Supreme Court tackles another arbitration case related to trucking

The U.S. Supreme Court once again is faced with determining whether truck drivers are bound to arbitration.

Last week, the court heard oral arguments in Bissonnette v. LePage Bakeries Parks St., which aims to determine whether interstate truck drivers for private fleets are exempt from the Federal Arbitration Act.

The act prohibits courts from applying the statute to the “contracts of employment of seamen, railroad employers or any other class of workers engaged in foreign or interstate commerce.” Now, the Supreme Court is tasked with determining whether a transportation worker must be employed by a company in the trucking industry to be exempt from the act.

A recent report from the Congressional Research Service estimated that about 2 million truck drivers in the United States work for private truck fleets rather than for traditional trucking companies.

Oral arguments

The Bissonnette case involves a distributor agreement between Neal Bissonnette, Tyler Wojnarowski and Flower Foods, which makes Wonder Bread and several other bread products. In 2019, Bissonnette and Wojnarowski filed a lawsuit over alleged violations of federal and state wage laws. The lower court granted the baking company’s motion to compel arbitration and dismissed the case, concluding that the truck drivers worked in the baking industry and the arbitration exemption did not apply.

During oral arguments on Tuesday, Feb. 20, Jennifer Bennett – an attorney representing the truck drivers – told the court that the drivers should be considered transportation workers even though a baking company created an in-house fleet.

“Less than two years ago, in Southwest versus Saxon, this court carefully examined the text and history of the Federal Arbitration Act’s worker exemption, and it held that the exemption applies to ‘any class of workers directly involved in transporting goods across state or international borders,’” Bennett said. “Flowers now asks this court to add an additional unwritten requirement that the worker’s employer must sell transportation.”

Traci L. Lovitt, an attorney for Flowers Foods, argued that the workers’ job responsibilities are much different than a typical truck driver or transportation worker. Lovitt said that Flowers sold bread to Bissonnette and what was done with the bread next was up to Bissonnette.

“They are under no personal obligation to move anything,” Lovitt said. “They look nothing like railroad employees or seamen.”

The Supreme Court is expected to issue a ruling later this year.

Other arbitration case

The Supreme Court also tackled arbitration cases in 2019 when it upheld a First Circuit decision that ruled New Prime couldn’t compel arbitration in a lawsuit filed by truck driver Dominic Oliveira.

In that case, the court was tasked with deciding whether or not the arbitration exemption applied only to company drivers.

The court ruled that the exemption applied to transportation workers whether they were employees or independent contractors. LL