In Futrell v. Payday California, Inc. (2010) 190 Cal.App.4th 1419, Reactor Films, Inc. (Reactor), a television production company, produced television commercials for various companies. (Futrell, supra, 190 Cal.App.4th at p. 1424.) Reactor hired freelance crewmembers to perform the tasks needed to produce the commercials. (Ibid.) It also hired Payday California, Inc. (Payday) to provide payroll processing and related services. Payday provided substantially the same services Power Payroll provided in this case, including issuing paychecks from its own accounts and paying for workers' compensation insurance premiums. (Id. at p. 1427.) The plaintiff in Futrell argued that Payday was his employer because Payday allegedly "controlled" his wages. The Futrell court rejected this argument. After noting that there were no cases directly on point, the court stated: "Writing on a clean slate, we conclude that 'control over wages' means that a person or entity has the power or authority to negotiate and set an employee's rate of pay, and not that a person or entity is physically involved in the preparation of an employee's paycheck. This is the only definition that makes sense. The task of preparing payroll, whether done by an internal division or department of an employer, or by an outside vendor of an employer, does not make Payday an employer for purposes of liability for wages under the Labor Code wage statutes. The preparation of payroll is largely a ministerial task, albeit a complex task in today's marketplace. The employer, however, is the party who hires the employee and benefits from the employee's work, and thus it is the employer to whom liability should be affixed for any unpaid wages. The extension of personal liability to the agents of an employer is not reasonably derived from the language and purposes of the Labor Code wage statutes." (Futrell, supra, 190 Cal.App.4th at p. 1432.)