The Federal Arbitration Act carves out “contracts of employment of seamen, railroad employees, or any other class of workers engaged in foreign or interstate commerce.” Workers who fall within that carve-out cannot be forced to arbitrate their employment disputes. This case poses a narrow question: whether a driver who makes wholly intrastate deliveries of goods that arrived from out of state is “engaged in” interstate commerce.
Brock is an independent distributor for Flowers. Flowers produces baked goods at out-of-state bakeries and trucks them to a Colorado warehouse, where Brock picks them up and delivers them to retail stores around the state. The Tenth Circuit held that he qualified for the exemption. The Tenth Circuit thus joined several other circuits, which held “last-mile” drivers are engaged in interstate commerce. Based on argument, my guess is that the Court will affirm.
However, the model regards this as a close case—and slightly more likely to reverse than affirm. That said, the model thinks that almost any of the justices might vote to affirm.
vote predictions
