RELEASE: Court Unanimously Rejects Atextual “Transportation Industry” Requirement for FAA Exemption, Allowing Truck Drivers Their Day in Court
WASHINGTON, DC – Following today’s decision at the Supreme Court in Bissonnette v. LePage Bakeries Park St., LLC, a case in which the Court considered whether the Federal Arbitration Act (FAA) exempts workers who are actively engaged in interstate transportation but are not employed by a company in the transportation “industry,” Constitutional Accountability Center Appellate Counsel Miriam Becker-Cohen issued the following reaction:
Today the Court unanimously rejected an attempt by a large corporation to contort the text of the FAA’s exemption for transportation workers to force more of its workers, who allege their rights have been violated, out of courtrooms and into arbitration proceedings. Echoing the straightforward textual analysis we presented in our amicus brief, the Court held that, as the Chief Justice put it, the exemption “says nothing to direct courts to consider the industry of a worker’s employer.” In other words, workers qualify as transportation workers based on the work they perform, not the industry for which they perform the work.
We are pleased that the Court recognized that the text of the FAA exemption, informed by the words’ original public meaning, dictates the outcome here. Indeed, as the Court noted, this approach to the FAA exemption is hardly new. The result here flowed directly from several of the Court’s previous cases, including Southwest Airlines v. Saxon, decided just a couple of years ago.
As a result of this case, the plaintiffs—truck drivers for a large baked goods corporation—will, at long last, get their day in court.
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Resources:
Case page in Bissonnette v. LePage Bakeries Park St., LLC: https://www.theusconstitution.org/litigation/bissonnette-v-lepage-bakeries-park-st-llc/
Oral argument press release: Court Grapples Once Again with Federal Arbitration Act’s Exemption for Transportation Workers
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Constitutional Accountability Center is a nonpartisan think tank and public interest law firm dedicated to fulfilling the progressive promise of the Constitution’s text, history, and values. Visit CAC’s website at www.theusconstitution.org.
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