Flowers Foods, Inc. v. Brock
The Supreme Court ruled unanimously that a Colorado delivery driver who never left his state could still qualify for a federal exemption that lets transportation workers sue in court rather than be forced into arbitration, because his local deliveries were the final leg of a multi-state shipment.
The decision means that 'last-mile' delivery workers and distributors do not need to personally cross a state border — or physically touch a truck that did — to escape mandatory arbitration clauses in their contracts.
“Nor, we now add, does §1 turn on a game of tag with vehicles that do.”
The Court rejecting the idea that a worker must personally touch a vehicle that crossed state lines to qualify for the arbitration exemption.
How it got here: A federal district court in Colorado denied Flowers's motion to compel arbitration; the Tenth Circuit affirmed; Flowers petitioned the Supreme Court, which agreed to hear the case.
The Case in Depth
What happened
Flowers Foods, a national commercial bakery, uses independent franchisees to distribute products like Wonder Bread and Honey Buns. Angelo Brock is a franchisee in Denver who picks up baked goods at a Colorado warehouse and delivers them to local stores, never leaving the state. When Brock sued Flowers alleging he and other distributors had been underpaid, Flowers pointed to an arbitration clause in his distribution agreement and moved to send the case to private arbitration rather than court.
The question before the Court
Can a delivery driver who never crosses state lines — and never handles vehicles that do — still be exempt from a mandatory arbitration clause if the goods he delivers were part of an interstate shipment?
The Court's answer
Yes — a worker who handles only the intrastate, final-delivery leg of an interstate shipment can still qualify for the exemption in Section 1 of the Federal Arbitration Act that protects transportation workers from being forced into arbitration.
The Court held that neither crossing a state line nor physically touching a vehicle that does is required. The statutory text, read as it would have been understood in 1925, defines "engaged in interstate commerce" to include anyone who actively takes part in moving goods from one state to another — including those who handle an entirely in-state segment of a continuous cross-border journey. Historical Supreme Court decisions involving steamboats and railroad agents who never left their home states, but whose work completed interstate shipments, reinforced that reading. The Court rejected Flowers's request for a bright-line "cross-or-tag" rule as unsupported by the statute's text.
Curious how the Court got there? See the step-by-step legal reasoning →
Why it matters
Delivery drivers, product distributors, and other workers who handle goods within a single state may be able to refuse mandatory arbitration and bring wage or workplace disputes to court — so long as the goods they carry were part of a continuous interstate shipment. This potentially opens courthouse doors for large numbers of regional and last-mile delivery workers who signed arbitration agreements.
What changes now
The case returns to the lower courts, where Flowers may still argue that other features of its arrangement with Brock disqualify him from § 1's exemption — specifically, that it contracts with a company Brock owns (not Brock personally), and that Brock buys and resells the goods rather than simply delivering them. Those questions were explicitly left open by the Court and will need to be resolved in further proceedings.
What this does not decide
The Court did not decide whether Brock personally qualifies for the § 1 exemption. It rejected only one specific argument — the cross-or-tag rule. Whether working through a personal business entity, or buying and reselling goods rather than delivering them under a traditional employment arrangement, can defeat the exemption remains unresolved.
Concurrences and dissents
How the Justices voted
Majority (1). Justice Gorsuch (author).
How the Court got there
The legal reasoning, step by step
- The Court began with the text of FAA § 1, which exempts 'workers engaged in interstate commerce' from mandatory arbitration. Reading those words as an ordinary person would have understood them in 1925, 'engage' meant to take part in, be employed in, or be involved in something, and 'interstate commerce' included the transportation of goods from one state to another — covering the intrastate portions of a continuous multi-state journey, not just the segment that crosses the border.
- Because interstate commerce under this definition includes the full continuous journey — and 'much of the journey' can occur 'within the limits of a single state' — a person can be actively involved in that journey without ever leaving one state or touching a vehicle that crossed into another. The statutory language simply does not impose a cross-or-tag requirement.
- A hypothetical illustrates the point: if three drivers relay a shipment of Butterscotch Krimpets from a bakery in State B to a customer in State A — one driving to the border, one crossing ten feet over, and one delivering inside State A — all three are equally necessary participants in the interstate movement. Limiting the § 1 exemption to only the border-crossing driver would produce absurd results.
- Historical Supreme Court precedent from before and around the FAA's 1925 enactment confirms this reading. In The Daniel Ball (1871), the Court held that a steamboat operating entirely within Michigan was 'engaged in commerce between the States' because it carried goods destined for or arriving from other states. Cases like Rearick v. Pennsylvania and Rhodes v. Iowa similarly found intrastate workers — a salesman and a railroad agent — engaged in interstate commerce when completing the final leg of an interstate delivery.
- Flowers argued those cases construed the Constitution's Commerce Clause, not the FAA, but the Court found them persuasive evidence of what an ordinary reader in 1925 would have understood 'engaged in interstate commerce' to mean — the same phrase used in § 1. The Court stopped short of equating the full scope of § 1 with the full reach of the Commerce Clause, but used the historical cases as a reliable linguistic guide.
- The Court reaffirmed its earlier rule from Southwest Airlines v. Saxon that § 1 requires workers to play a 'direct, necessary, and active' role in moving goods across state lines — and confirmed that Brock's role completing the final leg of Flowers's interstate distribution chain can satisfy that standard. The Court declined to decide separate questions, which Flowers raised only in passing, about whether Brock's contractor-company arrangement or his practice of buying and reselling goods might independently affect his eligibility.
Doctrinal impact
Cases affected by this decision
Reaffirms Southwest Airlines Co. v. Saxon (596 U.S. 450)
The Court reaffirms Saxon's rule that § 1 does not require workers to cross state lines, and extends it by also rejecting a vehicle-contact requirement.
Reaffirms Bissonnette v. LePage Bakeries Park St., LLC (601 U.S. 246)
Reaffirmed as the third in a line of cases rejecting efforts to narrow the § 1 transportation-worker exemption.