Berkery

BACKGROUND

Berkery owned and operated a marketing consulting firm based in Sacramento, providing clients with “services such as strategic planning, Web design, media buying, media relations, voiceover, and event planning.” In August 2018, Berkery (who had been doing business in the City of Elk Grove since 2013) signed a contract to provide her services to defendant VEG, a nonprofit entity formed by the City of Elk Grove to promote tourism within the city. The contract provided that Berkery was an “independent contractor” who had “the sole right to control the means, manner and method by which the services” would “be performed” under the agreement. The contract further provided: either party could

2 terminate the agreement “at any time by giving 21 days’ written notice to the other party”; the written contract was “the entire [a]greement” between the parties; and the agreement could be “modified only by a writing signed by both parties.” Defendant Thompson, VEG’s executive director at the time, signed the contract on VEG’s behalf.1 Thompson communicated frequently with Berkery in the first month of the contract, including three e-mails “promis[ing] many more assignments” to…