A trucking company owner is fighting the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration, saying the agency doesn't have the authority to sanction his company for not keeping his toll receipts filed in a certain way.

Darrell Andrews Trucking, Siler City, N.C., had its satisfactory safety rating downgraded to "conditional" because the carrier did not maintain toll receipts - documents that the carrier did not use to verify driver logs - "along with" the driver logs and indexed to each driver by name. Instead, the carrier kept the toll receipts for other business reasons in files that were organized by month, instead of by driver. Although the carrier produced the toll receipts promptly when requested by FMCSA's inspector during the compliance review, the inspector nevertheless cited the carrier for a violation of the supporting documents rule - for failing to retain "all supporting documents for each driver."
When owner Darrell Andrews complained to FMCSA, they did drop the fine, but still lowered the safety rating. That's when Andrews filed suit against the agency.
The American Trucking Associations filed a brief in support of the lawsuit with the U.S. State Court of Appeals. The ATA noted that FMCSA and its predecessor agencies have in the past interpreted the "supporting documents" rule to require carriers to retain only those documents that are actually used by the carrier to verify drivers' logs. What happened to Andrews Trucking is inconsistent with policy statements, regulatory guidance and other recent regulatory publications.
In addition, says ATA, nothing in the "supporting documents" rule requires that the documents used to verify logs must be indexed to the drivers' names or physically maintained "along with" drivers' logs. In fact, another FMCSA rule explicitly allows records to be kept in remote locations, and imposes no indexing requirements.
In addition, ATA says in its brief, even if the court believes that FMCSA could reasonable interpret the "supporting documents" in the way the inspector did, FMCSA did not give the company fair notice that it would interpret the rule that way. Nor does the FMCSA have approval from the U.S. Office of Management and Budget to require the paperwork to be filed this way. The Paperwork Reduction Act requires federal agencies to get OMB approval before imposing paperwork requirements on businesses or individuals, according to ATA.
If FMCSA wants to change the interpretation, or add new requirements that carriers must index and keep the supporting documents in a particular file, ATA argues, it can do so - after giving the industry and the public notice and an opportunity to comment on the proposed change.