Court OKs classifying truckers as employees
Truckers in California can be classified as employees under state law, with benefits such as minimum wages and overtime, a state appeals court has ruled, overturning a judge’s decision that the drivers are independent contractors.
The ruling by the Second District Court of Appeal in Los Angeles does not apply to drivers for Uber, Lyft and other ridehailing companies, who are to be treated as contractors under Proposition 22, a ballot measure sponsored by the companies and approved Nov. 3 by state voters. But the court case would affect thousands of drivers who own their trucks and lease them to companies for carrying freight.
The ruling has no immediate impact, however, because a federal judge in San Diego, in a separate case raising similar issues, issued an injunction in January exempting truckers from the state law. The Ninth U. S. Circuit Court of Appeals in San Francisco is considering whether to lift the federal injunction.
California law, except for those covered by Prop. 22, generally classifies workers as employees if they are in the same business as the company that hired them. But in the case of three companies that hired truckers to haul cargo at the Port of Los Angeles, a Superior Court judge ruled in January that the state law was overridden by a federal law prohibiting states from regulating operations “related to the price, route or service of any motor carrier” that transports property.
The appeals court, however, said California’s regulation of truckers’ employment status had little relationship to, or impact on, their prices, routes or services.
Quoting a 2014 state Supreme Court ruling in another trucking case, the appellate panel said there was no evidence that Congress, when it passed the Federal Aviation and Administration Authorization Act in 1994, “intended to preempt states’ ability ... to enforce labor and wage standards.”
The 30 ruling by Justice Brian Currey, issued Thursday, left open the possibility that companies seeking to move freight could reach contracts with other businesses that employed their own truckers and would be responsible for paying them. But independent truckers would be covered by California law, which would appear to classify them as employees.
That would entitle them to minimum wages and overtime, sick leave, unemployment compensation, and reimbursement for work expenses, among other benefits.
Classifying them as independent contractors “may boost trucking companies’ bottom lines, but it kicks these drivers in the teeth by requiring them to pay outrageous expenses just to do their jobs,” Los Angeles City Attorney Mike Feuer said in a statement praising the ruling.
“Trucking companies have been among the worst offenders in misclassifying their employee drivers as independent contractors and depriving those drivers of the basic employment protections they are entitled to under California law,” said attorney Stacey Leyton, who filed arguments for the Teamsters union supporting the truckers.
Joshua Lipshutz, lawyer for the three Los Angeles freight companies, said they would appeal the ruling to the state Supreme Court.
“The Court of Appeal failed to appreciate the many ways in which California’s worker classification law impedes the trucking industry, not only in California but nationwide,” Lipshutz said.