Definition
In law, a job is the whole of a discrete piece of work undertaken for a fixed, stipulated price — a single undertaking treated as a complete unit rather than ongoing labor compensated by time. This contract-of-hire sense distinguishes a job from employment measured by hours, days, or indefinite service. The concept anchors the legal distinction between a lump-sum work contract and an employment relationship, with consequences for how obligations, risks, and compensation are allocated between the parties.
Common Language
Modern common usage (Wiktionary): A task; an economic role for which a person is paid; more colloquially, a robbery, a surgical procedure, or a sex act.
Historical common usage (Webster's 1913): A piece of chance or occasional work; any definite work undertaken in gross for a fixed price; also, a public transaction done for private profit — corrupt official business.
The gap between ordinary and legal meaning here is narrow but important. Everyday usage treats "job" as synonymous with employment or any paid task. The legal usage, at least as preserved in the historical dictionaries and Louisiana Civil Code, is more precise: a job is a discrete undertaking completed for a stipulated total price — closer to what modern law calls a fixed-price or lump-sum contract. The employment connotation that dominates modern speech can mislead researchers interpreting older contract and lease-of-work doctrine.
Common Confusion
"Job" in the contract-law sense should not be confused with "employment." A person hired by the job is typically an independent contractor engaged for a defined result; an employee is hired for continuing service measured by time. This distinction carries weight in labor law, tort law (respondeat superior), tax law, and workers' compensation. Modern legal literature rarely uses "job" as a term of art in the contract sense; it has largely been absorbed into the vocabulary of "independent contractor," "fixed-price contract," or "construction contract."
Why It Matters in Research
Researchers working in pre-twentieth-century American or Louisiana civil law sources will encounter "job" as a genuine term of art meaning a lump-sum undertaking, not merely a synonym for employment. The Louisiana Civil Code article cited in all three historical dictionaries (art. 2727 in the earlier codification) is the anchor text; researchers tracing the concept in Louisiana sources should follow that article's successive numbering through code revisions.
Outside Louisiana, "job" appears in older common law decisions discussing building contracts, craft work, and piece-rate arrangements. In those contexts, the term signals a complete-unit contract rather than an employment relationship — a distinction courts used to allocate liability for defective work and to determine whether a worker could recover quantum meruit if the job was left incomplete.
In modern statutory research, "job" reappears prominently in labor and employment law as ordinary vocabulary (job classification, job duties, job posting requirements) with no special term-of-art meaning. Researchers must read context carefully: the same word carries different legal weight in a nineteenth-century building contract dispute than in a modern Title VII or FLSA case.
The JOBS Act (Jumpstart Our Business Startups Act, 2012) is an acronym, not a use of "job" as a legal term; researchers following that trail should consult the encyclopedia entry referenced above.
Historical Dictionary Support
Black's (both editions) and Bouvier agree verbatim on the core definition: "the whole of a thing which is to be done," illustrated by the Louisiana Civil Code's building-by-the-job provision. This unanimity reflects a narrow, civilian-influenced usage rather than a broad common law survey. Bouvier adds references to Duranton and Pothier — French civil law commentators on the contract of lease (louage d'ouvrage) — which confirms that the term's legal precision derives from civilian contract doctrine, not English common law. Bouvier also cross-references DEVIATION, pointing toward the doctrine that a contractor who departs from agreed specifications may forfeit payment or face liability — a conceptually linked entry worth tracing.
What the historical dictionaries do not address: the labor law, employment law, or administrative law senses that dominate modern usage. They also do not discuss the independent-contractor/employee distinction that courts later built on this conceptual foundation. Researchers should treat these entries as covering only the contract-of-work sense and supplement with modern employment law sources for contemporary meaning.
Jurisdictional Note
Louisiana's civilian tradition gives "job" the most developed doctrinal content in American law, rooted in the louage d'ouvrage framework of the Civil Code. In common law states, the concept exists but is expressed through construction contract and independent contractor doctrine rather than through "job" as a recognized term of art. International researchers should note that civilian legal systems (French, Quebec, Louisiana) treat the work-by-the-job contract as a distinct nominate contract with specific default rules.
Encyclopedia Cross-Reference
Federal Securities — Crowdfunding and the JOBS Act (Law Mind Business Organizations & Corporate Law Encyclopedia)