The Chartwell Chronicles: Trucking
Case In Point: Recent Developments in Employment Law
On June 27, 2023, Truck on highwaythe Supreme Court of the United States decided Mallory v. Norfolk Southern Railway Co., 600 U.S. 122 (2023). The divided Court upheld a Pennsylvania corporate registration statute which...more
Consistent with an uptick in fraud in the trucking industry, a new scam email started making its rounds to motor carriers the week of July 29, 2024. The email, appearing to be from the Federal Motor Carrier Safety...more
Colorado's scenic highways and bustling urban centers are home to a constant flow of commercial truck traffic. With this heavy presence of large vehicles comes the need for robust laws and regulations to ensure safety for all...more
Suffice it to say that the past year has been a very good year for brokers; in the courts, that is! While there have been several very favorable preemption decisions across the country, the preemption doctrine is not...more
For-hire and private motor carriers face unique compliance and operations challenges that many other business or company functions do not encounter. Operating commercial motor vehicles (CMVs) for your business, or as your...more
Accidents on the roadways are an unfortunate reality in the transportation business. Any carrier that has been in the business long enough, or that has reached a sizeable scale, experiences accidents despite a zealous...more
The Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA) requires that employers pay certain employees one-and-a-half times their regular rate of pay for any hours they work over 40 in a workweek. There are, however, several exemptions from the...more
On January 10, 2024 the U.S. Department of Labor (DOL) published a final rule (29 CFR 795) revising the DOL’s guidance on how to analyze who is an employee or independent contractor under the Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA)....more
The Commercial Vehicle Safety Alliance’s (CVSA) International Roadcheck (Roadcheck) is scheduled for May 14-16, 2024. Roadcheck is an annual high-visibility, high-volume commercial motor vehicle inspection and regulatory...more
In the movie “Blow,” Johnny Depp complains to the Judge about to sentence him for interstate transportation of marijuana that all he did was take some vegetation across an imaginary line. The Judge did not listen. In a...more
Transportation services providers are increasingly facing new technology-oriented threats in day-to-day business. Recent cyberattacks and the potential for serious disruption from threat actors have drawn the attention of the...more
I am a big student of the FLSA motor carrier exemption and have handled many such cases. I often find that a big obstacle for the employer claiming the exemption is to prove that the drivers are engaged in “interstate...more
As March Madness gets underway, a California federal judge has called a flagrant foul and ejected the trucking industry from its ongoing battle to challenge Assembly Bill No. 5 (“AB5”)....more
Double brokering has emerged as a hot topic in this era of supply chain fraud, hostage loads, and cargo theft. The term “double brokerage” is used sweepingly as a reference to a wide range of operational practices where the...more
The “Endorsement for Motor Carrier Policies of Insurance for Public Liability”—thankfully shortened to “MCS-90”—is something of a mysterious figure in transportation litigation. The MCS-90 has its roots in the minimum...more
The Motor Carrier of Property Permit Act (the “MCPPA”) sets forth insurance requirements for commercial motor carriers in California. There is a dearth of legal authority interpreting the MCPPA, which was adopted in 1996....more
In Episode 27 of The Chartwell Chronicles, hosts Colin Davis and Brittany Atkinson are joined by special guest Garner Berry from our Ridgeland, MS office to discuss trucking claims. Colin, Brittany, and Garner cover a variety...more
New guidance from the Biden Administration mandates that freight forwarders are responsible for complying with trade sanctions and export compliance. On December 11, 2023, the Biden Administration released a 10-page sanctions...more
Beginning January 1, 2024, California intrastate motor carriers and drivers will be required to use an electronic logging device (“ELD”) as generally required by the federal ELD regulations adopted under 49 CFR § 395, Subpart...more
Federal law obligates all motor carriers participating in the transportation of property in interstate commerce for hire to show proof that they have the financial ability to cover any damage they cause to the public. One way...more
UPDATE: As of October 23, 2023, the FMCSA extended the comment period by 30 days to November 29, 2023. The Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration (“FMCSA”) published an advanced notice of proposed rulemaking...more
The Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration (“FMCSA”) published an advanced notice of proposed rulemaking (“APRNM”) and request for comment on Thursday, August 29, 2023, in efforts to fulfill the Motor Carrier Safety Act...more
We regularly receive questions about motor carrier liability under the Carmack Amendment. This standard has been ubiquitous with interstate motor carriage since its enactment in 1906. Still, misunderstandings abound and can...more
Air carrier liability has been governed by international convention nearly since the inception of the technology. In 1903, the Wright Brothers infamously conducted powered flight at Kitty Hawk. In 1919, the first reported...more
Providers and commercial users of transportation services necessarily rely upon the predictability and uniformity afforded by national laws and regulations to support the efficient and reliable supply chains that are so...more