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driver-employee his or her route assignments, direct each driver-
employee as to the loads assigned to him or her and as to the
times by which such driver-employee had to deliver those loads,
and relay to each driver-employee any instruction of its
customers relating to such loads.
In contrast, in order for TLC to operate its driver-leasing
business successfully, TLC had to direct and control the work and
conduct of its driver-employees in order to, inter alia, minimize
workers’ compensation claims of such driver-employees. A
principal advantage for a trucking company of leasing driver-
employees from TLC, as opposed to employing truck drivers
directly, related to TLC’s ability to obtain cost-effective
workers’ compensation insurance for TLC’s driver-employees. Id.
at 158. In order to minimize workers’ compensation claims and
thereby enable TLC to maintain cost-effective workers’
compensation insurance, TLC had to, and did, control the work and
conduct of each driver-employee. If TLC had not controlled the
work and conduct of each driver-employee so as to minimize
workers’ compensation claims, its workers’ compensation insurance
expense would have increased substantially, thereby negating a
principal advantage for a trucking company in leasing driver-
employees from TLC, instead of employing truck drivers directly.
As discussed above, each exclusive lease agreement provided
in pertinent part that TLC had the right to, and did, exercise
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