found and is one of the only ones I have come across that deals specifically with a student intern. I went to the case, and decided to look at the citing references to see if I could find any that dealt specifically with interns. From those results, I narrowed it down to cases, then to federal cases. I found one case that looked promising, Evans v. Washington Center for Internships and Academic Seminars, but as I read it, it turned out that it was discussing a D.C. law, not Title