The drivers stayed in Illinois – the court said their cargo didn't
Intrastate shuttle drivers at a Ford assembly plant are not entitled to overtime pay, a federal appeals court has ruled.
The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit on April 2, 2026, sided with trucking companies Laci Transport Inc. and Bosman Trucking, Inc., affirming that shuttle truck drivers who never left Illinois were still part of an interstate commerce chain – and therefore exempt from overtime under federal law.
The consolidated cases, Stingley v. Laci Transport Inc. and Johnson v. Bosman Trucking, Inc., centered on a group of current and former drivers who hauled auto parts and custom shipping containers between Ford-controlled storage lots and Ford's Chicago Assembly Plant on South Torrence Avenue. The parts were manufactured at plants outside Illinois, shipped into the state by interstate carriers, and temporarily parked at nearby storage lots until the Assembly Plant needed them. The shuttle drivers then moved the trailers the final leg – entirely on Illinois roads – to the plant. After unloading, they drove the trailers back to the lots, where interstate carriers eventually retrieved them and returned them to out-of-state factories for reuse.
The drivers argued they deserved overtime wages under the Fair Labor Standards Act, the Illinois Minimum Wage Law, and the Chicago Minimum Wage Law. Their employers had not paid overtime wages for hours exceeding 40 in a workweek. The trucking companies countered that the Motor Carrier Act exemption applied, which strips overtime protections from drivers whose work falls under the Secretary of Transportation's authority over interstate commerce.
The question for the court was straightforward but consequential for employers in logistics and transportation: does a temporary stop at a storage lot break the chain of interstate commerce, or does the shipment remain interstate from start to finish?
The court found that it remains interstate. Relying on its earlier decision in Collins v. Heritage Wine Cellars, the Seventh Circuit applied a four-factor test to determine whether Ford had a continuing intent to move the goods beyond the storage lots. Ford ordered parts based on projected demand, and those parts typically moved from storage to the Assembly Plant within two to three days. For most of the parts, nothing happened while they sat in trailers at the lots – no processing, no modification, no comingling. Ford maintained control over the goods and directed when they would be transported. Ford also paid the transportation costs. Every factor pointed toward a continuous interstate journey.
The drivers tried a creative workaround. They argued that the storage lots and the Assembly Plant were effectively one location – a "Ford Assembly Campus" – and that the interstate journey ended the moment carriers pulled into any lot. The court was not persuaded. The stipulated facts placed the Assembly Plant at a single specific address. The storage lots sat at multiple separate locations, were not contiguous with the plant, were separated by miles of public roads, and were not all owned by Ford. The court pointed out that the drivers' own counsel acknowledged at oral argument that the campus theory would become much harder to sustain if the lots were 100 miles away instead of five – an acknowledgment that exposed the absence of any workable legal standard for drawing a geographic boundary.
Testimony from Ford's Material Planning and Logistics Manager reinforced the court's conclusion. While Ford logged the "arrival" of parts at the storage lots, that designation simply meant the goods were physically present. Ford did not record parts as being in its actual possession until they were unloaded at the Assembly Plant. Until that point, the goods remained the carrier's responsibility.
The court also found that the return trip counted as interstate commerce. The moment empty shipping racks and containers left the Assembly Plant headed back to the storage lots, their intended destination was an out-of-state manufacturing facility – making every mile of the shuttle route part of an interstate shipment.
For HR professionals in transportation and logistics, the takeaway is clear: drivers who never cross a state line can still fall under the Motor Carrier Act exemption if their routes form part of a larger interstate supply chain. Overtime obligations hinge not on geography alone, but on where the goods are ultimately headed.
