Posts tagged Federal Aviation Administration Authorization Act
OOIDA makes now-solo case in court that California’s AB5 should exempt trucking
April 23, 2025 // For OOIDA, which is carrying on the lawsuit that was originally filed by the California Trucking Association in 2019, the issue is clear: AB5 “categorically prohibits leased owner operators from operating in California,” OOIDA outside counsel Paul D. Cullen Jr. said in his opening remarks. (CTA last August decided not to pursue the appeal to the 9th Circuit.)
End of an era: California Trucking Association dropping appeal against AB5
August 23, 2024 // The high-water mark of CTA’s fight came on New Year’s Eve 2019 when Judge Roger Benitez of the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of California handed down an injunction blocking AB5’s enforcement against trucking in the state. But from that point, the CTA suffered a series of losses. An appellate court in a 2-1 decision overturned the injunction in April 2021. The CTA took the appeal to the Supreme Court, which denied review in June 2022 and kicked the case back to the District Court.
Trucking groups appeal AB5 ruling to Ninth Circuit
April 16, 2024 // California signed AB5 into law in 2019. The worker classification law is based on the ABC Test, which requires a business to demonstrate three factors are established before a worker can be deemed an independent contractor. The “B prong” of the ABC Test appears to prevent a trucking company from classifying a truck driver as an independent contractor regardless of the level of control or any other factors. The California Trucking Association and OOIDA contend that AB5 imposes undue burdens on interstate commerce in violation of the dormant Commerce Clause. In addition, OOIDA and the state trucking group have said that the law’s decisions on who it exempts violate the U.S. and California constitutions’ equal protection clauses.
Groups lose latest court attempt to block California’s AB5 from state’s trucking sector
March 20, 2024 // “Remedying complexities and perceived deficiencies in AB5 are the kind of work better left to the soap box and the ballot box than to the jury box,” Benitez wrote in his decision. “If sufficient political or economic pressure can be brought to bear by [CTA and OOIDA] and their supporters, the more onerous provisions of the statute can be amended. The courts, on the other hand, are not the proper bodies for imposing legislative amendments.”
Further appeals to block AB5 from California trucking seen as a long shot
March 19, 2024 // Appeals are possible of the decision Friday in the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of California that emphatically rejected all the arguments by the California Trucking Association (CTA) and the Owner-Operator Independent Drivers Association. But several observers of the legal battle that has gone on for more than four years said that may prove too big a challenge to proceed. “I’m sure that some will advocate for the appeal and exhausting all efforts, but I’m certainly not bullish on the likelihood of success in the 9th Circuit,” an attorney who is not representing any of the parties and requested anonymity said of possible future CTA/OOIDA action. “It is time to ‘move on’ absent the political will to change.”
9th Circuit panel will hear Uber/Postmates case on AB5
December 22, 2023 // The decision handed down by a three-judge panel in March was notable primarily for its reasoning that Uber and Postmates had been denied equal protection of the law in the process that led to the California approval of AB5, state legislation that required companies that hire independent contractors to reclassify them as employees. Equal protection of the law was the only claim by Uber and Postmates that the appellate panel backed; it supported the lower court rejection of other arguments. The panel cited the statements of then-Assemblywoman Lorena Gonzalez, now a state labor leader but the key driver in turning AB5 into law, as evidence that the move to more tightly define when a worker can legitimately be considered an independent contractor was an effort targeted at gig drivers like those at Uber.
UNION SPONSORED AB 5 HITS INDEPENDENT TRUCKERS
August 24, 2022 // For a while, AB 5, passed in the fall of 2019, didn’t affect truckers. It affected plenty of other people in plenty of other lines of work, prompting belated carve outs by the legislature to expand the list of exempted professions. Passage of AB 5 even provoked the ride share industry, led by Uber and Lyft, to raise over $200 million to qualify and run an initiative campaign, Proposition 22, to repeal the portions of AB 5 that affected their businesses. After Prop. 22 was approved by voters in November, four “gig drivers,” backed up by the SEIU, successfully challenged Prop. 22 in court. That ruling is now being appealed by Uber before the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals. "business to business” exemption, Borello test, California Globe
Trucker strike in the Port of Oakland threatens supply chain disruptions
July 22, 2022 // R Street Institute’s western region director, Steven Greenhut, who lives in California, is not convinced that his state’s current government will be up to fixing the problem. “California lawmakers exempted more than 100 professions from their misguided ban on independent contracting, Assembly Bill 5,” he told the Washington Examiner. “But they never bothered to address the impact of their law on trucking, which is one of the most important functions in our economy.” Greenhut said it was “astounding” that lawmakers didn’t act on this “given the ongoing supply chain disruptions and the backlog at the LA area ports.” Danny Wan, diesel emission rules
Truckers and consumers get a brief reprieve
November 19, 2021 // Under AB 5, trucking companies may not contract with independent owner-operators. The California Trucking Association contends that the state law is pre-empted by the Federal Aviation Administration Authorization Act, which bars any state law or regulation that affects “a price, route or service of any motor carrier” with regard to the transportation of property.