Trucking news and briefs for Wednesday, April 17, 2024:
Following a California district court judge last month ruling against the trucking industry in an attempt to block the AB 5 independent contractor classification law’s applicability to trucking, the industry is once again fighting back.
On April 12, the California Trucking Association and Owner-Operator Independent Drivers Association filed an appeal to the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals. The Ninth Circuit was the court that in April 2021 reversed an injunction that had been in place exempting the trucking industry from the law.
AB 5, of course, is the law that codified the ABC test for worker classification determinations -- the “B” condition being problematic for trucking in that it requires that the worker’s tasks be “outside the usual course of business of the company” they are contracting with to be a valid independent contractor.
In the March ruling siding with California, District Judge Roger Benitez essentially told the trucking groups to take their arguments up with California lawmakers rather than the court system.
“Remedying complexities and perceived deficiencies in AB 5 are the kind of work better left to the soap box and the ballot box than to the jury box,” Benitez said in his March ruling. “If sufficient political or economic pressure can be brought to bear by Plaintiffs 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.”
As for the appeal to the Ninth Circuit, dates for additional filings and arguments have not yet been released.
