The Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration (FMCSA) has opened its Congressionally-mandated Commercial Driver’s License (CDL) drug and alcohol Clearinghouse portal. CDL holders, employers, medical review officers, and substance abuse professionals can register to create a secure account through the portal.

The legal remedies that enable an aggrieved party to “collect” on an amount undisputedly owed generally arise from the enforcement of judgments and liens. This article does not address collections related to air or maritime transportation of goods, though such collections overlap and share similar concepts. The nuances of each remedy varies by jurisdiction, and are contingent upon the underlying legal right(s) asserted.

On January 8, 2020, Los Angeles Superior Court Judge William Highberger ruled that newly enacted statute AB-5 does not apply to motor carriers or independent owner-operator truck drivers, a notable success for the transportation industry in the first court ruling on the statute’s validity.

In a significant development in the ever-expanding universe of Illinois Biometric Information Privacy Act (BIPA) litigation, on January 29, 2020, Facebook agreed to pay $550 million to settle a BIPA class action that was filed in the Northern District of California.

On December 4, 2019, the Environmental Protection Agency published an Advance Notice of Proposed Rulemaking that seeks comments on which of the approximately 600 per- and polyfluorinated chemical substances (PFAS) currently active in U.S. commerce should be added to environmental reporting requirements under the Toxics Release Inventory. 

The numbers are in – the Department of Justice (DOJ) recently published its annual breakdown of false claims litigation undertaken by its Civil Division. The report show new matters filed by year, the DOJ's recoveries through judgments and settlements, and the share of the recoveries by relators in qui tam litigation. For healthcare providers, here are some quick takeaways.

Under California’s Contractors’ State License Law, Cal. Bus. & Prof. Code §§ 7000 et seq., all contractors’ and subcontractors’ licenses expire two years from the last day of the month in which the license issued, or two years from the date on which the renewed license last expired.

On January 21, 2020, the U.S. Supreme Court denied Facebook’s petition for a writ of certiorari to review whether a group of potentially millions of Facebook users have constitutional standing to pursue claims brought under the Illinois Biometric Information Privacy Act (BIPA) for alleged violations of the statute’s notice and consent mandates.