Independent truckers again battle LA port ban in court on June 10

THE American Trucking Associations (ATA) and the Port of Los Angeles will again enter a court battle on June 10 over the legality of the port's clean truck programme which bans independent owner operators from the trade.


The US Court of Appeals for the 9th Circuit, though based in San Francisco will hear the case in the LA area's Pasadena in which the ATA is appealing a Sept 2010 ruling US District Court Judge Christina Snyder which upheld the ban on independent truckers to favour of employee drivers and the big companies that employ them.


Environmentalists, the City of Los Angeles and the Teamsters union also support the ban. Ostensibly, the ban is justified because only big companies can meet the costs of increasingly stringent environmental regulations, though the Teamsters, which cannot unionise independents, can organise employee drivers.


The ATA is challenging the District Court ruling on constitutional grounds that Supremacy Clause in the US Constitution provides that only the federal government can regulate trucks engaged in interstate commerce.


But the earlier judgment quashed the ATA argument on the grounds that the Port of Los Angeles can impose mandates because it falls under the market participant exception to federal pre-emption law and being a participant in the port industry the city is only attempting to protect its commercial interests.


This will be the second time the circuit court has heard the case and it has gone back and forth over the last two years.
(Source:http://www.schednet.com)