Dive Transient:
- A federal choose dismissed Thursday a New Mexico trucking firm’s movement to preliminarily enjoin the U.S. Division of Labor’s 2024 unbiased contractor last rule, delivering a regulatory victory to the Biden administration in its last weeks.
- In Colt & Joe Trucking, LLC v. U.S. Division of Labor, the plaintiffs alleged that DOL’s rule precipitated them to finish the employment of considered one of their 4 unbiased owner-operator drivers and left them unable to rent a alternative. Of their Might 2024 criticism, the plaintiffs additionally claimed that DOL lacked the statutory authority to subject the rule, which the corporate alleged was arbitrary, capricious and unconstitutional.
- Choose Kea Riggs sided with DOL, holding that the plaintiffs failed to indicate they had been injured by the rule, due to this fact indicating that they lacked standing to sue DOL. Riggs equally dismissed the plaintiffs statutory and constitutional claims, whereas holding that the plaintiffs “improperly briefed” their arguments about violations of due course of and the Regulatory Flexibility Act.
Dive Perception:
DOL’s rule has up to now prevailed within the courts regardless of a number of makes an attempt to dam it from taking impact. Riggs’ choice joins that of a Georgia federal choose who equally dismissed a problem to the ultimate rule by a bunch of freelance writers and editors final October. The plaintiffs within the case, Warren v. U.S. Division of Labor, have since appealed that call to the eleventh U.S. Circuit Court docket of Appeals.
A separate problem introduced final yr by Louisiana transportation employees who sought a brief restraining order and preliminary injunction of the rule additionally failed when a choose denied each motions. Plaintiffs in that case, Frisard’s Transportation v. U.S. Division of Labor, appealed to the fifth Circuit and the court docket has scheduled oral argument for February.
One more problem, Coalition for Workforce Innovation v. Su, is the continuation of a longstanding authorized battle opposing the Biden administration DOL’s choice to exchange its earlier unbiased contractor customary with the present one proposed within the 2024 last rule. The case is ongoing.
Introduced a couple of yr in the past, the ultimate rule sought to develop the Truthful Labor Requirements Act’s wage-and-hour protections to employees whom the company believes are misclassified as unbiased contractors. The rule established a “totality-of-the-circumstances” framework for evaluating whether or not a employee is correctly categorised as an unbiased contractor.
The Colt & Joe Trucking plaintiffs argued that that they had taken steps to keep away from litigation ensuing from the rule. However Riggs held that these assertions didn’t give rise to standing “as a result of they don’t seem to be particular [facts], however relatively conclusory assumptions about Plaintiff’s future.”
Riggs additionally discovered that DOL didn’t act from a defective authorized premise when promulgating the ultimate rule and correctly accounted for the prices to regulated events when doing so.
