In a recent development, the Supreme Court has ruled in favor of a group of truck drivers transporting goods for Wonder Bread in their arbitration dispute. The case, Bissonnette v. LePage Bakeries Park St., is one of several where the court examines the Federal Arbitration Act’s command that pre-dispute arbitration agreements must be enforced.
The case hinges on an exception in the Federal Arbitration Act (FAA) concerning “class of workers engaged in foreign or interstate commerce.” The argument centers on whether this exception applies based on the nature of the work performed by the employees or instead on the nature of the employer’s business. The truck drivers assert they qualify as ‘transportation workers’ because they transport goods, while their employers counterargue that they aren’t, citing their industry as baking rather than transportation.
The final verdict, in favor of the workers, came through a unanimous opinion from Chief Justice John Roberts. Justice Roberts noted that limiting the exemption to ‘transportation workers’ is aligned with previous court views that the general phrase ‘class of workers engaged in commerce’ is specifically applicable to categories such as ‘seamen’ and ‘railroad employees’.
Moreover, the most recent decision regarding baggage handlers for Southwest Airlines explicitly rejected an ‘industry-wide’ approach as sought by the employers. Justice Roberts argued that the statute’s language focuses more on the nature of the work performed than the industry of the employer.
He further contested an argument that suggested a limit on the exemption to a particular industry because the references in the statute to ‘seamen’ and ‘railroad employees’ coincide with industry-specific regulatory systems in effect when the FAA was adopted in 1925. Justice Roberts rejected this argument, emphasizing that it would indeed be ‘strange’ to interpret the statute in such fashion.
Summing up the ruling, Justice Roberts stated that ‘a transportation worker need not work in the transportation industry to fall within the exemption from the FAA’— a clear victory for the workers. The court, therefore, unanimously overturned the decision made by the court of appeals.
The full coverage of this development can be accessed from SCOTUSblog.