Tastykake and Dave’s Killer Bread baker
The high court will weigh in on whether workers who make local deliveries are truly involved in interstate transportation. The eventual ruling could affect courtroom access for a broad range of delivery drivers, including those who make dropoffs for companies such as Amazon.
The Federal Arbitration Act carveout bars the enforcement of mandatory arbitration clauses respecting “contracts of employment of seamen, railroad employees, or any other class of workers engaged in foreign or interstate commerce.”
The exemption—and Flowers Foods—last appeared before the justices in 2024, when the high court ruled against the baker’s argument that the carveout covers workers only if their employer is part of the transportation industry. Two years earlier, the high court clarified that an airline employee’s plane-loading duties made her a transportation worker even though she didn’t cross borders herself.
The latest case turns on whether intrastate deliveries qualify workers for the interstate exception. The justices “flagged this issue as important, but undecided” in their prior two FAA exemption rulings, said Pace University arbitration law professor Imre Szalai.
“So much will depend in this case on whether the Court views the goods as being part of a continuous interstate journey at the point they reach” the delivery driver and whether that driver “contributes or is integral to that interstate journey,” said Tamar Meshel, an arbitration law professor at the University of Alberta.
However the justices rule, their opinion “could also impact other last-mile drivers such as mobile app drivers who service airports and Amazon delivery drivers,” Meshel added.
‘Inconsistent Treatment’
Driver Angelo Brock’s proposed class action is one of many against Flowers Foods and various subsidiaries—here, Flowers Bakeries LLC, and Flowers Baking Co. of Denver LLC—alleging they misclassified workers as independent contractors when they were really employees entitled to greater wage protections. The baker tried, unsuccessfully, to force Brock’s claims out of the courthouse and into arbitration.
The US Court of Appeals for the Tenth Circuit in 2024 sided with Brock, upholding a ruling allowing him to use the FAA exemption to pursue his wage case in court.
Brock’s case “is about ensuring that transportation workers—the backbone of our economy—can hold their employers accountable when they are denied the wages they’ve earned,” said Gupta Wessler LLP’s Jennifer Bennett, who represents the worker. “Mr. Brock and thousands of drivers like him simply seek their day in court.”
Flowers Foods argued that because Brock delivered products from a Colorado warehouse to Colorado customers, he wasn’t engaged in interstate commerce and should have to arbitrate in accordance with an agreement he signed with the company.
The Tenth Circuit’s decision “expressly deepened” a circuit split, according to Flowers Foods’ brief. The panel followed the First and Ninth circuits’ approach when it focused on where the products had traveled rather than Brock’s specific work, but the Fifth and Eleventh circuits properly recognize that the carveout depends on what workers are doing, not what they’re carrying, the company said.
The question Flowers Foods asks the justices to answer “sweeps in at least two different classes of workers,” according to Brock’s brief. It implicates both those who handle the final leg of a product’s interstate journey, such as Brock, and those who transport goods from local retail stores to local customers, such as restaurant delivery drivers, his brief said.
Although the company says there’s a circuit split, there’s actually “widespread consensus about how the worker exemption applies to each of these classes,” with courts agreeing last-mile drivers are engaged in interstate transportation, Brock continued.
There’s “inconsistent treatment from lower courts and uncertainty regarding the precise standard to apply,” which “multiplies litigation, causes delay, and undermines a potential value of arbitration, its speed,” Szalai said. “Parties can spend months or even years fighting over who counts as a transportation worker, just to determine whether there is an obligation to arbitrate,” without any rulings on the merits, he added.
“The Supreme Court needs to adopt a sensible interpretation” of the carveout “so that it facilitates, not negates, the FAA’s primacy, including with respect to so-called local workers who handle out-of-state goods,” said Atlantic Legal Foundation’s Lawrence S. Ebner, who filed a brief urging the justices to hear Flowers Foods’ case.
Nicholas & Tomasevic LLP also represents Brock. Jones Day and Ogletree, Deakins, Nash, Smoak & Stewart PC represent Flowers Foods.
The case is Flowers Foods Inc. v. Brock, U.S., No. 24-935, cert. granted 10/20/25.
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