A California judge on Friday, March 15, ruled against the trucking industry in its effort to halt the state’s application of the restrictive AB 5 independent contractor law on trucking, ultimately ruling that truckers should make their case legislatively rather than judicially.
The AB 5 law, of course, has been in effect in California since January 2020 and under fire from trucking associations and their membership all along. The law codifies the ABC test for worker classification and effectively bans the traditional leased owner-operator model.
Under the ABC test, a worker has to meet all three conditions of the test to be classified as an independent contractor. Particularly problematic for trucking is the “B” condition, which 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.
[Related: California Trucking Association again seeks injunction to block AB 5]
On Friday, California District Judge Roger Benitez, who previously has been on trucking’s side in the case (he was the judge who initially gave trucking its preliminary injunction on New Year’s Eve 2019 to block the law’s enforcement in trucking), denied the California Trucking Association’s and Owner-Operator Independent Drivers Association’s latest request for injunction.
OOIDA said in a statement Monday morning that it “disagrees with Judge Benitez's ruling and the reasoning behind it, and is exploring all options moving forward -- including an appeal." CTA has yet to respond for a request for comments. Transportation law firm Scopelitis noted that it expects CTA to appeal Benitez's decision, but "there will be no relief from AB 5 in the meantime."
The original preliminary injunction, Benitez said in his most recent ruling, “was entered based upon the preliminary conclusion that AB 5 was preempted by the Federal Aviation Administration Authorization Act,” or F4A.
