ATA’s aggressive litigation docket provides significant benefits to the trucking industry as a whole. Over the years, the ATA Litigation Center has scored over 150 legal victories for the trucking industry, including wins in almost every area that affects trucking.  Recent successes include a significant victory when the United States Supreme Court affirmed a First Circuit Court of Appeals decision that broadly applied “rates, routes, and services” preemption in striking down burdensome Maine tobacco delivery regulations.  The Court rejected the State’s contention that the preemption provision be limited to only economic regulations and/or that public health laws should not fall under its scope. 

ATA is already utilizing the very positive precedent from the Maine case to support arguments against California’s proposed Clean Trucks Program that prohibits the use of owner-operators to service the ports and over the State’s mandatory meal break provisions.  ATA also continues to make a variety of amicus filings on behalf of its members.  One such amicus brief recently produced a favorable ruling in an Americans with Disability Act case involving the right to apply DOT physical qualification standards (which produced a favorable ruling on employers’ business necessity defense to an ADA claim.  An amicus brief was also recently filed in a North Dakota owner-operator status case.