A pair of court rulings involving Lyft and Uber Technologies may have far-reaching consequences for the ride-sharing firms, and may help to bring clarity to an murky--but increasingly important--area of employment law.

Two San Francisco judges separately ruled this week that suits filed by drivers of the ride-sharing services should go before juries. At issue in both cases is whether drivers, who are employed as independent contractors, should be considered employees of those firms, and thus entitled to the protections afforded most full-time workers.

Should the cases proceed to trial, the resulting verdicts could set a legal precedent about how some workers should be classified in the so-called on-demand economy. That could come as welcome news for employment lawyers and others charged with figuring out whether the workers who fulfill Instacart orders, drive UberX passengers, clean homes for Handy clients and perform other tasks assigned by apps should be considered independent contractors or actual employees.

Plaintiffs in both cases argue that drivers should be considered employees, not independents, and should thereby be protected by the same wage and labor rules as employees. The drivers also argue that they should be reimbursed for expenses such as gas and car maintenance that they currently pay out of pocket.

In the Uber case, heard in San Francisco, U.S. District Judge Edward Chen denied the company’s motion for summary judgment, concluding that the plaintiffs “perform services for the benefit of Uber,” and that the question of their employment status “presents a mixed question of law and fact that must typically be resolved by a jury.”