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Uber, Postmates, Uber driver Lydia Olson and Postmates courier Miguel Perez have filed a lawsuit seeking to have AB 5 declared unconstitutional in the United States District Court for the Central District of California in Los Angeles. Lydia Olson v. State of California, Case No. 2:19-cv-10956. (Read the complaint here.) The case is assigned to United States District Judge Dolly M. Gee. As explained in an earlier post, AB 5 would expressly incorporate the ABC test for employment (as articulated by the California Supreme Court in the Dynamex decision) into the Labor Code.
The new lawsuit is the latest of several attacks on the new law. There are at least two other lawsuits pending. An association of independent truckers originally sued to bar application of the Dynamex standard to truckers in October 2018 in the United States District Court for the Southern District of California in San Diego. California Trucking Assn v. Becerra, Case No. 3:18-cv-02458, assigned to United States District Judge Roger T. Benitez. They amended the complaint to challenge AB 5 on November 12, 2019. (Read the operative second amended complaint here.) Two weeks ago two associations of freelancers sued to block provisions of AB 5 that automatically deems writers and photographers to be employees of any publisher who has published 35 if their pieces in a calendar year. American Society of Journalists and Authors, Inc. and National Press Photographers Assn., Case No. 2:19-cv-10645, assigned to United States District Judge Philip S. Gutierrez. (Read the complaint here.) A hearing on the plaintiffs’ motion for a preliminary injunction is set for March 9, 2020.
Shortly after the passage of AB 5, Uber, Lyft and DoorDash launched an initiative campaign to replace the enactment with a law that they claim would protect flexibility, provide historic new wage and benefit guarantees and protect public safety and customer choice. Visit the website for the initiative here.
