Court Backs ATA on SoCal Ports’ Truck Plan
A federal appeals court ruled Friday in favor of an American Trucking Associations appeal that a plan put in place by the Southern California ports of Long Beach and Los Angeles to regulate trucking violates federal law.
Plan provisions interfere with the federal government’s right to regulate interstate commerce, the San Francisco-based Ninth U.S. Court of Appeals ruled in sending the case back to federal district court for reconsideration.
“We are extremely pleased with the decision,” said Robert Digges, ATA’s chief counsel. “The judges understood that most of the elements of the plans are not about safety, but rather are a regulatory effort by the ports to create what they believe would be a more efficient drayage system.”
“The court clearly understood the plight of the motor carriers and the no-win situation that the concession plans present them — refuse to comply and lose their customers and possibly their businesses or comply and bear the costs of totally restructuring their business model,” Digges said in a statement.
While the court stopped short of granting ATA’s request for a preliminary injunction, it ruled it was “satisfied that the balance of equities and the public interest do weigh in favor of a preliminary injunction in this case as to at least portions of the [ports’] concession agreements.”
In its appeal of an earlier ruling denying a preliminary injunction, ATA had said the ports should not be able to implement their concession requirements because they “unlawfully regulated the federally deregulated trucking industry.”
But in Friday’s ruling, the court said both of the two concessions plans “is likely to result in at least some irreparable harm to the motor carriers, and, on balance, the district court abused its discretion when it denied a preliminary injunction as to significant parts of the agreements.”
While it did not oppose the plan to ban old trucks from the two ports, ATA filed a lawsuit in district court in Los Angeles in July attempting to block implementation of the business model being used — particularly one at the Port of Los Angeles that banned independent operators from drayage operations.
A Port of Long Beach official said in a statement that the ruling does not change the legal status of the program “or any other requirements currently in effect at the port.”
“The port will continue to study the decision and appropriate next steps of the [appeals court] and anticipates that further proceedings will be held promptly before the district court," said Richard Steinke, the port’s executive director.
By Transport Topics
