Trucking industry awaits Supreme Court decision on AB5

The wait for the trucking industry to find out if the U.S. Supreme Court will hear the California Trucking Association’s case against Assembly Bill 5 continues.

On Monday, June 27, the court issued a list of orders, and the trucking group’s petition against California’s controversial worker classification law wasn’t on the list of cases granted nor on the list of cases denied.

The omission could mean that the Supreme Court won’t make a decision on whether or not to take the case until its October conference.

Meanwhile, an injunction preventing AB5 from being enforced on motor carriers remains in place until the Supreme Court makes a decision.

The California Trucking Association contends that AB5 violates the constitution and could force the end of the trucking industry’s owner-operator model. The solicitor general, however, in a brief filed on May 24 advised the court to deny the California Trucking Association’s petition, saying that AB5 would not have a significant impact on prices, routes or services.

AB5, which California passed into law in 2019, codified the ABC Test, making it difficult for companies to hire independent contractors for work that is inside the usual course of the hiring entity’s business.

The California Trucking Association points to the Federal Aviation Administration Authorization Act, or F4A, which prevents states from enforcing a law or regulation related to a price, route or service of motor carriers. The U.S. Southern District Court of California granted a preliminary injunction to stop the state from enforcing the law on motor carriers.

In 2021, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit ruled 2-1 that California’s AB5 “is a generally applicable labor law” and called for the removal of a preliminary injunction. The California Trucking Association then filed a petition to the U.S. Supreme Court. The Owner-Operator Independent Drivers Association was one of more than a dozen organizations to file amicus briefs in support of the California Trucking Association’s petition.

After the petition, the Supreme Court asked the U.S. Solicitor General to weigh in.

In May, the solicitor general recommended that the Supreme Court deny the California Trucking Association’s petition for a hearing. However, the Supreme Court is not bound to the recommendation.

Earlier this month, the California Trucking Association responded to the solicitor general brief, calling it “head-scratchingly wrong.”

“The government thus postulates that AB5’s requirements are easily avoided; that the law may have no impact at all on carriers or owner-operators; that the decision below simply follows this Court’s (F4A) precedent; and that there is no conflict in the circuits,” the California Trucking Association wrote. “But each of these submissions is head-scratchingly wrong. In fact, AB5 was designed to, and surely will, upend the operation of the trucking industry.” LL