Bissonnette v. LePage Bakeries Park St., LLC

Summary

A transportation worker need not work in the transportation industry to be exempt from coverage under §1 of the Federal Arbitration Act, 9 U. S. C. §1 et seq.

Text

PRELIMINARY PRINT 
Volume 601 U. S. Part 2 
Pages 246–256 
OFFICIAL REPORTS 
OF 
THE SUPREME COURT 
April 12, 2024 
REBECCA A. WOMELDORF 
reporter of decisions 
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NOTICE: This preliminary print is subject to formal revision before 
the bound volume is published. Users are requested to notify the Reporter 
of Decisions, Supreme Court of the United States, Washington, D.C. 20543, 
[email protected], of any typographical or other formal errors.

Page Proof Pending Publication
246 OCTOBER TERM, 2023 
Syllabus 
BISSONNETTE et al. v. LePAGE BAKERIES PARK ST., 
LLC, et al. 
certiorari to the united states court of appeals for 
the second circuit 
No. 23–51. Argued February 20, 2024—Decided April 12, 2024 
Respondent Flowers Foods, Inc. produces and markets baked goods that 
are distributed nationwide. Petitioners Neal Bissonnette and Tyler 
Wojnarowski owned the rights to distribute Flowers products in certain 
parts of Connecticut. To purchase those rights, they entered into con-
tracts with Flowers that require any disputes to be arbitrated under 
the Federal Arbitration Act, 9 U. S. C. § 1 et seq. After petitioners sued 
Flowers and two of its subsidiaries for violating state and federal wage 
laws, Flowers moved to compel arbitration. Petitioners responded that 
they are exempt from coverage under the FAA because they fall within 
an exception in § 1 of the Act for “contracts of employment of seamen, 
railroad employees, or any other class of workers engaged in foreign or 
interstate commerce.” The District Court dismissed the case in favor 
of arbitration, concluding that petitioners were not “transportation 
workers” exempt from the Act under § 1. The Second Circuit ulti-
mately affrmed on the ground that the § 1 exemption was available only 
to workers in the transportation industry, but that petitioners were in 
the bakery industry. 49 F. 4th 655, 661–662. 
Held: A transportation worker need not work in the transportation 
industry to be exempt from coverage under § 1 of the FAA. Pp. 252–256. 
(a) The Court has long recognized that the exemption in § 1 is limited 
to transportation workers. See Circuit City Stores, Inc. v. Adams, 532 
U. S. 105. Applying the ejusdem generis canon of statutory interpreta-
tion to § 1, the Court in Circuit City read the general phrase “class of 
workers engaged in . . . commerce” to be “controlled and defned by 
reference to” the specifc categories “seamen” and “railroad employees” 
that precede it. Id., at 115. The Court concluded that the “linkage” 
between “seamen” and “railroad employees” is that they are both trans-
portation workers, id., at 118–119, 121, and the Court thus interpreted 
the class of workers in the residual clause of § 1 to be limited in the 
same way. 
The Court again considered the scope of the residual clause in South-
west Airlines Co . v. Saxon and declined to adopt an industrywide ap-
proach to § 1, rejecting the employee's claim that she was a member of 
a “class of workers engaged in foreign or interstate commerce” simply 
because she worked for an airline and carried out its customary work.

Cite as: 601 U. S. 246 (2024) 247 
Syllabus 
See 596 U. S. 450, 460. Instead, the language of § 1—referring to 
“ `workers' ” who are “engaged” in commerce—focuses on the perform-
ance of work rather than the industry of the employer. Id., at 456 
(quoting New Prime Inc. v. Oliveira, 586 U. S. 105, 116). The relevant 
question was what the employee does at the airline, not what the airline 
does generally. Saxon, 596 U. S., at 456. 
Here the Second Circuit fashioned its transportation-industry re-
quirement without any guide in the text of § 1 or this Court's prece-
dents. The Second Circuit decided that an entity would be considered 
within the transportation industry if it “pegs its charges chiefy to the 
movement of goods or passengers” and its “predominant source of com-
mercial revenue is generated by that movement.” 49 F. 4th, at 661. 
But that test would often turn on arcane riddles about the nature of a 
company's services. For example, does a pizza delivery company derive 
its revenue mainly from pizza or delivery? Extensive discovery might 
be necessary before deciding a motion to compel arbitration, adding ex-
pense and delay to every FAA case. That “complexity and uncer-
tainty” would “ `breed[ ] litigation from a statute that seeks to avoid it.' ” 
Circuit City , 532 U. S., at 123 (quoting Allied-Bruce Terminix Cos. v. 
Dobson, 513 U. S. 265, 275). Pp. 252–254. 
(b) Flowers argues that the § 1 exemption would sweep too broadly 
without an implied transportation-industry requirement. Because “vir-
tually all products move in interstate commerce,” Flowers warns that 
nearly all workers who load or unload goods would be exempt from 
arbitration. But § 1 does not defne the class of exempt workers in such 
limitless terms. Instead, as the Court held in Saxon, a transportation 
worker is one who is “actively” “ `engaged in transportation' of . . . goods 
across borders via the channels of foreign or interstate commerce.” 596 
U. S., at 458 (quoting Circuit City, 532 U. S., at 121). In other words, a 
transportation worker “must at least play a direct and `necessary role 
in the free fow of goods' across borders.” 596 U. S., at 458 (quoting 
Circuit City, 532 U. S., at 121). These requirements “undermine[ ] any 
attempt to give the provision a sweeping, open-ended construction,” 
instead limiting § 1 to its appropriately “narrow” scope. Id., at 118. 
Pp. 254–256. 
49 F. 4th 655, vacated and remanded. 
Roberts, C. J., delivered the opinion for a unanimous Court. 
Jennifer D. Bennett argued the cause for petitioners. 
With her on the briefs were Jessica Garland, Deepak Gupta, 
Linnet Davis-Stermitz, Harold L. Lichten, Matthew Thom-
son, and Zachary L. Rubin. 
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248 BISSONNETTE v. LePAGE BAKERIES PARK ST., LLC 
Opinion of the Court 
Traci L. Lovitt argued the cause for respondents. With 
her on the brief were Matthew W. Lampe , Jack L. Millman, 
Amanda K. Rice , Kevin P . Hishta, Matthew J. Rubenstein, 
and Madeline W. Clark.* 
Chief Justice Roberts delivered the opinion of the 
Court. 
Neal Bissonnette and Tyler Wojnarowski worked as dis-
tributors for Flowers Foods, Inc., a multibillion-dollar pro-
ducer and marketer of baked goods. After they sued Flow-
*Briefs of amici curiae urging reversal were fled for the State of 
Illinois et al. by Kwame Raoul, Attorney General of Illinois, Jane Elinor 
Notz, Solicitor General, Sarah A. Hunger, Deputy Solicitor General, and 
R. Henry Weaver, Assistant Attorney General, and by the Attorneys Gen-
eral and for their respective jurisdictions as follows: Rob Bonta of Califor-
nia, Philip J. Weiser of Colorado, Brian L. Schwalb of the District of 
Columbia, Aaron M. Frey of Maine, Anthony G. Brown of Maryland, An-
drea Joy Campbell of Massachusetts, Dana Nessel of Michigan, Keith El-
lison of Minnesota, Matthew J. Platkin of New Jersey, Letitia James of 
New York, Ellen F. Rosenblum of Oregon, Michelle A. Henry of Pennsyl-
vania, Peter F. Neronha of Rhode Island, Charity R. Clark of Vermont, 
and Robert W. Ferguson of Washington; for the American Association for 
Justice by Gerson H. Smoger, Sean Domnick, and Jeffrey R. White; for 
the Constitutional Accountability Center by Elizabeth B. Wydra, Brianne 
J. Gorod, and Sachin S. Pandya; for the National Academy of Arbitrators 
by Barry Winograd and Matthew W. Finkin; for the National Employ-
ment Law Project et al. by Catherine Ruckelshaus; for Public Justice by 
Hannah Kieschnick, Leah M. Nicholls, and Ellen Noble; and for Samuel 
Estreicher et al. by Vincent Levy and Brian T. Goldman. 
Briefs of amici curiae urging affrmance were fled for Amazon.com, 
Inc., by Michael E. Kenneally and Richard G. Rosenblatt; for the Califor-
nia Employment Law Council by Paul Grossman, Paul W. Cane, Jr., and 
Chris A. Jalian; for the Chamber of Commerce of the United States of 
America et al. by Andrew J. Pincus, Archis A. Parasharami, Daniel E. 
Jones, Jennifer B. Dickey, and Jonathan D. Urick; for the DRI Center for 
Law and Public Policy et al. by Sarah Elizabeth Spencer and Lawrence S. 
Ebner; for the Independent Bakers Association by Thomas G. Hungar , 
Russell B. Balikian, and Nathan L. Kinard; for the Restaurant Law Cen-
ter by Todd B. Scherwin and Angelo I. Amador; and for the Washington 
Legal Foundation by Cory L. Andrews and John M. Masslon II .

Cite as: 601 U. S. 246 (2024) 249 
Opinion of the Court 
ers for violating state and federal wage laws, Flowers moved 
to compel arbitration under the Federal Arbitration 
Act. The question presented is whether the exemption 
from coverage under that Act for any “class of workers en-
gaged in foreign or interstate commerce” is limited to work-
ers whose employers are in the transportation industry. 9 
U. S. C. § 1. 
I 
Flowers Foods, Inc. is “the second-largest producer and 
marketer of packaged bakery foods” in the United States.
1 
Flowers Foods, www.fowersfoods.com (Mar. 14, 2024). One 
of its fagship products is Wonder Bread, which it promotes 
with a 95-foot-tall hot air balloon and a parade foat called 
The Wondership. Flowers also makes and markets other 
baked goods such as tortillas, bagels, Butterscotch Krimpets, 
and Jumbo Honey Buns in more than 40 bakeries located in 
19 States. Ibid. From there, these products are distrib-
uted across the country. 
But Flowers is not solely responsible for getting its 
baked goods to customers. Some of its subsidiaries use a 
“direct-store-delivery” system in which franchisees buy the 
rights to distribute Flowers products in particular geo-
graphic territories. Those distributors purchase the baked 
goods from Flowers and then market, sell, and deliver them 
to retailers. App. 2; 49 F. 4th 655, 658 (CA2 2022). 
Bissonnette and Wojnarowski were franchisees who owned 
the rights to distribute Flowers products in certain parts of 
Connecticut. Flowers baked the bread and buns and sent 
them to a warehouse in Waterbury. Bissonnette and Woj-
narowski picked them up and distributed them to local shops. 
They allegedly spent at least forty hours a week delivering 
Flowers products in their territories. But their jobs ex-
1 In addition to Flowers, two of its subsidiaries, C. K. Sales Co., LLC, 
and LePage Bakeries Park St., LLC, are defendants below and respond-
ents here. We refer to respondents collectively as “Flowers.” 
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250 BISSONNETTE v. LePAGE BAKERIES PARK ST., LLC 
Opinion of the Court 
tended beyond carrying the products from Point A to Point 
B. They also found new retail outlets, advertised, set up 
promotional displays, and maintained their customers' inven-
tories by ordering baked goods from Flowers, stocking 
shelves, and replacing expired products. App. 1–3, 5; 49 
F. 4th, at 658; 460 F. Supp. 3d 191, 194, 200 (Conn. 2020). 
To purchase the rights to their territories, Bissonnette and 
Wojnarowski signed Distributor Agreements with Flowers. 
Those contracts incorporate separate Arbitration Agree-
ments that require “any claim, dispute, and/or controversy” 
to be arbitrated under the Federal Arbitration Act (FAA), 9 
U. S. C. § 1 et seq.; App. 64, 133; see also id., at 37, 104–105. 
In 2019, Bissonnette and Wojnarowski brought a putative 
class action claiming that Flowers had underpaid them in 
violation of state and federal law. They alleged that Flow-
ers had taken unlawful deductions from their wages, failed 
to pay them overtime, and unjustly enriched itself by requir-
ing them to pay for distribution rights and operating ex-
penses. Flowers moved to dismiss or to compel arbitration 
under the FAA, arguing that the contracts required the dis-
tributors to arbitrate their claims individually. 
The FAA provides generally that arbitration agreements 
are “valid, irrevocable, and enforceable, save upon such 
grounds as exist at law or in equity for the revocation of any 
contract.” 9 U. S. C. § 2. It contains, however, an excep-
tion specifying that “nothing herein contained shall apply to 
contracts of employment of seamen, railroad employees, or 
any other class of workers engaged in foreign or interstate 
commerce.” § 1. Bissonnette and Wojnarowski contend 
that they fall within this exception, and therefore cannot be 
compelled to arbitrate under the FAA. 
The District Court dismissed the case in favor of arbitra-
tion. It explained that for Bissonnette and Wojnarowski to 
be exempt from the FAA, they must be “transportation 
workers.” 460 F. Supp. 3d, at 197. And it concluded that 
their “much broader scope of responsibility” under the Dis-
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Cite as: 601 U. S. 246 (2024) 251 
Opinion of the Court 
tributor Agreements “belie[d] the claim that they are only 
or even principally truck drivers.” Id., at 199. 
Without addressing the District Court's analysis, the Sec-
ond Circuit affrmed on the alternative ground that Bisson-
nette and Wojnarowski “are in the bakery industry.” 33 
F. 4th 650, 652 (2022). And under Circuit law, the panel ex-
plained, § 1 of the FAA exempts only “ `workers involved in 
the transportation industries.' ” Id., at 655 (quoting Adams 
v. Suozzi, 433 F. 3d 220, 226, n. 5 (CA2 2005)). Judge Pooler 
dissented because, in her view, § 1 asks whether a person 
is a “transportation worker[ ],” not “ for whom the worker 
undertakes her transportation work.” 33 F. 4th, at 662, 666 
(emphasis added). 
A month after the Second Circuit decided the appeal, we 
decided Southwest Airlines Co. v. Saxon, 596 U. S. 450 
(2022). In that case, we determined that a ramp supervisor 
who “frequently load[ed] and unload[ed] cargo” from air-
planes belonged to a “class of workers engaged in foreign or 
interstate commerce.” Id., at 463. We held that a “class of 
workers” is properly defned based on what a worker does 
for an employer, “not what [the employer] does generally.” 
Id., at 456. 
The Second Circuit granted panel rehearing in light of 
Saxon but adhered to its prior decision. The court held that 
an individual works in a transportation industry and may 
therefore be exempt under § 1 only “if the industry . . . pegs 
its charges chiefy to the movement of goods or passengers, 
and the industry's predominant source of commercial reve-
nue is generated by that movement.” 49 F. 4th, at 661. 
Applying that test, the court concluded that the distributors' 
“commerce is in breads, buns, rolls, and snack cakes—not 
transportation services.” Id., at 662. Judge Pooler again 
dissented, reiterating her position that the majority erred in 
“focusing on the nature of [Flowers's] business, and not on 
the nature of [the distributors'] work”—“the sort of indus-
trywide approach Saxon proscribes.” Id., at 671. 
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252 BISSONNETTE v. LePAGE BAKERIES PARK ST., LLC 
Opinion of the Court 
The Second Circuit denied rehearing en banc. 59 F. 4th 
594 (2023). Judge Pooler, having assumed senior status, 
fled a statement opposing the denial. Judge Nathan dis-
sented, joined by two other judges. 
The Second Circuit's decision conficted with decisions 
from the First Circuit. Canales v. CK Sales Co., 67 F. 4th 
38 (2023) (also involving Flowers Foods distributors); Fraga 
v. Premium Retail Servs., Inc., 61 F. 4th 228 (2023). 
We granted certiorari to resolve that conflict. 600 
U. S. ––– (2023) 
II 
The only question before us is whether a transportation 
worker must work for a company in the transportation in-
dustry to be exempt under § 1 of the FAA.
2 We conclude 
that there is no such requirement. 
More than twenty years ago, in Circuit City Stores, Inc. 
v. Adams, 532 U. S. 105 (2001), we recognized that § 1 is lim-
ited to transportation workers. Adams, a sales counselor at 
an electronics store, claimed that § 1 exempts all contracts 
of employment, regardless of what a worker does. Id., at 
109–111, 114. But he failed to account for ejusdem generis, 
the familiar canon of statutory interpretation that courts “in-
terpret a `general or collective term' at the end of a list of 
specifc items in light of any `common attribute[s]' shared by 
the specifc items.” Saxon, 596 U. S., at 458 (quoting Ali v. 
Federal Bureau of Prisons, 552 U. S. 214, 225 (2008); alter-
ation in original). Applying that canon to § 1, we explained 
that the general phrase “class of workers engaged in . . . 
commerce” is “controlled and defned by reference to” the 
specifc categories “seamen” and “railroad employees” that 
precede it. Circuit City , 532 U. S., at 115. And we con-
2 The Second Circuit did not address whether Bissonnette and Wojnarow-
ski qualify as transportation workers based on the work that they per-
form, or whether they are “engaged in . . . interstate commerce” even 
though they do not drive across state lines. We do not decide those 
issues. 
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Cite as: 601 U. S. 246 (2024) 253 
Opinion of the Court 
cluded that the “linkage” between “seamen” and “railroad 
employees” is that they are both transportation workers. 
Id., at 118–119, 121. The class of workers in the residual 
clause was therefore limited in the same way. 
That reading of § 1 harmonized the FAA with other stat-
utes designed to protect the movement of goods in com-
merce. Id., at 121. Congress enacted the FAA in 1925 to 
override the longstanding refusal of courts to enforce arbi-
tration agreements. See Allied-Bruce Terminix Cos. v. 
Dobson, 513 U. S. 265, 270–271 (1995). At that time, though, 
specifc statutory dispute resolution regimes already covered 
seamen and railroad employees—“transportation workers” 
who played a “necessary role in the free fow of goods.” 
Circuit City , 532 U. S., at 121 (citing Shipping Commission-
ers Act of 1872, ch. 322, 17 Stat. 262; Transportation Act of 
1920, § 300 et seq ., 41 Stat. 469). An exemption from the 
FAA for those workers was thus required to avoid “unset-
tl[ing]” those schemes. Circuit City, 532 U. S., at 121. The 
residual clause similarly reserves for Congress the decision 
whether to enact additional “specifc legislation for those en-
gaged in transportation,” while “ensur[ing] that workers in 
general would be covered by” the FAA. Ibid.; see also New 
Prime Inc. v. Oliveira, 586 U. S. 105, 110–111 (2019). 
We again considered the scope of the residual clause in 
Saxon, where we expressly declined to adopt an “industry-
wide” approach of the sort Flowers advances here. The re-
spondent in Saxon argued that she was a member of a “class 
of workers engaged in foreign or interstate commerce” sim-
ply because she worked for an airline and carried out its 
customary work. See 596 U. S., at 460. But § 1 refers to 
“ `workers' ” who are “engaged” in commerce. Id., at 456 
(quoting New Prime , 586 U. S., at 116). That language fo-
cuses on “ `the performance of work' ” rather than the indus-
try of the employer. Saxon, 596 U. S., at 456 (quoting New 
Prime, 586 U. S., at 116; emphasis as altered by Saxon). 
And § 1 says nothing to direct courts to consider the industry

254 BISSONNETTE v. LePAGE BAKERIES PARK ST., LLC 
Opinion of the Court 
of a worker's employer. The relevant question was “what 
[Saxon] does at Southwest, not what Southwest does gener-
ally.” Saxon, 596 U. S., at 456. 
Because the Second Circuit in this case fashioned its 
transportation-industry requirement without any guide in 
the text of § 1 or our precedents, it had to fgure out for itself 
what constituted a “transportation industry.” The court de-
cided that an entity would be considered within that industry 
if it “pegs its charges chiefy to the movement of goods or 
passengers” and its “predominant source of commercial reve-
nue is generated by that movement.” 49 F. 4th, at 661. 
The application of such a test, however, would often turn on 
arcane riddles about the nature of a company's services. 
Does a pizza delivery company derive its revenue mainly 
from pizza or delivery? Do companies like Amazon and 
Walmart—which both sell products of their own and trans-
port products sold by third parties—derive their reve-
nue mainly from retail or shipping? 
3 Extensive discovery 
might be necessary to explore the internal structure and rev-
enue models of a company before deciding a simple motion 
to compel arbitration. Mini-trials on the transportation-
industry issue could become a regular, slow, and expensive 
practice in FAA cases. All this “complexity and uncer-
tainty” would “ `breed[ ] litigation from a statute that seeks 
to avoid it.' ” Circuit City, 532 U. S., at 123 (quoting Allied-
Bruce, 513 U. S., at 275). 
III 
At the end of its brief, Flowers argues that our analysis in 
Saxon actually “suggests” that working in the transporta-
tion industry is a necessary but not suffcient condition for 
§ 1 to apply. Brief for Respondents 43–44. Flowers also 
emphasizes a single passing description in our opinion of 
“seamen” as “a subset of workers engaged in the maritime 
3 See Fulfillment by Amazon, https://sell.amazon.com/fulfillment-by -
amazon; Walmart Fulfllment Services, https://marketplace.walmart.com/ 
walmart-fulfllment-services/. 
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Cite as: 601 U. S. 246 (2024) 255 
Opinion of the Court 
shipping industry.” Saxon, 596 U. S., at 460. But this 
reading of Saxon misses the basis for our holding in that 
case. Saxon rejected the proposition that there is an indus-
trywide link between “seamen” and “railroad employees”—a 
“fawed premise” that is essential to Flowers's position here. 
Ibid. Those classes of workers, as we read the statute then 
and now, are connected by what they do, not for whom they 
do it. 
Flowers also points to historical statutes regulating cer-
tain seamen and railroad employees to show that those terms 
were limited to transportation-industry workers in 1925. 
Brief for Respondents 15–27. But those statutes only prove 
that where Congress wanted to regulate seamen or railroad 
employees in a particular industry, it said so explicitly—for 
example, by specifying that a law covered seamen aboard 
merchant vessels, or that a law covered employees of rail-
road carriers subject to the Interstate Commerce Act. See, 
e.g., The Seamen's Act of 1915, § 2, 38 Stat. 1164; Transporta-
tion Act of 1920, §§ 300(1), 301–302, 41 Stat. 469. 
Unlike those industry-specifc statutes, § 1 refers to “sea-
men” and “railroad employees” without specifying any indus-
try to which they must belong. It would be strange to read 
the conspicuous absence of similar industry-specifc language 
in § 1 as a sign that Congress defned the exemption on an 
industrywide basis. The far more natural inference, which 
we embraced in Circuit City and Saxon, is that “seamen” 
and “railroad employees” share the employment characteris-
tic of being transportation workers. 
Nor does construing § 1 to cover transportation workers 
render “seamen” and “railroad employees” superfuous, as 
Flowers contends. See Brief for Respondents 35. That ar-
gument gets ejusdem generis exactly backwards. It is the 
specifc terms “seamen” and “railroad employees” that limit 
the residual clause, not the residual clause that swallows up 
these narrower terms. Only by deleting “seamen” and “rail-
road employees” from the statute could § 1 reach as far as 
Flowers imagines. 
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256 BISSONNETTE v. LePAGE BAKERIES PARK ST., LLC 
Opinion of the Court 
Having lost on text and precedent, Flowers turns to policy, 
arguing that the § 1 exemption would sweep too broadly 
without an implied transportation-industry requirement. 
Because “virtually all products move in interstate com-
merce,” Flowers warns that virtually all workers who load 
or unload goods—from pet shop employees to grocery store 
clerks—will be exempt from arbitration. Id., at 46–47. 
We have never understood § 1 to defne the class of exempt 
workers in such limitless terms. To the contrary, as we held 
in Saxon, a transportation worker is one who is “actively” 
“ `engaged in transportation' of . . . goods across borders via 
the channels of foreign or interstate commerce.” 596 U. S., 
at 458 (quoting Circuit City , 532 U. S., at 121). In other 
words, any exempt worker “must at least play a direct and 
`necessary role in the free fow of goods' across borders.” 
596 U. S., at 458 (quoting Circuit City , 532 U. S., at 121). 
These requirements “undermine[ ] any attempt to give 
the provision a sweeping, open-ended construction,” instead 
limiting § 1 to its appropriately “narrow” scope. Id., at 
118. 
* * * 
A transportation worker need not work in the transporta-
tion industry to fall within the exemption from the FAA pro-
vided by § 1 of the Act. The Second Circuit accordingly 
erred in compelling arbitration on the basis that petitioners 
work in the bakery industry. We express no opinion on any 
alternative grounds in favor of arbitration raised below, in-
cluding that petitioners are not transportation workers and 
that petitioners are not “engaged in foreign or interstate 
commerce” within the meaning of § 1 because they deliver 
baked goods only in Connecticut. 
The judgment of the Second Circuit is vacated, and the 
case is remanded for further proceedings consistent with 
this opinion. 
It is so ordered. 
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Reporter’s Note 
The attached opinion has been revised to refect the usual publication 
and citation style of the United States Reports. The revised pagination 
makes available the offcial United States Reports citation in advance of 
publication. The syllabus has been prepared by the Reporter of Decisions 
for the convenience of the reader and constitutes no part of the opinion of 
the Court. A list of counsel who argued or fled briefs in this case, and 
who were members of the bar of this Court at the time this case was 
argued, has been inserted following the syllabus. Other revisions may 
include adjustments to formatting, captions, citation form, and any errant 
punctuation. The following additional edits were made: 
None

Retrieval chunks

• #1

  PRELIMINARY PRINT Volume 601 U. S. Part 2 Pages 246–256 OFFICIAL REPORTS OF THE SUPREME COURT April 12, 2024 REBECCA A. WOMELDORF reporter of decisions Page Proof Pending Publication NOTICE: This preliminary print is subject to formal revision before the bound volume is published. Users are requested to not…

• #2

  that precede it. Id., at 115. The Court concluded that the “linkage” between “seamen” and “railroad employees” is that they are both trans- portation workers, id., at 118–119, 121, and the Court thus interpreted the class of workers in the residual clause of § 1 to be limited in the same way. The Court again cons…

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  worker is one who is “actively” “ `engaged in transportation' of . . . goods across borders via the channels of foreign or interstate commerce.” 596 U. S., at 458 (quoting Circuit City, 532 U. S., at 121). In other words, a transportation worker “must at least play a direct and `necessary role in the free fow of g…

• #4

  J. Gorod, and Sachin S. Pandya; for the National Academy of Arbitrators by Barry Winograd and Matthew W. Finkin; for the National Employ- ment Law Project et al. by Catherine Ruckelshaus; for Public Justice by Hannah Kieschnick, Leah M. Nicholls, and Ellen Noble; and for Samuel Estreicher et al. by Vincent Levy an…

• #5

  Bissonnette and Wojnarowski were franchisees who owned the rights to distribute Flowers products in certain parts of Connecticut. Flowers baked the bread and buns and sent them to a warehouse in Waterbury. Bissonnette and Woj- narowski picked them up and distributed them to local shops. They allegedly spent at le…

• #6

  that they fall within this exception, and therefore cannot be compelled to arbitrate under the FAA. The District Court dismissed the case in favor of arbitra- tion. It explained that for Bissonnette and Wojnarowski to be exempt from the FAA, they must be “transportation workers.” 460 F. Supp. 3d, at 197. And it c…

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  trywide approach Saxon proscribes.” Id., at 671. Page Proof Pending Publication 252 BISSONNETTE v. LePAGE BAKERIES PARK ST., LLC Opinion of the Court The Second Circuit denied rehearing en banc. 59 F. 4th 594 (2023). Judge Pooler, having assumed senior status, fled a statement opposing the denial. Judge Nathan d…

• #8

  That reading of § 1 harmonized the FAA with other stat- utes designed to protect the movement of goods in com- merce. Id., at 121. Congress enacted the FAA in 1925 to override the longstanding refusal of courts to enforce arbi- tration agreements. See Allied-Bruce Terminix Cos. v. Dobson, 513 U. S. 265, 270–271 (…

• #9

  passengers” and its “predominant source of commercial reve- nue is generated by that movement.” 49 F. 4th, at 661. The application of such a test, however, would often turn on arcane riddles about the nature of a company's services. Does a pizza delivery company derive its revenue mainly from pizza or delivery? D…

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  merchant vessels, or that a law covered employees of rail- road carriers subject to the Interstate Commerce Act. See, e.g., The Seamen's Act of 1915, § 2, 38 Stat. 1164; Transporta- tion Act of 1920, §§ 300(1), 301–302, 41 Stat. 469. Unlike those industry-specifc statutes, § 1 refers to “sea- men” and “railroad e…

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  A transportation worker need not work in the transporta- tion industry to fall within the exemption from the FAA pro- vided by § 1 of the Act. The Second Circuit accordingly erred in compelling arbitration on the basis that petitioners work in the bakery industry. We express no opinion on any alternative grounds …