Hunton Employment & Labor Perspectives

In January 2021, the Ninth Circuit upheld a 2018 ruling by the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration (“FMCSA”), which found that federal law preempts California state meal and rest break laws as applied to drivers of property-carrying commercial motor vehicles.  A few months later, the United States Supreme Court denied a petition challenging the Ninth Circuit’s decision.  We previously wrote about the Ninth Circuit’s ruling, and the Supreme Court’s denial, in a post that you can read here.

On October 4, 2021, the United States Supreme Court denied certiorari on a petition challenging the Ninth Circuit’s ruling that California’s strict meal and rest period rules do not apply to commercial truck drivers engaged in interstate commerce.  The Court’s denial of the petition leaves in place a decision that came as a welcome sigh of relief for employers in the trucking industry.

In a huge win for California employers, the California Court of Appeals recently confirmed that courts have discretion to strike claims for penalties under the Private Attorneys General Act of 2004 (“PAGA”) if the claims will be unmanageable at trial.  This decision will help employers defeat—or significantly pare down—the broad and unwieldy claims for PAGA penalties that have become popular with the plaintiffs’ bar.