Amicus Curiae Brief — SkyWest, Inc., et al., Petitioners v. Andrea Hirst, et al.

No. 18-1097

IN THE

Supreme Court of the United States

_______________

SKYWEST, INC., ET AL.,

Petitioners,

v.

ANDREA HIRST, ET AL.,

_______________

Respondents.

ON PETITION FOR A WRIT OF CERTIORARI

TO THE UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS

FOR THE SEVENTH CIRCUIT

_______________

BRIEF FOR AMERICAN TRUCKING

ASSOCIATIONS, INC., AS AMICUS CURIAE

SUPPORTING PETITIONER

_______________

RICHARD PIANKA

Counsel of Record

ATA Litigation Center

950 North Glebe Road

Arlington, VA 22203

(703) 838-1889

rpianka@trucking.org

Counsel for Amicus Curiae

TABLE OF CONTENTS

Page

TABLE OF AUTHORITIES...................................... ii

INTEREST OF THE AMICUS CURIAE...................1

INTRODUCTION AND

SUMMARY OF ARGUMENT ....................................2

REASONS FOR GRANTING THE PETITION ........3

I. The Decision Below Is Inconsistent with This

Court’s Precedents. ...............................................3

A. The Dormant Commerce Clause Prohibits

States from Imposing Non-Discriminatory

but Excessive Burdens on Interstate Commerce. ...............................................................3

B. Congress Must Make Its Intent to Exempt

States from Compliance with The Dormant

Commerce Clause “Unmistakably Clear.” ......5

II. The Questions Presented in This Case Are Vitally Important to the Trucking Industry, and

to the National Economy That Relies on Trucking for the Efficient Movement of Goods............11

A. Imposing a Patchwork of State and Local

Wage and Hour Laws on Interstate Trucking Would Massively Burden Interstate

Commerce. .....................................................11

B. The United States Recently Recognized the

Serious Burden on Interstate Commerce

Posed by Application of Similar State Laws

to Commercial Drivers Who Move Goods in

Interstate Commerce. ....................................16

CONCLUSION .........................................................19

ii

TABLE OF AUTHORITIES

Page(s)

Cases

Am. Trucking Ass’ns, Inc. v. United States,

344 U.S. 298 (1953) .............................................14

Bibb v. Navajo Freight Lines,

359 U.S. 520 (1959) ...............................................5

C & A Carbone, Inc. v. Town of Clarkstown,

511 U.S. 383 (1994) ...............................................8

Dynamex Operations W. v. Sup. Ct.,

416 P.3d 1 (Cal. 2018) .........................................14

Garcia v. Border Transp. Group, LLC, 239 Cal.

Rptr. 3d 360 (Cal. Dist. Ct. App. 2018) ..............14

Granholm v. Heald,

544 U.S. 460 (2005) ...........................................6, 7

Kassel v. Consol. Freightways Corp.,

450 U.S. 662 (1980) ...............................................4

Lewis v. BT Inv. Managers, Inc.,

447 U.S. 27 (1980) .............................................5, 8

Maine v. Taylor,

477 U.S. 131 (1986) ...........................................6, 7

Merrion v. Jicarilla Apache Tribe,

455 U.S. 130 (1982) .............................................10

Morgan v. Virginia,

328 U.S. 373 (1946) ...........................................4, 5

Ne. Bancorp v. Bd. of Governors of the Fed. Res.

Sys., 472 U.S. 159 (1985) ......................................9

iii

TABLE OF AUTHORITIES

(continued)

Page(s)

New England Power Co. v. New Hampshire,

455 U.S. 331 (1982) ................................. 6, 7, 8, 10

Park Pet Shop, Inc. v. City of Chicago,

872. F.3d 495 (7th Cir. 2017) ................................4

Philadelphia v. New Jersey,

437 U.S. 617 (1978) ...............................................4

Pike v. Bruce Church, Inc.,

397 U.S. 137 (1970) ......................... 3, 4, 17, 18, 19

Prudential Ins. Co. v. Benjamin,

328 U.S. 408 (1946) ...............................................9

Raymond Motor Transp., Inc. v. Rice,

434 U.S. 429 (1977) ...........................................4, 5

S.G. Borello & Sons v. Dept. of Indus. Relations,

769 P.2d 399 (Cal. 1989) .....................................14

S. Pac. Co. v. Arizona ex rel. Sullivan,

325 U.S. 761 (1945) ...............................................6

South Central Timber Dev., Inc. v. Wunnicke,

467 U.S. 82 (1984) .........................................6, 7, 8

Sporhase v. Nebraska ex rel. Douglas,

458 U.S. 941 (1982) ...............................................8

United States v. Pub. Utils. Comm’n of Cal.,

345 U.S. 295 (1953) ...........................................6, 8

W. & S. Life Ins. Co. v. State Bd. of Equalization

of Cal., 451 U.S. 648 (1981) ..................................9

iv

TABLE OF AUTHORITIES

(continued)

Page(s)

White v. Massachusetts Council of Constr.

Employers, Inc., 460 U.S. 204 (1983) ...................9

Wyoming v. Oklahoma,

502 U.S. 437 (1992) ...........................................6, 7

Statutes and Regulations

49 C.F.R. § 1.87(f) .....................................................17

49 C.F.R. § 376 .........................................................13

23 U.S.C. § 127 .........................................................16

29 U.S.C. § 218(a) .....................................................10

49 U.S.C. § 5112 .......................................................17

49 U.S.C. § 14102 .....................................................13

49 U.S.C. § 14501(c)(1) .............................................16

49 U.S.C. § 31111(b) .................................................16

49 U.S.C. § 31114 .....................................................17

49 U.S.C. § 31141 ...............................................17, 18

Kan. Stat. Ann. § 44-503c ........................................14

Kan. Stat. Ann. § 44-703(i)(4)(Y) .............................14

Safe, Accountable, Flexible, Efficient

Transportation Equity Act: A Legacy for Users,

119 Stat. 1144 (2005) ..........................................17

Other Authorities

American Trucking Associations, American

Trucking Trends 2018 .........................................11

v

TABLE OF AUTHORITIES

(continued)

Page(s)

California Dept. of Trans., Fast Freight Facts:

Commercial Vehicles (Trucks) ............................12

Ex Parte No. MC 43 (Sub-No. 12), Leasing Rules

Modifications,

47 Fed. Reg. 53,858 (Nov. 30, 1982) ...................13

Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration,

2018 Pocket Guide to Large Truck and Bus

Statistics ..............................................................15

Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration, California’s Meal and Rest Break Rules for Commercial Motor Vehicle Drivers; Petition for Determination of Preemption,

83 Fed. Reg. 67,470 (Dec. 28, 2018) ....... 16, 17, 18

INTEREST OF THE AMICUS CURIAE*

American Trucking Associations, Inc. (ATA), is the

national association of the trucking industry. Its direct membership includes approximately 1,800 trucking companies and in conjunction with 50 affiliated

state trucking organizations, it represents over 30,000

motor carriers of every size, type, and class of motor

carrier operation. The motor carriers represented by

ATA haul a significant portion of the freight transported by truck in the United States and virtually all

of them operate in interstate commerce among the

States. ATA regularly represents the common interests of the trucking industry in courts throughout the

nation, including this Court.

ATA’s members send drivers into every State in

the nation, and nearly if not all of its local jurisdictions. As a result, those companies face a similar “logistical nightmare” as petitioners here in contending

with the burden of an expansive patchwork of state

and local employment laws and regulations. The decision below precludes Commerce Clause scrutiny of the

resulting burdens unless the laws in question discriminate against interstate commerce, no matter the

magnitude of their burden, and immunizes even discriminatory state and local minimum wage laws from

* Counsel for petitioners and respondents received timely no-

tice of the intent to file this brief, and both parties have consented to its filing. See Rule 37.2(a). Pursuant to Rule 37.6,

amicus states that no counsel for any party has authored this

brief in whole or in part, and no person or entity, other than

amicus, its members, or their counsel has made any monetary

contributions intended to fund the preparation or submission

of this brief.

2

that scrutiny. That result jeopardizes the ability of interstate motor carriers to efficiently move freight

throughout the nation. Thus, ATA and its members

have a strong interest in the questions presented in

this petition, and in ensuring that the Constitution’s

safeguards against excessive burdens on interstate

commerce are not undermined.

INTRODUCTION AND

SUMMARY OF ARGUMENT

The trucking industry—which, by its very nature,

requires motor carriers to traverse a multitude of

state and local jurisdictions every day—depends on a

regulatory environment that is in large measure nationally uniform, in order to effectively move the nation’s freight. For motor carriers, the dormant Commerce Clause is an important safeguard for maintaining that uniformity, by placing limits on the ability of

state and local governments to burden interstate commerce.

The decision below greatly undermines that constitutional restraint. If allowed to stand, it would effectively allow state and local governments to impose

whatever burdens on interstate commerce that they

wish—no matter how great, and with no consideration

of whether countervailing local benefits outweigh

those burdens—provided only that the burdens do not

discriminate against interstate commerce. And it

would allow even discriminatory state and local burdens on interstate commerce in the many areas of law

where Congress has included a standard “saving”

clause in a preemption statute.

3

But the decision below is wrong. It cannot be

squared with this Court’s cases prohibiting non-discriminatory but excessive burdens on interstate commerce. And its approach to the question of congressional authorization for states to ignore the constraints otherwise imposed by the Commerce Clause

turns this Court’s clear statement rule on its head.

The Seventh Circuit’s approach to the dormant Commerce Clause, if allowed to stand, presents a serious

impediment to the ability of transportation companies

to operate in interstate commerce, and in particular,

to the ability of motor carriers to effectively and efficiently move the bulk of the nation’s freight. Those

dangers warrant this Court’s review.

REASONS FOR GRANTING THE PETITION

I. The Decision Below Is Inconsistent with This

Court’s Precedents.

A. The Dormant Commerce Clause Prohibits

States from Imposing Non-Discriminatory

but Excessive Burdens on Interstate Commerce.

As petitioners explain in detail, the decision below

is out of step both with this Court’s precedents and the

decisions of the other circuits in holding that the

dormant Commerce Clause allows state and local governments to impose whatever burdens on interstate

commerce they wish, so long as they do so in a manner

that doesn’t discriminate against interstate commerce. Pet. 13-22. That holding, if allowed to stand,

would render the framework this Court articulated in

Pike v. Bruce Church, Inc., 397 U.S. 137 (1970), effectively a dead letter within the Seventh Circuit. In

Pike, the Court held that when a state law affects in-

4

terstate commerce but “regulates even-handedly to effectuate a legitimate local public interest … it will be

upheld unless the burden imposed on [interstate] commerce is clearly excessive in relation to the putative

local benefits.” Id. at 142. The court below, however,

held that “‘Pike balancing is triggered only when the

challenged law discriminates against interstate commerce in practical application.’” App. 10a (quoting

Park Pet Shop, Inc. v. City of Chicago, 872. F.3d 495,

502 (7th Cir. 2017). But because the Pike balancing

test, by the Court’s own terms, is invoked only when

the challenged law regulates “even-handedly”—and

because “a virtually per se rule of invalidity has been

erected” against state laws that do discriminate

against interstate commerce, Philadelphia v. New

Jersey, 437 U.S. 617, 624 (1978)—the Seventh Circuit’s holding makes the Pike balancing test superfluous.

The decision below is also inconsistent with this

Court’s repeated recognition—in the specific context

of state regulation of interstate transportation—that

even non-discriminatory burdens on interstate commerce are subject to dormant Commerce Clause scrutiny, and impermissible if the burdens are sufficiently

serious, because of the particular “need for national

uniformity in the regulation of interstate travel.” Morgan v. Virginia, 328 U.S. 373, 386 (1946). With that

principle in mind, the Court has repeatedly struck

down state burdens on motor carriers, even when the

state regulation at issue did not discriminate against

interstate commerce. See Kassel v. Consol. Freightways Corp., 450 U.S. 662, 671 (1980) (concluding, under Pike, that “Iowa truck-length limitations unconstitutionally burden interstate commerce”) (plurality); Raymond Motor Transp., Inc. v. Rice, 434 U.S.

429, 447 (1977) (holding that Wisconsin truck-length

5

limitations and prohibition on double-trailer trucks

violate the Commerce Clause “because they place a

substantial burden on interstate commerce,” and

weighing that against only “the most speculative contribution to highway safety”); id. at 443 (rejecting argument that “no showing of burden on interstate commerce is sufficient to invalidate local safety regulations in absence of some element of discrimination

against interstate commerce” (internal quotation

marks and citation omitted)); Bibb v. Navajo Freight

Lines, 359 U.S. 520, 529 (1959) (striking “nondiscriminatory” Illinois truck mudflap requirement as “an unconstitutional burden on interstate commerce”); Morgan, 328 U.S. at 386 (striking Virginia requirement of

racial segregation on buses, because “seating arrangements … in interstate motor travel require a single,

uniform rule to promote and protect national travel”).

The holding of the decision below would have shielded

the challenged state laws in these cases from dormant

Commerce Clause scrutiny altogether, and thus cannot be squared with this Court’s consistent approach

to burdens imposed by States on motor carriers transporting goods or passengers in interstate commerce.

B. Congress Must Make Its Intent to Exempt

States from Compliance with The

Dormant Commerce Clause “Unmistakably Clear.”

The dormant Commerce Clause “limits the power

of the States to erect barriers against interstate

trade.” Lewis v. BT Inv. Managers, Inc., 447 U.S. 27,

25 (1980). This Court has recognized, however, that

Congress, in its constitutional role as the regulator of

interstate commerce, has the authority to lift the restrictions of the dormant Commerce Clause and “permit the states to regulate the commerce in a manner

6

which would otherwise not be permissible.” S. Pac. Co.

v. Arizona ex rel. Sullivan, 325 U.S. 761, 769 (1945).

But the Court has made clear time and again that special interpretive constraints limit the exercise of this

authority: “Congress must manifest its unambiguous

intent before a federal statute will be read to permit

or approve … violation of the Commerce Clause.” Wyoming v. Oklahoma, 502 U.S. 437, 458 (1992) (emphasis added). Although the Court has not required the

use of any particular “talismanic” words to satisfy this

requirement, it has insisted that, “for a state regulation to be removed from the reach of the dormant

Commerce Clause, congressional intent must be unmistakably clear.” South Central Timber Dev., Inc. v.

Wunnicke, 467 U.S. 82, 91 (1984) (emphasis added).

This means that “the legislative history or language

of the statute [must] evince[] a congressional intent ‘to

alter the limits of state power otherwise imposed by

the Commerce Clause.’” New England Power Co. v.

New Hampshire, 455 U.S. 331, 341 (1982) (quoting

United States v. Pub. Utils. Comm’n of Cal., 345 U.S.

295, 304 (1953)). The Court has stated this rule repeatedly—and in the most forceful terms. See, e.g.,

Granholm v. Heald, 544 U.S. 460, 482 (2005) (requiring “clear congressional intent to depart” from Commerce Clause principles); Maine v. Taylor, 477 U.S.

131, 139 (1986) (text of the statute or legislative history must indicate that “Congress wished to validate

state laws that would be unconstitutional without federal approval”).

This standard—that Congress must “affirmatively

contemplate otherwise invalid state legislation,” Wunnicke, 467 U.S. at 91 (emphasis added)—“is mandated

by the policies underlying dormant Commerce Clause

doctrine,” id. at 92. Specifically,

7

[u]nrepresented interests will often bear the

brunt of regulations imposed by one State having significant effect on persons or operations in

other States. … On the other hand, when Congress acts, all segments of the country are represented, and there is significantly less danger

that one State will be in a position to exploit

others. Furthermore, if a State is in such a position, the decision to allow it is a collective one.

A rule requiring a clear expression of approval

by Congress ensures that there is, in fact, such

a collective decision and reduces significantly

the risk that unrepresented interests will be

adversely affected by restraints on commerce.

Ibid. Accordingly, “when Congress has not expressly stated its intent and policy to sustain state

legislation from attack under the Commerce Clause,

[the courts] have no authority to rewrite its legislation

based on mere speculation as to what Congress ‘probably had in mind.’” New England Power, 455 U.S. at

343 (quotation marks and citation omitted).

Given the clarity of this principle, it is no surprise

that this Court has repeatedly rejected arguments

that Congress evinced the requisite intent to exempt

state action from the Commerce Clause.1 By contrast,

1 See, e.g., Granholm, 544 U.S. at 482 (Webb-Kenyon Act did

not express “clear congressional intent to depart from the

principle … that discrimination against out-of-state goods is

disfavored”) (citations omitted); Wyoming v. Oklahoma, 502

U.S. at 457-58 (Federal Power Act does not contain a sufficiently “unambiguous” indication of congressional intent to

“exempt from scrutiny under the Commerce Clause” Oklahoma’s requirement that Oklahoma power plants buy at least

10% of their coal from mines in Oklahoma); Maine v. Taylor,

477 U.S. at 138-40 (“Maine identifies nothing in the text or

8

legislative history of the [1981 Lacey Act] Amendments that

suggests [that] Congress wished to validate state laws that

would be unconstitutional without federal approval.”); Wunnicke, 467 U.S. at 92-93 (federal restrictions on export of unprocessed timber harvested from federal lands in Alaska were

not an unmistakably clear indication of congressional intent

to authorize Alaska to impose a ban on the export of unprocessed timber from state lands); Sporhase v. Nebraska ex rel.

Douglas, 458 U.S. 941, 959-60 (1982) (finding no congressional authorization for state restrictions on extraction of

ground water for export out of state because, although congressional statutes “demonstrate Congress’ deference to state

water law, they do not indicate that Congress wished to remove federal constitutional constraints on such state laws”);

New England Power, 455 U.S. at 341 (finding no congressional authorization for state restrictions on interstate power

transmission because “[n]othing in the legislative history or

language of the [Federal Power Act] evinces a congressional

intent to alter the limits of state power otherwise imposed by

the Commerce Clause”) (quotation marks omitted); Lewis, 447

U.S. at 48 (“[W]e find nothing in [the] language or legislative

history [of the Bank Holding Company Act of 1956] to support

the contention that it also was intended to extend to the

States new powers to regulate banking that they would not

have possessed absent the federal legislation.”); Pub. Utils.

Comm’n, 345 U.S. at 304 (finding no congressional authorization for state regulation of interstate power transmission because the statute at issue “indicate[d] no consideration or desire to alter the limits of state power otherwise imposed by

the Commerce Clause” and was “not based on any recognition

of the constitutional barrier”); see also C & A Carbone, Inc. v.

Town of Clarkstown, 511 U.S. 383, 408-10 (1994) (O’Connor,

J., concurring) (although references in Resource Conservation

and Recovery Act and its legislative history “indicate that

Congress expected local governments to implement some form

of flow control, … they neither individually nor cumulatively

rise to the level of the ‘explicit’ authorization [of exportation

of waste to other states] required by our dormant Commerce

Clause decisions”).

9

the Court has found that Congress displaced dormant

Commerce Clause requirements on only a handful of

occasions, in cases that fall into two categories.

First, this Court has found congressional authorization where the text of the statute expressly permits

states to exceed what would otherwise be the Commerce Clause’s restrictions on state authority, as in

the cases involving the McCarran-Ferguson Act. See

Prudential Ins. Co. v. Benjamin, 328 U.S. 408, 427

(1946) (McCarran-Ferguson Act authorized states to

regulate and tax the insurance business notwithstanding the Commerce Clause by declaring that “‘the

continued regulation and taxation by the several

States of the business of insurance is in the public interest, and that silence on the part of the Congress

shall not be construed to impose any barrier to the

regulation or taxation of such business by the several

States’”) (quoting 15 U.S.C. § 1011); see also W. & S.

Life Ins. Co. v. State Bd. of Equalization of Cal., 451

U.S. 648, 654-55 (1981).

Second, the Court has found such authorization

when Congress itself was responsible for the limitation on interstate commerce, but expressly provided a

role for state or local governments in implementing

them. See Ne. Bancorp v. Bd. of Governors of the Fed.

Res. Sys., 472 U.S. 159, 174 (1985) (Bank Holding

Company Act authorized States to implement limited

waivers of a ban on acquisition of banks across state

lines that had itself been enacted by Congress, as an

affirmative exercise of its power under the Commerce

Clause); White v. Massachusetts Council of Constr.

Employers, Inc., 460 U.S. 204, 213 (1983) (Congress

and Department of Housing and Urban Development

regulations governing use of federal funds “affirma-

10

tively permit[ted]” state and local “parochial favoritism”); Merrion v. Jicarilla Apache Tribe, 455 U.S. 130,

155-56 (1982) (Commerce Clause limits were displaced because “Congress … affirmatively acted by

providing a series of federal checkpoints that must be

cleared,” rendering the challenged tribal tax “significantly different,” in dormant Commerce Clause terms,

from a state measure “which does not need specific

federal approval to take effect”).

The Fair Labor Standards Act preemption saving

clause that the court below relied on, 29 U.S.C.

§ 218(a), has nothing in common with the narrow categories of enactments in which this Court has found a

congressional override of the Commerce Clause’s constraints on States. It makes no clear reference to constitutional restrictions on state authority (much less

to lifting those restrictions), and involves no federal

restrictions on interstate commerce that States are affirmatively empowered to implement. Rather, as petitioners explain, such clauses are exceedingly common.

Pet. at 31. The Seventh Circuit’s holding that such a

standard saving clause in effect constitutes “unmistakably clear” congressional intent to free states from

constitutional limits on their ability to burden interstate commerce (rather than “simply to define the extent of the federal legislation’s pre-emptive effect on

state law,” New England Power, 455 U.S. at 341 (emphasis added)) would free States to not just to impose

whatever burdens non-discriminatory burdens they

wish on interstate commerce, but to intentionally discriminate against interstate commerce with impunity

in those many areas where Congress has enacted a

preemption saving clause.

11

II. The Questions Presented in This Case Are Vitally Important to the Trucking Industry,

and to the National Economy That Relies on

Trucking for the Efficient Movement of

Goods.

Petitioners, and the district court below, explain in

detail the many ways in which the application of the

state and local wage and hour laws at issue in this

case to the airline’s flight attendants would constitute

a massive burden on interstate commerce. Pet. 7-11,

App. 41a-47a. But it’s not just the airline industry

that would be subject to the “logistical nightmare,”

App. 47a, posed by the plaintiffs’ claims. All of these

burdens would similarly affect the trucking industry

as well—and in a number of respects would impose an

even higher burden. And because the national economy relies overwhelmingly on the trucking industry

to efficiently move goods in interstate commerce,

those burdens will inevitably be felt throughout the

supply chain. See American Trucking Associations,

American Trucking Trends 2018 at 5 (in 2017, trucks

moved 70.2% of total primary shipment domestic tonnage, and accounted for 79.3% of the nation’s primary

shipment freight bill).

A. Imposing a Patchwork of State and Local

Wage and Hour Laws on Interstate Trucking Would Massively Burden Interstate

Commerce.

1. As the district court below explained, “if state

and local wage laws could apply to SkyWest [flight attendants], SkyWest would be forced to determine

which state and local wage laws apply based on the

precise amount of time each [flight attendant] spends

in each locale, and then comply with a different set of

12

wage laws on a weekly, daily, or even hourly basis.”

Pet. App. 46a-47a. Trucking companies, who similarly

send their drivers around the country—indeed, to virtually every jurisdiction in which people live—would

have to do the same. This would entail more than just

tracking the amount of time each driver spends in

each jurisdiction. It would also entail determining

whether each jurisdiction’s wage and hour laws purported to apply under the circumstances, and, if so,

what the substantive obligations of those laws were.

It would require monitoring each of those jurisdictions’ legislatures and regulatory agencies for relevant changes in the law, and its courts for new decisions that clarify or modify how the jurisdiction’s rules

are interpreted and applied. And, of course, it would

mean complying with those proliferating sets of substantive obligations, against a background of irregular routes and schedules that often result in little or

no consistency from one week to the next, in terms of

the jurisdictions a given driver will traverse. In short,

it presents the same “logistical nightmare” for trucking as it does for the airlines.

2. In many respects, the burden on the trucking industry would be even heavier than it is for the airline

industry.

a. For all practical purposes, trucks move goods to

every inhabited corner of the nation—any jurisdiction

where people live and buy groceries, clothes, fuel,

medicine, or consumer goods is overwhelmingly likely

to be served by the trucking industry. In fact, the vast

majority of communities in the U.S. rely exclusively on

trucks for their freight needs. See, e.g., California

Dept. of Trans., Fast Freight Facts: Commercial Vehicles (Trucks) at 1 (“[t]rucks serve virtually all mar-

13

kets,” and “[o]ver 78 percent of all California communities depend exclusively on trucks to move their

goods”), available at http://www.dot.ca.gov/hq/tpp/offices/ogm/fact_sheets/Fast_Freight_Facts_Trucks_

bk_040612.pdf.

Thus, while airlines send their flight attendants

over an indisputably complex network of routes, those

routes have a set of endpoints—namely, airports—

that is large in absolute terms but relatively constrained and predictable compared to the endpoints of

motor carrier networks. While an airline, in other

words, contends with a very large number of jurisdictional permutations, the permutations faced by the

trucking industry are essentially limitless—and under the Seventh Circuit’s ruling, the burden of the

trucking industry’s “logistical nightmare” of having to

track their obligations under the wage and hour laws

of each of those jurisdictions would be exponentially

greater.

b. The trucking industry’s extensive reliance on independent contractors would give rise to an additional

layer of burdens under the Seventh Circuit’s approach. Many motor carriers contract with “owner-operators”—independent businesspersons who own one

or more trucks and lease them to motor carriers, and

either operate them themselves or supply drivers,

pursuant to 49 U.S.C. § 14102 and related regulations

set forth at 49 C.F.R. § 376. This practice has a history

essentially as long as the industry itself. See Ex Parte

No. MC 43 (Sub-No. 12), Leasing Rules Modifications,

47 Fed. Reg. 53,858, 53,860 (Nov. 30, 1982) (“Prior to

the Motor Carrier Act of 1935, motor carriers regularly performed authorized operations in non-owned

vehicles. To a large extent, ownership of these vehicles

was vested in the persons who drove them, commonly

14

referred to as owner-operators.”); see also Am. Trucking Ass’ns, Inc. v. United States, 344 U.S. 298, 303

(1953) (“Carriers … have increasingly turned to

owner-operator truckers to satisfy their need for

equipment as their service demands.”).

States, of course, have their own tests to determine

whether workers are employees or independent contractors. And a single State will often have different

approaches to worker classification for different purposes—e.g., for application of their minimum wage

laws, their unemployment insurance programs, and

their workers’ compensation programs. To take just

one example, the California Supreme Court last year

announced a so-called “ABC” test for distinguishing

between employees and independent contractors for

purposes of the State’s Wage Orders (which govern

matters such as minimum wage, breaks, and wage

statement requirements), Dynamex Operations W. v.

Sup. Ct., 416 P.3d 1, 10-11 (Cal. 2018), while for other

purposes the State adheres to the so-called Borello

multi-factor balancing test, Garcia v. Border Transp.

Group, LLC, 239 Cal. Rptr. 3d 360, 371 (Cal. Dist. Ct.

App. 2018) (citing S.G. Borello & Sons v. Dept. of Indus. Relations, 769 P.2d 399 (Cal. 1989)). And some

States have industry-specific classification rules (including, in some cases, rules specific to truck owneroperators). See, e.g., Kan. Stat. Ann. § 44-503c (owneroperator classification test for workers’ compensation

purposes); Kan. Stat. Ann. § 44-703(i)(4)(Y) (different

owner-operator classification test for unemployment

insurance purposes).

The upshot, against the background of the decision

below, is that no matter how great the burden, many

motor carriers would not just have to reckon with the

substantive obligations of the employment laws of the

15

jurisdictions they serve: carriers who work with

owner-operators would also have to make separate,

fact-specific threshold determinations as to whether a

given owner-operator was an independent contractor

or an employee, for each relevant purpose in each

State the owner-operator works. Adding to the complexity, given the variation in classification tests, carriers would inevitably find themselves facing the burden of treating the same owner-operator as an employee in one State in which they work, but an independent contractor in the next.

c. Finally, in contrast to the airline industry, the

trucking industry consists overwhelmingly of small

businesses: over 89% of interstate motor carriers operate ten or fewer trucks, and less than one percent of

carriers operate 100 or more trucks. See Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration, 2018 Pocket Guide

to Large Truck and Bus Statistics at 1-11, available at

https://www.fmcsa.dot.gov/sites/fmcsa.dot.gov/files/

docs/safety/data-and-statistics/413361/fmcsa-pocketguide-2018-final-508-compliant-1.pdf.

The small

trucking companies that make up the bulk of the industry are unlikely to have dedicated human resources teams, much less an in-house legal department, to sort through the “logistical nightmare” presented by the patchwork of state and local employment laws they are exposed to under the Seventh Circuit’s decision.

The burdens at issue here would be immense for

an airline or a large trucking company; for a small

trucking company, they would be insurmountable.

And it would represent an enormous disincentive for

smaller motor carriers in particular to accept loads

headed to unfamiliar destinations, or to expand their

businesses by providing freight-hauling services in

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new regions. Given the central role of the trucking industry in moving the nation’s freight, that disincentive itself represents a serious burden on the efficient

movement of goods in interstate commerce.

B. The United States Recently Recognized

the Serious Burden on Interstate Commerce Posed by Application of Similar

State Laws to Commercial Drivers Who

Move Goods in Interstate Commerce.

As recently as late last year, the United States expressly recognized the burden on interstate commerce

that application of similar state employment laws to

interstate motor carriers poses, in a closely related

context. See Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration, California’s Meal and Rest Break Rules for

Commercial Motor Vehicle Drivers; Petition for Determination of Preemption, 83 Fed. Reg. 67,470 (Dec. 28,

2018).2 As part of a broad legislative arrangement

through which Congress has sought to foster a nationally uniform environment for the trucking industry

and prevent state and local governments from interfering with the ability of motor carriers to efficiently

move goods in interstate commerce,3 a provision of the

2 That agency action is currently the subject of several pend-

ing petitions for review. See Int’l Bhd. of Teamsters, Local

2785 v. FMCSA, No. 18-73488 (9th Cir.); Int’l Bhd. of Teamsters v. FMCSA, No. 19-70323 (9th Cir.); Labor Comm’r v.

FMCSA, No. 19-70329 (9th Cir.); Ly v. FMCSA, No. 19-70413

(9th Cir.).

3 See, e.g., 49 U.S.C. § 14501(c)(1) (preempting any state or

local “law, regulation, or other provision having the force and

effect of law related to a price, route, or service of any motor

carrier”); 49 U.S.C. § 31111(b) (requiring state law to conform

with federal guidelines concerning commercial vehicle

length); 23 U.S.C. § 127 (conditioning highway funds on state

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Motor Carrier Safety Act of 1984, 49 U.S.C. § 31141,

prohibits states from enforcing laws or regulations on

commercial motor vehicle safety under certain circumstances—in relevant part, if the Department of

Transportation determines that the state law or regulation is “additional to or more stringent than” the corresponding federal regulation and “would cause an

unreasonable burden on interstate commerce” if it

were enforced against interstate carriers. 49 U.S.C.

§ 31141(c)(4)(C).

In its recent determination, the Federal Motor

Carrier Safety Administration (FMCSA)—the agency

within the Department of Transportation to which review under § 31141 has been delegated, 49 C.F.R.

§ 1.87(f)—having first concluded that California’s

rules governing employee breaks were rules “on commercial motor vehicle safety” subject to review

§ 31141 when applied to commercial drivers subject to

the agency’s own safety-focused rules on driver hours,

expressly turned to Pike for the proper framework to

evaluate whether California’s employee meal and rest

conformity with federal guidelines concerning commercial vehicle weight); 49 U.S.C. § 31114 (prohibiting States from unreasonably limiting access of motor carriers traveling on the

federal highway system to off-highway terminals, points of

loading and unloading, and facilities for food, fuel, and rest);

49 U.S.C. § 5112 (requiring state restrictions on highway

routing of hazardous materials to comply with standards

promulgated by the Department of Transportation). See also

Safe, Accountable, Flexible, Efficient Transportation Equity

Act: A Legacy for Users, 119 Stat. 1144, 1761-74 (2005) (creating a Uniform Carrier Registration System to act as a clearinghouse and depository for various documentation, so that

interstate motor carriers would not be subject to the varying

requirements of individual States).

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break rules, as applied to interstate truck drivers, unreasonably burdened interstate commerce. As

FMCSA put it, “it is well settled that the Agency

should consider whether the burden imposed is clearly

excessive in relation to the putative local benefits derived from the State law.” 83 Fed. Reg. at 67,478 (citing Pike, 397 U.S. at 142). As part of that analysis, it

“‘consider[ed] the effect on interstate commerce of implementation of that law or regulation with the implementation of all similar laws and regulations of other

States.’” Id. at 67,479 (quoting 49 U.S.C.

§ 31141(c)(5)). FMCSA observed that “the diversity of

State regulation of required meal and rest breaks for

[commercial motor vehicle] drivers has resulted in a

patchwork of requirements,” and acknowledged both

“the difficulty navigating them” and the “operating

procedure adjustments and other administrative burdens that result from varying State requirements

which serve to disrupt the flow of interstate commerce.” Id. at 67,480. It concluded that enforcing California’s employee break rules with respect to interstate drivers “decreases productivity and results in increased administrative burden and costs,” and that it

is “an unreasonable burden on interstate commerce

for motor carriers to have to cull through the varying

State requirements, in addition to Federal [regulations governing commercial drivers’ work hours], to

remain in compliance.” Ibid.

To be sure, FMCSA’s recent determination was an

application of an express preemption statute, rather

than of the dormant Commerce Clause. But that matter, just like this case, involved the burden that would

be imposed by requiring interstate transportation industries to adhere to a patchwork of employment

laws. FMCSA recognized that, under the Pike framework, even a single type of state employment rules—

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rules on employee breaks—impose an impermissible

burden on interstate commerce when they are applied

to interstate motor carriers. That determination is, to

say the least, in considerable tension with the Seventh

Circuit’s conclusion that Pike and the dormant Commerce Clause are indifferent to the burdens imposed

on the transportation industries by the full panoply of

state and local employment laws.

CONCLUSION

For the foregoing reasons, and those stated in the

petition for writ of certiorari, the petition should be

granted.

Respectfully submitted.

RICHARD PIANKA

Counsel of Record

ATA Litigation Center

950 North Glebe Road

Arlington, VA 22203

(703) 838-1889

rpianka@trucking.org

Counsel for Amicus Curiae

March 25, 2019