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
While the U.S. Supreme Court has made a number of headlines this term, flying under the radar was its refusal to consider whether California’s controversial worker classification law should be blocked by a federal law that...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
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
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
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
On January 1, 2020, California’s new independent contractor statute, known as AB 5, went into effect. The law codifies the use of an “ABC” test to determine if an individual may be classified as an independent contractor....more
As businesses throughout the State of California continue to grapple with the potential implications of AB5, a new law designed to make it more difficult for companies to treat workers as independent contractors, the...more
In Bedoya v. American Eagle Express Inc., the Third Circuit Court of Appeals held that the Federal Aviation Authorization Administration Act of 1994 (FAAAA) does not preempt New Jersey’s wage and hour laws, permitting...more
A critical but unresolved issue for the motor carrier industry is the continuing viability of the independent contractor truck driver model, which is under siege by state and federal regulatory agencies as well as private...more
Over the last two years, the Benesch Transportation & Logistics Team has written in various installments of the FLASH about the Massachusetts Independent Contractor Law, Mass. Gen. Laws ch. 149, §148B (the “Massachusetts...more
Seyfarth Synopsis: The Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court recently held that the FAAAA preempts the second prong of the Massachusetts Independent Contractor Statute as applied to certain delivery drivers. Although the...more
On May 11, 2016, the First Circuit Court of Appeals issued the latest of several decisions supporting and furthering federal preemption of the Massachusetts independent contractor statute for businesses that qualify as motor...more
2 Steps Back — First Circuit Could Have Done More for the Independent Contractor Business Model - Approximately one year ago in FLASH No. 46, we wrote about Massachusetts District Court Judge Robert G. Stearns’ industry...more