BarbriSFCourseDetails

Course Details

This CLE webinar will discuss the transportation worker exception to the Federal Arbitration Act (FAA), specifically how lower courts are applying Bissonnette v. LePage Bakeries Park St. L.L.C., 601 U.S. ___ (2024), and the circuit split over "last mile" transportation workers. The panel will also address how to structure arbitration agreements that may apply to transportation workers who are not covered under the purview of the FAA.

Faculty

Description

Arbitration agreements--and the class action waivers in them--are an important dispute-resolution tool for employers in the transportation industry. However, the FAA’s otherwise broad reach does not extend to seamen, railroad employees, or any other class of workers engaged in foreign or interstate commerce.

In Bissonnette v. LePage, the Supreme Court may have increased the number of workers exempt under the FAA when it held that an employee can be an exempt transportation worker even if employed by a company that is not in the transportation industry. The FAA simply refers to workers "engaged in foreign or interstate commerce," which the Court noted means they must play a direct and "necessary role in the free flow of goods" across borders.

Bissonnette leaves for the lower courts to wrestle with what this means. Many predict protracted and expensive discovery into worker job responsibilities. Bissonnette also left open a circuit split over how to classify "last mile" or "last leg" drivers who never leave their states but deliver goods or packages that arrive across state lines.

Listen as this program reviews the transportation worker exception to the FAA and how lower courts and companies are responding to the questions Bissonnette did not answer.

Outline

  1. Overview of transportation worker exemption
  2. Analysis Bissonnette v. LaPage Bakeries
  3. Lower court analysis of "engaged in foreign or interstate commerce"
  4. Last mile drivers and current circuit split
  5. Recent cases
  6. Strategies for employers

Benefits

The panel will review these and other key issues:

  • What is a direct and necessary role in the free flow of goods across borders?
  • Can arbitration agreements be enforced against exempt workers under state law?
  • Are class action waivers valid for exempt employees even if arbitration agreements are not?