The suit with the best chance of winning is the one filed by California Construction Trucking Association (formerly the California Dump Truck Owners Association) who filed on the basis of the Federal Aviation Authorization Act of 1994 (FAAA).
In 1980, Congress deregulated the trucking industry by enacting the Motor Carrier Act. In 1994, it sought to preempt state trucking regulations by enacting the FAAA Act. The Act preempts a wide range of state regulation of intrastate trucking, providing that a state “may not enact or enforce a law, regulation, or other provision having the force and effect of law related to a price, route, or service of any motor carrier . . . with respect to the transportation of property.” 49 U.S.C. § 14501(c)(1).
Congress believed it was necessary to eliminate non-uniform state regulations that had curtailed the expansion of markets and resulted in nefficiencies, creased costs, reduced competition, and inhibition of innovation and technology.
Because of the FAAA, in November of 2011 a federal district court in California issued a decision, in Dilts v. Penske Logistics, LLC, 2011 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 122421 (S.D. Cal. Oct. 19, 2011), holding that motor carriers that transport property are not subject to California’s meal and rest break laws because such laws are preempted by the Federal Aviation Administration Authorization Act (FAAA Act). This was for employees who live and work primarily in California, who mainly loaded appliances onto delivery trucks, took them to the install site, and then installed the appliances. The court found that Congress did in fact intend that the FAAA Act preempt intrastate transportation to avoid unreasonable burden on interstate commerce, and that contrary to the claims of the plaintiffs that they were appliance installers and driving was merely incidental to that task, the judge ruled that the drivers of property hauling vehicles also did installations in addition to hauling property.
The court held that the FAAA Act preempted the plaintiffs’ meal and rest break claims and explained that the proper inquiry is “whether the [meal and rest break law], directly or indirectly, ‘binds the ... carrier to a particular price, route or service and thereby interferes with competitive market forces within the ... industry.’” The court found that California’s meal and rest break laws are related to “routes” because they deprive drivers of the “ability to take any route that does not offer adequate locations for stopping, or by forcing them to take shorter or fewer routes.” The court also held that the meal and rest break laws impacted the company’s “services” because the state-mandated length
and timing of the meal and rest breaks impacted the “frequency and scheduling of transportation.” The court also explained that California’s meal and rest break laws impacted the company’s prices because of the increased cost of additional drivers, helpers, tractors, and trailers that would be needed to ensure off-duty breaks under California law. The court refused to “allow California to insist exactly when and for exactly how long carriers provide breaks for their employees,” because to do so “would allow other States to do the same, and to do so differently.”
This case was about meal and rest breaks, but the key here is the, "binds the ... carrier to a particular price, route or service and thereby interferes with competitive market forces within the ... industry."
That's one heckuva legal precedent.
