OOIDA's fight against AB5 in California dealt another loss
The 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals ruled for the second time that AB5 does not violate various laws that might have kept it from becoming the law of the land in trucking. AB5 has been in effect in numerous other sectors since the start of 2020, though dozens of industries have been granted exceptions from the law.
The court, in a six-page decision handed down Friday, made quick work of the arguments of the Owner-Operator Independent Drivers Association in its appeal of a lower court decision from March 2024 that upheld enforcing AB5 in California trucking.
The OOIDA lawsuit had roots that went back to a 2019 action by the California Trucking Association against AB5, which OOIDA joined as a co-defendant in November 2023. But after the March 2024 defeat, CTA pulled out of the case, leaving OOIDA to fight on alone in an effort that few trucking attorneys saw as likely to succeed.
Legal arguments in OOIDA's effort were different from those in the original push by CTA, which succeeded in putting AB5 on the shelf in trucking for more than two and a half years on the back of a New Year's Eve 2019 injunction. But that lower court injunction was ultimately overturned by the same 9th Circuit court (though with different members on the three-judge panel), and the Supreme Court decision not to review the Circuit Court decision meant that AB5, in the summer of 2022, went into effect in California's trucking market.
Since it joined the case with CTA, OOIDA's emphasis in its push against AB5 was on different legal arguments than the CTA case. But the 9th Circuit affirmed the lower court in just six pages.
The court in its decision did little more than quote earlier precedents on the issues raised by OOIDA.
For example, on the OOIDA claim that AB5 violates the Dormant Commerce Clause of the U.S. Constitution, the appellate court quoted a precedent saying the clause 'is not a roving license for federal courts to decide what activities are appropriate for state and local government to undertake, and what activities must be the province of private market competition.' Quoting another precedent, the panel said the Supreme Court 'has frequently admonished that courts should not second guess the empirical judgments of lawmakers concerning the utility of legislation.'
(As a Harvard Law Review article noted last year, the Dormant Commerce Clause has been interpreted by the Supreme Court 'not only as an affirmative grant of power to Congress but also as a restraint on the legislative authority of states.')
The OOIDA argument has been that AB5 discriminates between intrastate and interstate drivers, violating the Dormant Commerce Clause. But laying out its own arguments, the appellate court said OOIDA 'implicitly concedes … AB5 does not preclude out-of-state drivers from working in California, nor does it favor in-state drivers at the expense of out-of-state drivers. At worst, AB5 restricts what kind of drivers may operate in California.'
OOIDA had argued that the multistep business-to-business exception in AB5 also did not violate the Dormant Commerce Clause. The B2B exception is a high hurdle to meet to prove a driver is truly independent and not effectively an employee.
OOIDA's argument was that the B2B exception can only be achieved by an in-state driver given various federal restrictions. But the appellate court said OOIDA did not make its case how the B2B exception was discriminatory 'when the regulations apply to all drivers engaged in interstate commerce, including California-based drivers.'
The appellate court said there is no conflict with the Equal Protection Clause of the Constitution, because interstate and intrastate drivers are not treated differently.
OOIDA released a statement that it was 'disappointed with this news and assessing options.'
The next step would either be to request the 9th Circuit review the decision en banc – a larger number of judges taking up the appeal – or to appeal for review to the Supreme Court. Getting either an en banc or Supreme Court review hearing has a low chance of success.
A third option would be for OOIDA to view the 9th Circuit decision as the end of the road for the trucking industry's litigation against implementing AB5 in trucking.
AB5 was passed by California lawmakers in 2019 and signed by Gov. Gavin Newsom. Since the day it was signed, trucking's view of the three-step test for determining whether a worker is truly independent or is effectively an employee has focused on the B prong.
That section says an independent worker is one who 'performs work that is outside the usual course of the hiring entity's business.' A driver on a lease plan with a trucking company providing work – trucking – that is the usual course of the hiring entity's business was always seen as likely to trip up some carriers.
But almost three years after the injunction against AB5 in trucking was lifted, there are no known actions by the state against any carriers for AB5 violations, nor lawsuits from aggrieved drivers claiming AB5 violations.
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The post OOIDA's fight against AB5 in California dealt another loss appeared first on FreightWaves.
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The Hill
9 hours ago
- The Hill
Trump's tariffs back in court
An appeals court may soon get in the way of President Trump's trade agenda as his Aug. 1 deadline approaches to impose so-called 'reciprocal' duties on a host of countries. One day ahead of that deadline, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit will convene across the street from the White House to decide whether the bulk of Trump's tariffs are legal. Hanging in the balance at Thursday's oral argument is whether Trump can use an emergency law to justify his sweeping reciprocal tariffs on countries globally and a series of specific levies on Canada, China and Mexico. The Constitution vests Congress with the power to impose tariffs, so Trump can't act unless lawmakers delegated him authority. Trump points to the International Emergency Economic Powers Act (IEEPA), a 1977 law that authorizes the president to impose necessary economic sanctions during an emergency to combat an 'unusual and extraordinary threat.' 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CNN
19 hours ago
- CNN
Trump EPA proposes revoking pollution limits based in part on document authored by 5 climate contrarians
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The 2009 scientific finding at the heart of this repeal has served as the basis of many of the Environmental Protection Agency's most significant regulations to protect human health and environment, and decrease climate pollution from cars, power plants and the oil and gas industry. Zeldin on Tuesday spoke proudly of his agency's move to repeal the endangerment finding as the 'largest deregulatory action in the history of America,' speaking on 'Ruthless,' a conservative podcast, and referred to climate change as dogma rather than science. 'This has been referred to as basically driving a dagger into the heart of the climate change religion,' Zeldin said. In addition to reversing the endangerment finding, the EPA's proposal also seeks to repeal rules that regulate greenhouse gas emissions from vehicles, since they stem from the finding. The Biden EPA sought to tighten those standards to prod the auto industry to make more fuel-efficient hybrids and electric vehicles. The text of the proposal said that while greenhouse gas emissions have continued to rise in the atmosphere, it has been 'driven primarily by increased emissions from foreign sources,' and has happened 'without producing the degree of adverse impacts to public health and welfare in the United States that the EPA anticipated in the 2009 Endangerment Finding.' The US is the world's second largest emitter of greenhouse gases, and historically has emitted more planet-warming pollution than any other country. Many rigorous scientific findings since 2009 have showed both climate pollution and its warming effects are not just harming public health but killing people outright. In the nearly 16 years since the EPA first issued the Supreme Court-ordered endangerment finding, the world has warmed an additional 0.45 degrees Celsius (or 0.81 degrees Fahrenheit) to 1.4 degrees Celsius, according to climate scientist Zeke Hausfather. Numerous international and US scientific findings have found 'increasingly incontrovertible evidence' that humans are causing this warming by burning oil, gas and coal. Even that fraction of a degree, when spread across the planet, has had an enormous impact on our weather, water and food systems. The world is at a dangerous threshold with individual years, including 2024, already exceeding the 1.5-degree guardrail laid out in the Paris Agreement — the point at which scientists believe the effects of climate change will likely be near impossible to reverse. Many climate scientists no longer believe the long-term target of 1.5-degrees is achievable, as fossil fuel pollution continues and the world heads closer to 3 degrees Celsius of warming during this century. Zeldin said during the podcast he believes the scientific finding that climate change threatens human health was a guise used to attack polluting industries, and that the human health finding was 'an oversimplified, I would say inaccurate, way to describe it.' The Trump administration commissioned the new report on climate change and climate science in conjunction with its proposed regulatory repeals, Energy Sec. Chris Wright announced during a Tuesday afternoon press conference. The document calls into question the seriousness of climate impacts and informed EPA's repeal of the endangerment finding, according to the proposal. Wright's Energy Department recently hired three prominent researchers who have questioned and even rejected the overwhelming scientific consensus on human-caused climate change, CNN previously reported — John Christy and Roy Spencer, both research scientists at the University of Alabama at Huntsville, and Steven E. Koonin of Stanford University's Hoover Institution. Christy, Spencer and Koonin are on the byline of the DOE report, along with Canadian economist Ross McKitrick and Georgia Tech professor emeritus Judith Curry — also considered to have opinions on climate change that contradict the scientific consensus. The group took around two months to complete the report. Wright said climate change 'is a real, physical phenomenon' that is 'worthy of study' and 'even some action.' 'But what we have done instead is nothing related to the actual science of climate change or pragmatic ways to make progress,' Wright said. 'The politics of climate change have shrunk your life possibilities, have put your business here at threat.' Hausfather told CNN he was 'surprised' this would be released as an official publication, and said it was notable the Trump administration had selected 'five authors who are well known to have fringe views of climate science' to author it. 'It reads like a blog post — a somewhat scattershot collection of oft-debunked skeptic claims, studies taken out of context, or cherry-picked examples that are not representative of broader climate science research findings,' he said. 'The fact that this has been released at the same time that the government has hidden the actual congressionally mandated national climate assessments that accurately reflect the science only further shows how much of a farce this is.' And Hausfather strongly pushed back the idea that the scientific record shows anything other than climate change presenting danger to humans. The findings of international climate scientists have been reaffirmed in the fourth and fifth US climate assessments, the former of which was released during the first Trump administration. 'Both the scientific certainty around climate change and evidence of the dangers it is causing have grown stronger since 2009,' he said in an email. 'There is no evidence that has emerged or been published in the scientific literature in the past 16 years that would in any way challenge the scientific basis of the 2009 endangerment finding.' Global warming is supercharging extreme weather events such as heavy precipitation, heat waves and wildfires. It is making these extremes more likely, intense and in some cases, longer-lasting. 'These changes in climate have moved out of the domain of pure science into the domain of everyday life,' said Phil Duffy, a climate scientist and former Biden official in the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy. Duffy, who lives in California, said he can now only buy wildfire insurance through the state insurer of last resort — a reality for many Californians as wildfires are increasing in size amid hotter temperatures. 'The evidence (in 2009) was overwhelming, but it's even stronger now,' he said. This story has been updated with additional information. Rene Marsh contributed reporting.
Yahoo
a day ago
- Yahoo
Trading at a 10-year high after good H1 results, is there any value left in Lloyds share price?
Lloyds' (LSE: LLOY) share price is trading up around a level not seen since 20 August 2015. Some investors might see this rise as reason enough not to buy the shares at this price. Others may regard it as evidence of more bullish momentum to come and jump on the bandwagon. However, neither view is conducive to making big profits over time in my experience. This comprises several years as a very senior investment trader and salesman, and more as a private investor. I know that large, long-term returns can come from identifying the difference between a stock's price and its value. And to clarify, price is whatever the market is willing to pay for a share. Value is what that share is worth, based on the key fundamentals of the underlying business. So, is there any value left in Lloyds shares right now? The core business Lloyds' H1 2025 results released on 24 July saw statutory profit before tax rising 5% year on year to £3.5bn. This exceeded analysts' forecasts of £3.2bn. Net interest income was also up 5% at £6.7bn, driven by growth in mortgage lending and current account business. For the remainder of this year, the bank reaffirmed its £13.5bn net interest income forecast. And it did the same for its 13.5% return on tangible equity target. Analysts estimate that Lloyds earnings will rise 15% each year to end-2027. And it is ultimately this growth that powers any business's share price and dividends higher over time. How does the share valuation look? On the price-to-earnings ratio, Lloyds is top of its peer group, trading at 11.6 against an average of 10.1. These banks comprise NatWest at 8.7, Barclays at 9, Standard Chartered at 11.2, and HSBC at 11.3. So, Lloyds is very overvalued on this measure. The same is true on the price-to-book ratio, although less pronounced, with Lloyds at 1 compared to its competitors' average of 0.9. However, it looks fairly valued on its price-to-sales ratio of 2.7 – the same as its peers' average. To get to the bottom of this, I ran a discounted cash flow (DCF) analysis. This determines where any stock's share price should be trading, based on cash flows for the underlying business. As such, it is a standalone valuation independent of comparables and is the most useful in my view. The DCF for Lloyds shows its shares are 44% undervalued right now. Therefore, their fair value is £1.41. My investment view I would never buy a share priced at under £1, as the price volatility would keep me awake at night. In Lloyds' case, every 1p it moves equates to 1.3% of the stock's entire value! Another major risk is the as-yet undetermined amount it may have to pay for its role in mis-selling car insurance. The UK's Supreme Court will give its ruling on motor finance commissions on 1 August. The Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) will then confirm whether it will proceed with a compensation scheme for affected customers. It has said it will give its verdict on these potentially massive awards within six weeks of the Supreme Court's ruling – so, 12 September. For those with a higher risk appetite than I, Lloyds strong earnings growth renders it worth considering, in my view. The post Trading at a 10-year high after good H1 results, is there any value left in Lloyds share price? appeared first on The Motley Fool UK. More reading 5 Stocks For Trying To Build Wealth After 50 One Top Growth Stock from the Motley Fool HSBC Holdings is an advertising partner of Motley Fool Money. Simon Watkins has positions in HSBC Holdings and NatWest Group Plc. The Motley Fool UK has recommended Barclays Plc, HSBC Holdings, Lloyds Banking Group Plc, and Standard Chartered Plc. Views expressed on the companies mentioned in this article are those of the writer and therefore may differ from the official recommendations we make in our subscription services such as Share Advisor, Hidden Winners and Pro. Here at The Motley Fool we believe that considering a diverse range of insights makes us better investors. Motley Fool UK 2025 Error in retrieving data Sign in to access your portfolio Error in retrieving data Error in retrieving data Error in retrieving data Error in retrieving data
