Legal issues

Three defendants who pleaded guilty in the Louisiana staged accident scam will get probation, not jail time.

The California Trucking Association is making its pitch for another injunction to keep AB5 out of the state’s trucking sector.

Nearly 1,400 delivery drivers will split $5.6 million following an eight-year investigation by the U.S. Department of Labor, which found that Parts Authority Arizona LLC and Diligent Delivery Systems misclassified its employee drivers as independent contractors.

Already serving nearly seven years in federal prison for embezzling more than $700,000 from the trucking company where she worked, a Missouri bookkeeper was sentenced to two more years for committing Paycheck Protection Program loan fraud.

Amanda May, 36, of Whitesville, Kentucky, has filed a motion to intervene in the wrongful death lawsuit filed by her mother’s partner, Spangle The Clown, against Lala Trucking Inc. and one of its drivers.

California’s ABC test was a key reason why a decade-long misclassification case against Hub Group settled.

An appellate court that will determine whether the Prop 22 gig worker vote in California is constitutional recently heard arguments.

An Indiana trucking company owner claims his office manager of over 20 years — along with her husband — stole more than $600,000 from his affiliated companies over a five-year period.

A tax code throat punch promises to make gig work and online selling as fun as a trip to the morgue and as profitable as the average Mega Millions ticket.

Kevin Shaw, a Memphis, Tennessee-based truck company owner, and financial adviser Lisa Evans were indicted on charges of defrauding the federal Paycheck Protection Program.

Parties in the still ongoing litigation surrounding AB5 and trucking have a new calendar that forecloses any new injunction until at least May.

UFI abruptly shuttered in November. Companies have been unable to retrieve their assets from the closed-up facilities.

After months of quiet, the U.S. Attorney for Eastern Louisiana extracted two more guilty pleas in the Louisiana staged accident scam.

The owner of a pair of trucking companies got 10 years in federal prison for lots of things, including a welding explosion that killed a worker.

A North Carolina trucking company owner said he wanted to buy a used truck but is now in a long legal battle to get back cash confiscated by police who thought it was part of a drug deal.

Gmail accounts allegedly connected to FourKites made accusations of accounting fraud and organized crime to project44 board members and executives.

The Department of Labor is seeking comments on its proposed independent contractor rule, and the trucking world is stepping up.

A Michigan jury has awarded $7.7 million to a man who was seriously injured in 2018 when the wheel came loose from a box truck heading in the opposite direction, jumped the median and crashed into the front of his vehicle.

Current and former employees of Total Quality Logistics say they are closely following a former colleague’s two legal actions involving the nation’s second-largest freight brokerage.

A former bookkeeper from Missouri admitted she devised a scheme to defraud the Paycheck Protection Program while awaiting sentencing in an unrelated embezzlement case involving a family-owned farm and trucking company.

Two key provisions in the Department of Labor’s proposed independent contractor rule could pose problems for transportation companies.

PayCargo won its trademark case against CargoSprint, which was hit with $11.6 million in damages.

California’s legal victory allowing it to impose workplace rules on flight attendants has some cargo airlines worried about states regulating their operations.

The federal agency that enforces laws against workplace discrimination has sued a New York-based trucking company for not hiring females.

The Federal Trade Commission plans on getting involved in questions of independent contractor status.

Just a few days after the state of California tried to keep OOIDA out of the ongoing AB5 case, a judge has let the group in.

A federal judge has ruled that Rhode Island’s “RhodeWorks” toll system discriminates against trucks and is unconstitutional.

California is pushing back against the Owner-Operator Independent Drivers Association’s attempt to become an intervenor in the ongoing CTA lawsuit over AB5.

Former Celadon executives that are being sued by TA Dispatch have won a request to have the case moved to Delaware.

A federal appellate court has upheld the conviction of ex-Roadrunner Transportation Systems CFO Peter Armbruster for his role in a securities and accounting fraud scheme that cost shareholders $245 million.

The parents of a woman killed last month after a trucker crashed into an overpass on Interstate 25 in Colorado have filed a wrongful death lawsuit against the towing company and the driver.

A Texas court has reversed a $7.4M gross negligence verdict against a trucking company and its driver.

A contract agreement between Universal Logistics and the Teamsters union will bring a group of Southern California drivers in compliance with AB5.

Jacob Patterson, who worked at TQL for nearly 14 years, claims his lawsuit against the second-largest freight brokerage in the U.S. “demonstrates the extraordinary measures TQL will take to harm the career prospects of an employee who has the temerity to leave the company.”

Using the economic realities test, an appellate court backed a lower-court ruling that a group of drivers were independent contractors, not employees.

The injunction that has kept California’s AB5 independent contractor law at bay since the end of 2019 has been formally lifted.

Everybody thought the legal wrangling over California’s AB5 was done, but a court hearing Monday says otherwise.

A bill that would make thefts of private-sector parcel deliveries a felony is the latest step in efforts to curb a growing problem.

DAT accuses Convoy of contract violations. Convoy calls DAT a “monopolist” looking to thwart competition at any cost.

Federal prosecutors on Wednesday dropped a fraud case against two former Celadon trucking company executives.

An appellate court reversed a lower court decision and found that a one-time Schneider independent contractor was actually an employee.

A court-appointed receiver is working to get hundreds of truckers’ accounts receivable paid nearly three weeks after a legal feud between brothers led to the abrupt shutdown of CoreFund Capital, a Texas-based factoring company.

Logistics technology provider Slync.io announced Friday it has fired Chris Kirchner as CEO and removed him as chairman of the company’s board of directors.

Truckers being sued by the city of Oakland and port commissioners over a weeklong protest over AB5 are claiming a small victory Monday after Alameda County Superior Court Judge Delbert Gee didn’t immediately grant the temporary restraining order port officials were seeking.

Hundreds of small-business truckers who use CoreFund Capital to factor their accounts receivable are struggling to stay afloat after the company abruptly closed its doors.

TransForce, long a provider of drivers to carriers, is rolling out its proposal for independent contractor compliance with AB5.

California’s trucking sector is looking at numerous ways to keep in compliance with AB5, but is doing so without specifics on what’s right and wrong.

California’s trucking sector is likely to be upended now that it will need to deal with AB5, the state’s more rigid independent contractor law.

California’s trucking sector must now brace for the imposition of AB5’s rules on independent contractors as the court rejects overturning pro-AB5 appellate decision.

California’s AB5 law will remain blocked from implementation in the state’s trucking sector for now as the Supreme Court remains silent.

After a new fraud charge was leveled against Nikola founder Trevor Milton earlier this week, his attorneys are seeking a 30-day delay to review the documents.

Bailey’s Trucking and its owner were charged with making false representations on an application to receive money through the Paycheck Protection Program.

A regional NLRB decision says an STG unit in California that had been owned by XPO treated workers like employees, and it has ordered a unionization vote for them.

“We are pleased with this settlement as it creates a common understanding in close cooperation and coordination with the authority on the future handling of demurrage and detention charges in the U.S.,” Hapag-Lloyd said.

The Supreme Court said that a Southwest Airlines employee doesn’t need to go through arbitration to pursue a claim for overtime pay.

The California Trucking Association filed its brief to the Supreme Court, laying out arguments why the court should review AB5 in the state’s trucking sector.

Police said the truck driver admitted using a meth pipe as he damaged a shopping center and totaled two vehicles, including his.

Two more individuals were sentenced for their involvement in the Louisiana staged accident scam, showing the wide divergence of punishment so far.

A case involving C.H. Robinson before the U.S. Supreme Court got the same recommendation from the solicitor general as the better-known AB5 lawsuit in California.

A Florida trio was recently sentenced to federal prison for their roles in a $200 million infant formula fraud scheme.

The solicitor general has advised the U.S. Supreme Court not to hear the appeal of a lower court decision that would require adoption of the AB5 independent contractor law in the state’s trucking industry.

The three brothers who own Stan Koch Trucking split into factions years ago, but a court case settles the amount that two of them will need to pay.

Six people have pleaded guilty in the theft of $1.4 million from San Antonio-based carriers Texas Chrome Transport and MJR Truck Lines.

A Massachusetts ballot initiative to classify Uber and other gig work drivers as independent contractors encounters skepticism before a panel of judges.

A previously convicted fraudster ran a Ponzi scheme and bilked investors out of $40 million in a truck investment venture, then used the money to pay personal expenses, feds say.

A three-judge panel heard arguments in a petition to overturn some of the changes in trucking hours-of-service rules implemented two years ago.

Trucking carriers face increased risk of nuclear verdicts, but managing those risks is not insurmountable, if done right and from the start.

Three more individuals were sentenced in the Louisiana staged truck and bus accident scheme, with two receiving probation and a third sentenced to 18 months behind bars.

The family of a Maine commercial fisherman who was struck and killed by an Amazon delivery driver in July 2020 recently filed a negligence lawsuit against the e-commerce giant.

Independent contractor law AB5 has been blocked so far from being implemented in California’s trucking sector, but the question is before the Supreme Court and its ultimate ruling may eventually make the statute the law of the land in the Golden State.

A mother-daughter team has pleaded guilty to participating in a staged truck accident in New Orleans in 2018, joining 33 others who have made the same plea.

Truck brokerages have been barred for years from getting a key terrorism-related Customs designation that allows for easier passage; that may soon change.

Private equity firms are looking hard at trucking brokerages, and the owners of those companies need to keep their risk profile in check. Photo: FreightWaves

There is a new guilty plea in the Louisiana staged accident scheme, as well as a jail sentence for another participant.

Businesses and independent contractors opposed David Weil’s return to the Wage and Hour Division.

Those charged in the latest guilty pleas connected to the Louisiana staged truck accident scheme are all accused of being operatives, and with one exception, the attorneys who were allegedly involved have not been indicted.

“The Biden DOL will have little choice but to apply the Trump rule or face opposition,” says attorney Greg Feary.

Trucking companies and logistics firms are among hundreds of creditors collectively owed millions of dollars after a California-based organic products manufacturer recently filed Chapter 7.

Truck and trailer rental companies and the IRS are collectively owed millions after a Minnesota logistics company filed Chapter 7.

A Kansas-based trucking company, cited several times for safety violations for both its drivers and equipment, recently filed Chapter 11 bankruptcy.

A South Carolina company that remanufactured locomotives and provided railcar servicing and repairs filed Chapter 7.

Former drivers, truck and trailer rental companies and fuel businesses are collectively owed hundreds of thousands of dollars after a Massachusetts logistics company filed Chapter 7.

Although attorney involvement is alleged in the indictments, only one lawyer has been indicted in the scheme to crash cars into trucks and collect insurance payouts.

Nearly 420 trucking and logistics companies are collectively owed millions of dollars after a California oil distributor ceased operations and filed Chapter 7.

The owner of a Wisconsin fuel company admitted he defrauded investors out of nearly $6.3 million over a two-year period.

Decades of discord over employee benefit cuts at Navistar could end soon with a $742 million settlement.

A federal grand jury indicted two former trucking employees of Roadrunner Temperature Controlled, alleging the pair orchestrated a scheme to steal nearly $113,000.

The owner of an Iowa trucking company was sentenced to 21 months in federal prison for his role in a seven-year, $1.4 million payroll tax scheme.

After finding out that Central Freight Lines was shuttering operations, hourly employees, including 1,325 truck drivers, learned that their final paychecks weren’t mailed out as promised before Christmas.

A national regulatory body has permanently banned the Chicago-based parent companies of K-Ratio X’s now-defunct fuel hedging program that targeted trucking companies from any futures trading.

A former Central Freight Lines employee claims the Waco,Texas-based less-than-truckload carrier violated federal law by failing to give 60 days’ notice of its planned shutdown to nearly 2,100 employees and truck drivers, who found themselves without jobs two weeks before Christmas

The woman pleaded guilty but was not a key organizer of the June 2017 accident.

Analysts, industry insiders and some of Central Freight Lines’ executives and drivers liken the LTL carrier’s demise to a “five-year death spiral” after the company lost a major customer, then acquired two failing companies.

Federal investigators have charged a second man in connection with an ongoing probe into an alleged CDL scheme in Pennsylvania

A Louisiana trucker was recently sentenced to nearly six years in prison for drug trafficking. Rusty Ross Honore received a PPP loan two months after he was arrested by the feds in Dec. 2020.

The former CFO of Roadrunner Transportation Systems was sentenced to two years in prison for his role in a complex securities and accounting fraud scheme on Tuesday.

The owner of a small Delaware-based trucking company described his driver, who was recently arrested and charged with holding a woman captive in his truck for nearly eight months, as “religious” and “a nice guy.”

The owner of a tanker testing and repair company has been sentenced for lying to OSHA about an illegal repair to a fuel tanker that resulted in an explosion that severely injured him and another worker.

SCOTUS’ request for input on the CTA case suggests it is interested in the question of state versus federal preemption, and trucking attorneys are happy as a result.

A federal appeals court has ruled that greenhouse gas emission standards do not apply to truck trailers.