Key Takeaways
- The federal Motor Carrier Act exemption strips overtime protections from truck drivers engaged in interstate commerce, but its boundaries are legally contested and frequently misapplied.
- Clarkson Law Firm attorney Brent A. Robinson is currently representing a class of drivers in a live Ninth Circuit case challenging the scope of the exemption.
- A pending U.S. Supreme Court ruling in Flowers Foods Inc. v. Brock may signal how courts will define the limits of the exemption going forward.
A 90-Year-Old Loophole Costs Truckers Billions in Overtime
For nearly nine decades, a carveout tucked inside the Fair Labor Standards Act has allowed trucking companies to deny overtime pay to drivers and other transportation workers. Known as the Motor Carrier Act exemption — codified at Section 13(b)(1) of the FLSA — the provision excludes workers employed by motor carriers in interstate transport from the FLSA’s overtime requirements and places them under the authority of the Secretary of Transportation instead of the Secretary of Labor.
In practice, that single exemption means truck drivers, loaders, helpers, and mechanics can be denied time-and-a-half pay no matter how many hours they work. And as circuit courts across the country continue to wrestle with the exemption’s exact reach, the financial consequences for workers remain severe.
Clarkson Law Firm is actively fighting to change that.
The Exemption’s Reach — and Its Limits
The motor carrier exemption is broad, but it is not unlimited. A 2008 amendment carved out workers who operate vehicles weighing 10,000 pounds or less. That threshold has become one of the primary battlegrounds in modern wage-and-hour litigation: once a vehicle clears 10,000 pounds, courts have generally held that the exemption applies, and the burden of proving otherwise falls on the workers themselves.
Beyond vehicle weight, courts focus heavily on whether the goods being transported are part of an interstate journey. Workers have argued that deliveries to warehouses — where goods sit before being resold locally — break the chain of interstate commerce and should restore their right to overtime. Courts have not always agreed.
The law in this area is genuinely unsettled. As Clarkson attorney Brent A. Robinson explained to Law360: “The case law in this area is very old and very complicated and conflicting. Courts and lawyers often can get it wrong, but also good lawyers can identify new avenues for challenge and can get it right in a way that makes a lot of impact for their clients.”
The Seventh Circuit’s Recent Decision
In April 2026, the Seventh Circuit ruled against a class of shuttle truck drivers in consolidated cases Renee Stingley et al. v. Laci Transport Inc. et al. (No. 24-1612) and Martaneze Johnson et al. v. Bosman Trucking Inc. et al. (No. 24-1613). The drivers transported automobile parts between a storage lot and an assembly plant, entirely within Illinois. The Seventh Circuit nonetheless held that the motor carrier exemption applied because the drivers’ work formed part of a larger interstate journey.
The ruling reflects the prevailing trend. Courts have interpreted the exemption broadly, finding that individual workers who never cross a state line can still lose overtime rights if the goods they handle are part of a multi-state supply chain. Clarkson is testing the limits of that expansive interpretation.
Clarkson in the Ninth Circuit
While the Seventh Circuit ruled against drivers in Illinois, a separate and significant case is working its way through the Ninth Circuit — with Clarkson Law Firm’s Glenn A. Danas and Brent A. Robinson at the helm.
Danas and Robinson represent a class of drivers whose overtime claims turn on a core legal question: when does the interstate journey actually end? The answer to that question, as Robinson explained, drives most of the significant disputes in this area of law: “What the real focus of the test typically is these days is, when does the interstate journey end?”
Establishing where interstate commerce terminates — and restoring overtime eligibility for workers who operate in what amounts to a local delivery role — is the central task of Clarkson’s advocacy in the Ninth Circuit. A favorable ruling could create precedent that benefits thousands of transportation workers across the western United States.
The Supreme Court May Offer Guidance
Even without directly reviewing the motor carrier exemption, the U.S. Supreme Court may soon signal how far courts should go in stripping overtime rights from transportation workers. Oral arguments in Flowers Foods Inc. v. Brock took place in March 2026. That case asks whether last-mile delivery drivers are exempt from the Federal Arbitration Act’s Section 1 carveout for interstate transportation workers — a question that turns on similar reasoning.
Robinson told Law360 that a ruling in Flowers Foods could have downstream consequences for the motor carrier exemption debate: “There’s a decent chance that, however it comes out, advocates under the Motor Carrier Act will cite it by analogy to argue that a similar rule should apply in a motor carrier context. The court might be speaking on things in such a way as to foreshadow its thoughts in this related area.”
Why Truck Drivers Should Take This Seriously
The motor carrier exemption is not a technical curiosity. For the drivers it affects, it represents real money withheld from every paycheck. Truckers who work long weeks — and most do — can lose thousands of dollars annually that federal law would otherwise require employers to pay.
The fact that the exemption is frequently misapplied, as Robinson has observed, makes competent legal representation essential. Employers assert the exemption aggressively. Not all of those assertions are correct, and not all of them will hold up under scrutiny.
Contact Clarkson Law Firm
If you are a truck driver or transportation worker who has been denied overtime pay, you may have grounds for a wage and hour claim regardless of what your employer has told you about exemptions. Clarkson Law Firm represents workers in complex wage and hour litigation, including class actions and individual claims against motor carriers.
Contact us today for a free consultation. Our attorneys will evaluate whether the motor carrier exemption was properly applied to your situation — and fight for the overtime pay you have earned.
The case is Madero, et al. v. McLane Foodservice, Inc., et al., 9th Circuit Court of Appeals Case Nos. 25-1341 and 25-1798.
