N.Y. High Court Upholds Electronic Logging Device Rules for Commercial Trucks

New York’s highest court ruled that a state regulation requiring the installation of electronic logging devices in commercial motor vehicles does not violate the state constitution’s prohibition against unreasonable search and seizure.

The Court of Appeals, in a unanimous decision released Tuesday, rejected a constitutional challenge filed by the Owner Operator Independent Drivers Association. The high court did modify the lower court’s decision, finding that instead of dismissing the trucker group’s lawsuit, the trial court should have issued a declaration that the rules did not violate the state constitution.

The high court said that truck owners who participate in a “pervasively regulated industry” have a diminished expectation of privacy. The ELDs capture a limited amount of data that can be collected electronically, without requiring physical searches of vehicles, the court said.

“There is also no merit to petitioners’ contention that the ELD rule is unconstitutional because it fails to limit the frequency of the authorized searches,” the opinion says.

The Owner Operator Independent Drivers Association said in an email that it is disappointed by the ruling because electronic logging devices do not improve motor vehicle safety.

“In addition, there is no on/off switch for ELDs that monitor drivers 24/7, living in a truck as their home, not just while working,” the association said in a statement.

The Insurance Institute for Highway Safety has long supported the use of ELDs to improve highway safety and has petitioned the government several times to require the devices, media relations director Joseph Young said in an email.

“Trucker fatigue is a serious safety concern,” Young said. “Hours-of-service rules are in place for a reason and ELDs make it easier to enforce these rules and identity violations. IIHS research has found that drivers with these violations are more likely to have fallen asleep behind the wheel, and research has consistently shown that long driving hours and hours-of-service violations are associated with higher crash risk.”

New York has enforced hours-of-service limits and recordkeeping requirements for commercial vehicle owners since 1937. Congress adopted a similar law in 1938 and encourages states to cooperate in enforcing federal safety standards by providing grant funding.

Historically truck drivers documented their time in service by using paper records. Congress, however, in 2012 passed legislation that mandated Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration rules that require trucks involved in interstate commerce to be equipped with ELDs that use global position system technology to record location, engine hours, mileage and other data points.

The owner operators group filed a lawsuit that challenged the federal rules as an unwarranted violation of truck drivers’ 4th Amendment protections against unreasonable search and seizure. The 7th Circuit Court of Appeals ruled in 2016 that the ELD requirement did not amount to an unreasonable search.

Three owner operators who belong to the Independent Drivers Association then filed a lawsuit challenging the latest version of New York’s ELD rules, which weren’t adopted until 2019. The organization argued that the state improperly enforced the federal requirement before the state rules were adopted, and that the data collection requirement violated the state constitutional guarantee against unreasonable search and seizure.

The Albany County Supreme Court dismissed the lawsuit, finding that searches under the ELD rule are valid under an exception for “administrative searches” to the constitutional requirement that a warrant be issued before any search by enforcement. The Appellate Division affirmed that ruling.

The Court of Appeals said courts have found two exceptions to the requirement under the New York State constitution that a warrant be issued before any search: When the activity or premises subject to the search has a long tradition of pervasive government regulation, and when regulations are drafted to ensure that searches are not conducted solely to “uncover evidence of criminality” but rather further the goals of the regulatory scheme.

The court found that the ELD rules meets both exceptions. Truck drivers undoubtedly participate in a pervasively regulated industry, the opinion says. The ELD rules also are designed to impede cheating without unduly gathering unnecessary information about a truck driver’s activities.

“Inspecting officers can retrieve that data electronically without entering the vehicle and the ELD rule does not authorize them to search either the cab of the truck or the driver for contraband,” the opinion says. “Furthermore, ‘ELDs record only at specified times, such as when the vehicle is turned on, when the duty status changes, and once per hour when driving.'”

The Court of Appeals remanded the case to the Supreme Court with instructions to modify its ruling by declaring that the ELD rules are not unconstitutional.