From The National Law Review, Michael D. Thompson discusses the Third Circuit Court of Appeals decision that the Federal Aviation Administration Authorization Act does not preempt New Jersey’s ABC test for determining if a worker is an employee or independent contractor. Michael writes:
In determining whether the FAAAA preempts a state law, courts consider whether the law’s effect on carrier prices, services, or routes is (a) direct or indirect and (b) significant or insignificant. The Third Circuit pointed out that “garden variety employment claims” often evade FAAAA preemption because they are “too remote and too attenuated” from carrier prices, services, or routes.
To assess the directness of a law’s effect on prices, routes, or services, courts examine factors such as whether the state law: (1) mentions a carrier’s prices, routes, or services; (2) specifically targets carriers as opposed to all businesses; and (3) addresses the carrier-customer relationship (rather than, for example, the relationship between the carrier and its workers). The Third Circuit concluded that New Jersey’s ABC test does not directly affect prices, routes, or services largely because the test does not mention carrier prices, routes, or services, does not single out carriers, and does not regulate carrier-customer interactions
To assess whether a law has a significant effect on a carrier’s prices, routes, or services, courts consider whether: (1) the law binds a carrier to provide or not provide a particular price, route, or service; (2) the carrier has various avenues to comply with the law; and (3) the law creates a patchwork of regulation that erects barriers to entry, imposes tariffs, or restricts the goods a carrier may transport. Courts also will consider whether the legislative history indicates that Congress believed that the state law did not regulate prices, routes, or services. The Third Circuit focused on the fact that New Jersey’s ABC test did not bind carriers to using employees to make deliveries, but rather allows carriers to continue to choose between independent contractors and employees. Therefore, the impact of the state law on the AEX’s operations was not significant.
The Third Circuit distinguished New Jersey’s ABC test from the Massachusetts ABC test at issue in Schwann v. FedEx Ground Package System, Inc., 813 F.3d 429 (1st Cir. 2016). The second prong of the Massachusetts ABC test limited independent contractor status to individuals who performed work that is “outside the usual course of the business of the employer.” Under that criterion, carriers could never hire independent contractor drivers to make deliveries, because deliveries are within the carrier’s usual course of business and therefore defeat independent contractor status. For that reason, the First Circuit Court of Appeals ruled in Schwann that the second prong of the Massachusetts law was preempted by the FAAAA.
In contrast to the Massachusetts law, the second prong of the New Jersey law requires either that services be provided outside the usual course of the company’s business or that the services are performed outside of the company’s places of business. Therefore, it is possible under the New Jersey ABC test for a carrier’s drivers to be independent contractors.
Because the effect the New Jersey ABC test has on prices, routes, or services with respect to the transportation of property is “tenuous and insignificant,” the Third Circuit concluded that the FAAAA does not preempt the New Jersey statutory test.
Read the full story at New Jersey ABC Test: Third Circuit Decides It Isn’t Preempted by Federal Law
