December 14, 2018
The transportation industry saw some major court decisions in 2018, with freight railroads losing a long-running appellate battle over Amtrak’s regulatory authority and Uber landing a Ninth Circuit win making it more difficult for drivers to pursue worker misclassification claims against it. Here, Law360 looks back at a few of the year’s biggest rulings affecting the transportation sector.
October 25, 2018
The full D.C. Circuit on Wednesday declined to review a split panel's July decision reinstating a federal statute allowing Amtrak to help the Federal Railroad Administration set performance and scheduling standards along the nation's railways.
September 28, 2018
The federal government told the D.C. Circuit on Friday there's no need to review a split panel's July decision reinstating a federal statute allowing Amtrak to help set performance and scheduling standards along the nation's railways, saying any due process concerns were sufficiently resolved.
September 05, 2018
Freight railroads asked the D.C. Circuit to rehear its split ruling in July that reversed a lower court's ruling that a federal statute governing Amtrak's regulatory authority is unconstitutional, arguing that the ruling conflicts with precedent.
July 20, 2018
A split D.C. Circuit panel reversed a lower court's ruling that a federal statute governing Amtrak's regulatory authority over its competitors was unconstitutional, saying that by severing an arbitration clause in the statute, Amtrak's regulatory proposals could be overruled by a federal transportation agency.
March 05, 2018
Appellate panels don't "psychoanalyze" rulings from earlier panels, Circuit Judge Merrick B. Garland said Monday, as the Association of American Railroads seemed to struggle in arguing that the federal government can't sever an arbitration provision, deemed unconstitutional by a previous panel, to spare a broader railway performance standards statute.
November 22, 2017
Freight railroads have slammed the government’s bid to have the D.C. Circuit preserve a federal statute allowing Amtrak to set performance and scheduling standards along the nation's passenger railways, saying trimming an arbitration provision in the law wouldn't suddenly make it constitutionally valid.
October 23, 2017
The U.S. Department of Transportation has asked the D.C. Circuit to preserve a federal statute allowing Amtrak to set performance and scheduling standards along the nation's passenger railways, saying the appeals court can trim off the lone provision it found unconstitutional.