AB5 is now set to go into effect in the California trucking sector, as the U.S. Supreme Court on Thursday denied review of the appeal that represented the California Trucking Association’s last-ditch effort to keep the independent contractor law away from its operations.
The 9th Circuit Court of Appeals, which had earlier nullified the injunction that kept AB5 out of California trucking, must dissolve the stay that had allowed the injunction to remain in place while CTA made its push toward the Supreme Court.
With the Supreme Court handing down its denial without comment Thursday morning, dissolving that injunction is expected to happen quickly.
When it does, the independent owner model for trucking in the state of California will be entering a new world with little precedence.
At the heart of AB5 is the ABC test, and further, the B prong of ABC. That B test defines an independent contractor as a worker who is engaged in “work that is outside the usual course of the hiring entity’s business.”
A trucking company hiring an independent owner operator to move freight would presumably fail that test in any litigation.
FreightWaves will continue to cover this story over the course of the day.