California Trucking Association officially files for AB 5 rehearing
The California Trucking Association (CTA) this week officially filed for the Ninth Circuit Court to rehear the controversial AB 5 contractor law.
The move had been long expected, as the CTA said earlier this month that it planned to seek an en banc review of the case, which would require all 29 judges in the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals to vote yay or nay on rehearing the case.
If a simple majority votes in favor, 11 of the judges will rehear the case that the CTA says could require big disruptions for up to 70,000 owner-operators in the Golden State, particularly those leased to a motor carrier.
The AB 5 law took effect in the beginning of 2020, but a district court judge granted the CTA an injunction, citing the Federal Aviation Administration Authorization Act of 1994, which preempts any state-level law that would “interfere with prices, routes and services” of motor carriers.
On April 28, Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals reversed an injunction in a blow to the CTA’s cause. A panel of three judges at that time ruled that the ABC test for classifying workers as independent contractors couldn’t be preempted by the FAAAA, ruling 2-1 that the test was a “generally applicable labor law that affects a motor carrier’s relationship with its workforce and does not bind, compel, or otherwise freeze into place the prices, routes, or services of motor carriers.”
By pushing to rehear the case, the CTA has bought California truckers more time, as AB 5 won’t be enforced until the legal battle ends.
If denied again by the Ninth Circuit, the CTA could choose to petition the U.S. Supreme Court to hear the case.
