The Transportation Worker Exemption and Last-Mile Drivers

This blog post contains important information for truck drivers, delivery drivers, and other workers who are involved in interstate or international commerce.

It is the second in a series of blog posts regarding the Transportation Worker Exemption (TWE), which exempts certain workers from the Federal Arbitration Act (FAA). The TWE is important because the FAA has been found to invalidate many laws and doctrines that, before they were struck down, protected employees and consumers from unfair arbitration agreements.

However, if an employee falls within the TWE, then the FAA does not apply. That means that the laws and doctrines that protect employees and consumers are not preempted by the FAA, and the employee is free to make use of them.

The Transportation Worker Exemption and Last-Mile Drivers

After the United States Supreme Court’s decision in Southwest Airlines Co. v. Saxon (2022)  596 U.S. 450, there is no question that workers who are actually engaged in foreign or interstate commerce fall within the TWE. That is true even if they work for a company that is not, strictly speaking, a transportation company. See Bissonnette v. LePage Bakeries Park St., LLC (2024) 601 U.S. 246. It is also true even if they are designated as “independent contractors” or “contractor drivers.” See New Prime Inc. v. Oliveira (2019) 586 U.S. 105.

However, workers who are “intimately involved” with interstate commerce, but do not themselves cross state or national borders, may also qualify for the TWE. In California, that includes truck drivers and delivery drivers.

For example, in Rittman v. Amazon (9th Cir. 2020) 971 F.3d 904, the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals found that Amazon’s “last-mile” delivery drivers qualified for the exemption even if the drivers themselves did not cross state lines. That is because there was no suggestion that those drivers only delivered packages that originated in the states in which they were delivered. Rather, as Amazon drivers, they carried goods that moved from one state to another and were in the stream of interstate commerce.

The Ninth Circuit reached a similar conclusion in Romero v. Watkins and Shepard Trucking, Inc. (9th Cir. 2021) 9 F.4th 1097. There, the court found that a truck driver who delivered furniture that often came from out of state was subject to the TWE even though he never crossed state lines.

Finally, in Carmona Mendoza v. Domino’s Pizza (9th Cir. 2023) 73 F.4th 1135, the Ninth Circuit found that drivers who transported ingredients from a supply center in California to pizza restaurants also in California fell within the scope of the TWE. That is because those ingredients were not modified at the supply center. Instead, they were merely repackaged. For that reason, the Carmona case was distinguishable from other TWE cases in which the goods were transformed. Cf. A.L.A. Schechter Poultry Corp. v. United States (1935) 295 U.S. 495; Immediato v. Postmates, Inc. (1st Cir. 2022) 54 F.4th 67.

Because the TWE applied to the drivers in these cases, they were not bound by the arbitration agreements that they had signed. Accordingly, they could proceed with their class and collective actions.

California truck drivers and delivery drivers have rights that other employees do not enjoy. That includes drivers who are designated as “independent contractors” or “contractor drivers.” If you have questions about your rights at work, please feel free to contact Hunter Pyle Law, PC.