As March Madness gets underway, a California federal judge has called a flagrant foul and ejected the trucking industry from its ongoing battle to challenge Assembly Bill No. 5 (“AB5”)....more
The U.S. Supreme Court recently denied the California Trucking Association's (CTA) petition for certiorari related to a case involving federal preemption of California Assembly Bill 5 (AB-5), a law that changed the legal...more
The highlights of independent contractor legal developments in November 2021 focus on interstate transportation workers. Questions addressed by the courts last month included whether ride-sharing workers classified as...more
Employee misclassification continues to be the largest source of class action litigation in the logistics industry. California Trucking Association v. Bonta May Head to the Supreme Court - Independent contract...more
April 2021 was a meaningful month for two industries that are hardly strangers to lawsuits involving the status of workers as independent contractors. A federal district court in the District of Columbia issued an extremely...more
The Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals, in California Trucking Association v. Bonta, has reversed the preliminary injunction staying enforcement of AB 5 (now Labor Code § 2775). ...more
Originally published on WhoIsMyEmployee.com - May 3rd, 2021. Have you heard of Schrödinger’s cat? It’s not a real cat, like Felix or Brian Setzer. It’s a hypothetical, seemingly impossible cat that exists only in the world of...more
The vast majority of class action litigation in the logistics industry over the past quarter, and indeed the last few years, has been focused on the issue of worker misclassification. In particular, as state legislatures...more
November 2020 was a superb month for ride-sharing and app-based delivery companies and for President-Elect Biden, but was far less favorable to professional sports leagues, interpreting and translation companies, oilfield...more
In the latest Chapter of the continuing saga of whether the Federal Aviation Administration Authorization Act (FAAAA) of 1994 preempts either California’s expanded Dynamex “ABC” test set forth in AB 5 or the recent statutory...more
Seyfarth Synopsis: In a case involving motor carriers, the California Court of Appeal has held that the FAAAA (Federal Aviation Administration Authorization Act of 1994) does not preempt the ABC employment test California...more
In October, a diverse group of industries experienced adverse court rulings defending independent contractor classification class and collective action cases. Two cases involved courts granting conditional certification of...more
When outside forces pose a threat to people’s livelihood, people will go to great lengths to fight back....more
As we have written here, the day before California’s controversial AB 5 was set to go into effect, U.S. District Court Judge Roger Benitez issued a temporary restraining order to block enforcement of the law as to...more
For decades, the trucking industry has used owner-operators to provide the transportation of property in interstate commerce. Assembly Bill 5, which went into effect Jan. 1, as set out in Labor Code Section 2750.3, threatens...more
Seyfarth Synopsis: A federal court has granted a preliminary injunction blocking the State of California from enforcing AB 5 against motor carriers. The court provided a fulsome analysis demonstrating that the Federal...more
The federal court that had granted a temporary restraining order on New Year’s Eve blocking California’s misclassification law from taking effect against the trucking industry just extended that ruling by granting a...more
On January 16, 2020, finding that “California runs off the road and into the preemption ditch,” Judge Roger Benitez of the United States District Court for the Southern District of California issued his decision granting a...more
As we recently wrote here, just hours before California’s controversial AB 5 went into effect, a federal court in San Diego issued a temporary restraining order (“TRO”) to enjoin enforcement of the independent contractor...more
While the trucking industry waits for the federal court to hear arguments on the California Trucking Association’s request for an injunction against application of AB5, Judge William Highberger of the Los Angeles Superior...more
Seyfarth Synopsis: On the heels of last week’s federal court order temporarily blocking enforcement of AB 5 by the State of California, a California state court in Los Angeles reached the same conclusion, finding the Federal...more
Following the challenges to AB 5, California’s controversial new independent contractor law, can be a difficult endeavor. Every day seems to bring a new development....more
Wednesday, January 8th, saw a state court conclude that California’s controversial new misclassification law doesn’t apply to truck drivers, the second time in the last few weeks that a judge has come down hard on AB-5 for...more
Seyfarth Synopsis: Effective January 1, 2020, AB 5 implements the mandatory “ABC” test for determining whether a person is an independent contractor or employee under California law. Specific to motor carriers, AB 5 presumes...more
A federal judge took a pause from his New Year’s Eve revelries to hand a big victory to California truckers, blocking the state’s new misclassification law from impacting them before the January 1 effective date arrived....more