Kasamba, an online platform connecting customers with “readers” (often providing psychic or spiritual consultations), agreed to a $1.4 million class action settlement for people who worked as readers in California between Sept. 9, 2020, and Aug. 13, 2025. The case centers on a common gig-economy dispute: whether workers treated as independent contractors were actually employees under California’s worker-protection framework. If readers were employees, Kasamba would generally have to follow California wage-and-hour rules—such as paying minimum wage for all hours worked, covering certain business expenses, providing meal and rest breaks where applicable, and issuing compliant wage statements. The lawsuit was filed because the plaintiff alleged Kasamba misclassified California readers as contractors and, as a result, failed to pay all wages owed under the California Labor Code; it also asserted claims under the Private Attorneys General Act (PAGA), a law that allows workers to pursue civil penalties on the state’s behalf for labor-code violations. Kasamba denied wrongdoing but chose to settle to avoid the expense and uncertainty of litigation, creating a fund that (after fees and costs) will be distributed pro rata based on work history and earnings, with checks sent automatically to identified class members and leftover uncashed funds slated for a worker-advocacy nonprofit pending court approval. More broadly, the settlement fits into ongoing legal pressure on app-based and platform companies operating in California, where regulations like the “ABC test” from AB 5 (and later modifications such as Proposition 22 for certain app-based drivers) have raised the stakes for getting worker classification right. Similar misclassification and unpaid-wage cases have targeted other on-demand marketplaces and digital labor platforms, and they tend to ripple beyond a single company by pushing industries toward clearer contracts, better time-and-pay tracking, and more conservative classification decisions—especially in California, where wage enforcement tools and representative actions can make potential liability significant.