Truckers ask US Supreme Court to review worker classification

The U.S. Supreme Court should review a ruling that California's owner-operator truck drivers are employees, since there is a circuit split on whether federal law preempts state worker classification statutes, a trucking association argued in a petition for certiorari.

"Here, the Ninth Circuit upheld California's worker-classification statute as it applies to motor carriers. In contrast, the First Circuit and the Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court both have held an identical Massachusetts statute to be preempted by the FAAAA [Federal Aviation Administration Authorization Act]," said the petition, filed Monday.

"There is no doubt about this conflict: The Ninth Circuit here expressly refused to follow the First Circuit's holding," wrote attorneys at Ogletree, Deakins, Nash, Smoak & Stewart, P.C. and Mayer Brown LLP, who represent the truckers. California Trucking Association, Inc. et al., v. Rob Bonta, et al., 21-194.

The association filed its lawsuit against the state in 2018 to challenge Dynamex Operations West, Inc. v. Superior Court, 4 Cal. 5th 903, a landmark state Supreme Court decision that effectively raised the bar for classifying workers as independent contractors instead of employees. The trucking association amended its complaint to target Assembly Bill 5, the state statute that codified the high court decision.

In early 2020, the association secured the first preliminary injunction enjoining the enforcement of Assembly Bill 5 against owner-operator truck drivers. A divided 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals panel reversed the preliminary injunction in April, ruling that Assembly Bill 5 is not preempted by the Federal Aviation Administration Authorization Act and therefore applies to the truck drivers.

The association countered the 9th Circuit's opinion, arguing the federal law "expressly preempts state laws 'related to a price, route, or service, of any motor carrier.'"

The high court should rule on whether the federal law preempts the application of AB 5 to truck drivers, given the circuit split, the association said. By not ruling in the drivers' favor, the high court would allow a legal landscape where "trucks driven by owner-operators across the nation to California would have to either switch drivers when they enter the state or not enter the state at all -- with obvious effects on routes, services, and prices," according to the association.

It added, "Each year, billions of dollars' worth of goods pass through California ports for delivery in California and throughout the nation, all moved, in part, by means of truck. Moreover, the state is the leading producer of manufactured goods and the largest agricultural producer in the country. Inevitably, then, AB-5 would injure not only motor carriers and their immediate customers, but also myriad ultimate consumers and the national economy."