California’s controversial AB5 law, which would largely eliminate the traditional owner-operator model for trucking in the state, could go into effect as soon as sometime in June — if the Supreme Court takes the advice of the U.S. solicitor general and declines to hear a California Trucking Association lawsuit challenging it.
Assembly Bill 5, passed in 2019, established a establishing a strict ABC test to determine whether a worker is an employee or an independent contractor. The California Trucking Association challenged it and obtained a preliminary injunction, but that was overturned on appeal. The injunction remains in place, however, pending CTA’s appeal to the Supreme Court.
The case may have hit a stumbling block in the form of the U.S. solicitor general, who on May 24 filed a brief recommending the Supreme Court deny review of the case. (The solicitor general is the federal government’s representative before the Supreme Court.)
The court could still decide to take up the case, and it could make that decision before it recesses for the summer at the end of June.
Assembly Bill 5 took a 2018 state Supreme Court decision and turned it into law. That decision said that certain workers should be presumed employees instead of independent contractors when evaluating wage and hour classification in class-action cases.
The ruling required companies to use a newly adopted ABC test to determine who is an independent contractor, which consists of certifying:
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