Food Delivery Drivers Misclassification Suit Can Proceed in Court

In a unanimous decision written by Justice Neil Gorsuch, the U.S. Supreme Court held on May 28, 2026, that a worker who transports goods on an intrastate leg of an interstate journey can be exempt from arbitration under Section 1 of the Federal Arbitration Act (FAA) without crossing state lines or interacting with vehicles that do.

Background

The case, Flowers Foods, Inc. et al. v. Brock, is the latest in a line of cases addressing the scope of Section 1 of the FAA, which exempts from arbitration disputes involving "contracts of employment of seamen, railroad employees, or any other class of workers engaged in foreign or interstate commerce." 9 U.S.C. § 1.

 In New Prime Inc. v. Oliveira, 586 U.S. 105 (2019), the Supreme Court held that "contracts of employment" includes independent contractor agreements. In Southwest Airlines Co. v. Saxon, 596 U.S. 450 (2022), the Court held that an airline worker who loaded and unloaded cargo fell within Section 1's exemption even though she did not cross state lines. And in Bissonnette v. LePage Bakeries Park St. LLC, 601 U.S. 246 (2024), the Court held that a transportation worker need not work in the transportation industry to fall within the Section 1 exemption.

In the latest case, Flowers Foods Inc. (Flowers) asked the Court to decide whether someone can qualify as a worker engaged in interstate commerce under Section 1 if he never crosses state lines and never interacts with vehicles that do.

Angelo Brock was a franchisee of Flowers, who picked up Flowers' products from a warehouse in Colorado and delivered them to stores within the state. Brock had a distribution agreement with Flowers containing an agreement to arbitrate any disputes that might arise between him and the company.

When Brock filed a class action in federal district court in 2022 alleging Flowers misclassified delivery drivers as independent contractors instead of employees, leading to alleged wage violations, Flowers filed a motion asking the court to send the dispute to arbitration. The district court denied the motion and the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Tenth Circuit affirmed, concluding that Brock belonged to a class of workers involved in interstate commerce, and therefore could not be compelled to arbitrate his claims.   

The Supreme Court Decision

The Supreme Court affirmed the judgment of the Tenth Circuit, holding that delivery drivers such as Brock, who transport goods on an intrastate leg of an interstate journey, can qualify for the Section 1 exemption, even if they never cross state lines or interact with vehicles that do. The Court reasoned that nothing in the text of the Section 1 exemption required an individual to cross state lines or interact with a vehicle that does, and the Court's prior cases supported this conclusion.

Takeaways

Although the Court refused to adopt a bright-line rule that an individual can never qualify for the exemption under Section 1 unless he crosses state lines or interacts with vehicles that do, it did not decide other issues potentially related to the arbitrability of Brock's claims, such as whether Brock's distribution agreement qualified as a "contract of employment" sufficient to trigger the Section 1 exemption, or whether the interstate journey ended when Brock took title to Flowers' goods before selling them to local stores. Nor did the Court address whether any arbitration must proceed on an individual or class basis.

Companies should continue to be vigilant in defining and defending the enforceability of valid arbitration agreements, but they should expect workers desiring to litigate in court to continue to challenge those agreements, particularly in the "last mile" delivery space.