The U.S. Supreme Court this week turned aside J.B. Hunt Transport Inc.’s appeal of a court ruling allowing the class-action suit to move ahead, leaving in place the lower court’s decision that federal transportation law doesn’t preempt California from setting its own rules on how truck drivers are paid and when they must take meal and rest breaks.
The high court without comment said it would not review a ruling by the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit that business and trucking-industry groups said may expand the ability of states to impose their own rules on some parts of trucking operations that involve drivers.
The U.S. Chamber of Commerce and groups representing trucking companies and shipping customers had filed briefs calling on the Supreme Court to overturn the California ruling, which came in a suit that was first filed in 2007.
“We finally get to go to trial on behalf of California drivers,” said Stanley Saltzman, a Los Angeles-based attorney with Marlin & Saltzman, the law firm that launched the case, called Ortega et al v. J.B. Hunt Transport Inc. Saltzman said a trial was scheduled to begin Sept. 25 before a federal judge in Los Angeles.
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