[24-935] Flowers Foods, Inc. v. Brock

We will love it.

Thank you, Mr. Chief Justice, and may it please the court.

In Beesonette and Saxon, this court held that a section-one transportation worker must be actively engaged in transportation of goods across borders. The class of workers must be directly and actively performing cross-border transportation work. Brock picks up goods from a warehouse in Colorado and delivers them to retail outlets in Colorado. When he takes the goods, they've crossed their last border and they have been unloaded from the interstate vehicle carrying them. Mr. Brock performs no work in cross-border transportation and is not exempt under section 1.

This result is faithful to section 1's text and to this court's precedent because it focuses the inquiry on the workers' connectivity

to cross-border transportation work.

Brock's rule departs from text and precedent by focusing on the workers' relationship to a good and the goods' relationship to interstate commerce. And Brock's approach would lead to unlimited chaos. It is a world where everything is dispositive and everything is relevant and nothing is dispositive.

“We know that because that's what's happening in the first ninth and tenth circuits today, all of which follow Brock's approach.”

And Brock's approach sweeps in too many workers in the section 1. Today in the ninth circuit, workers who deliver the New York Times in the state of California have been deemed section 1 exempt workers by the ninth circuit.

Because the New York Times is printed in another state and arrives in California in boxes from another state.

Under that logic, the store clerk who unpacks boxes from another state and transports them to the shelf should also be exempt. But in 1925, no one viewed the store clerk or the paper boy as a cross-border transportation worker. The court should pick up or be sent at left-off and reaffirm that section 1 does not have limitless terms. I welcome the court's questions.

“Mr. Love, what is the final destination for the product in this case?”

I'm not sure, I think that's a question better posed to our opponent because one could argue that the final destination is the shelves. One could argue it's the warehouse. Well, I mean it's your product. So if it's flowers is product, then what should be the final destination? Again, I think that is a question that can be answered on many levels, under the Federal Motor Carriers Act.

The destination is to the ultimate retailer, under the Commerce Clause, it's not sure because the final destination cases don't give you a framework by which to judge the final destination. I thought, at the search stage, you told us, that you conceded that proxy flowers last mile driver, who delivers flowers goods that have traveled across state lines from local warehouses to local retailers. Now, whether district court and the circuit were right and making that finding is irrelevant, you gave us a concession.

So that concession answers the question. The contract was between flowers and its retail look and its local retailers. So I don't know why you're saying it depends. The concession told us.

“Because it begs the question, last mile driver of what? Of the good or of the final mile of cross-border transportation?”

Well, it's the good. So the goods are traveling in interstate corners. Now the question is, is this driver helping that interesting process? So is he involved? Is he involved from a commerce class perspective? Yes, otherwise we wouldn't fall within section two of the FAA. We're not pushing back on the fact that Mr. Brock has engaged in interstate commerce from a commerce class perspective.

But this court for twice in four years has held that section one requires more than a commerce class analysis. It requires an analysis of the actual work, the worker is performing. And the worker is performing the work of a local delivery here, not any cross-border transportation. And on this, I think Sachsen is quite informative on what is problem is that we have too many cases that say you don't have to be the person who actually does the transport. The baggage carrier that's unloading from an airplane has transported the goods across.

We have a slew of cases that talk about people who don't cross straight lines, so it's not that.

That's not our position. We fully embrace Sachsen. In our view, Sachsen was asking the question, what is cross-border transportation? And it looked through to cases in the bill of leading contacts and said transportation ends when a good is unloaded. So I think it's a fair extension of Sachsen to say.

“When goods are unloaded, and that's what Mr. Brock does as the last mile driver for flowers, which is a concession you made.”

But he's unloading an interstate journey. And the question is, when does the interstate journey end at an end of the warehouse when the goods are unloaded by someone other than Mr. Brock? I understood, and maybe it's very oversimplistic. I understood the case involved the dispute between whether we look to the goods or whether we look to essentially the vehicle. Is that a fair oversimplification?

I think it's fair, but a slight oversimplification. We would say that you look to the work of cross-border transportation. And the direct and active engagement that Sachsen and Beesonet require, it's hard to imagine a situation where you wouldn't have some interaction with the vehicle to be directly and actively engaged. I mean, Ms. Sachsen had an interaction with the vehicle.

“But it's not our position. I'm going to just be clear for the record that you have to be crossing the border.”

That's been a characterization of our position that's inaccurate. Our position is you have to be performing the work of cross-border transportation. And Sachsen says that begins at the loading process and it ends at the unloading process. And the cross-border movement in between is a relevant transportation. Mr. Brock loads for an intrastate journey and unloads on an intrastate journey

and never performs any actual transportation work that involves cross-border performance.

It's really only, I think, if you ignore what is happening to the goods. And the thing that's a little puzzling to me about your analysis is that you set it up in a way that would end up having different workers along the journey of a particular good being characterized differently. And I don't understand why Congress would do that or how that even makes sense.

So I mean, take flowers, right? Suppose you have a worker who drives the bread from flowers, bakery in Kansas to the border between Kansas and Colorado. But that worker doesn't cross-state lines and then you have a second worker who unloads the bread

from the first worker's truck inside still inside Kansas.

Puts it on his own truck drives it across the border and unloads the bread at a warehouse in Colorado. And you have a third worker like Brock who picks up the bread in Colorado and delivers it to a store in Colorado.

“I think your analysis has only the second worker covered by section one exemption and I'm not sure”

I understand why that would be. I think that's an accurate characterization, it's because crossing a border matters. It matters from a legal perspective and it's expressed in the residual clause. But doesn't it only matter because the goods are crossing the border? No, the person is not crossing the border. So what relevant is it to your analysis

that you have a particular worker in the middle of the goods journey who himself crosses the border or who touches a vehicle that crosses the border? It will seem to me that the only real thing that makes sense about characterizing any of these people as interstate transportation workers is that they are working with respect to goods that are making this interstate journey. Because this court again is held twice in four years that you're looking at the work that's performed.

You're looking at the workers' performance, but it's the work that is performed relative to goods that are crossing the border. I think as opposed to your theory, which is the work that is performed in a particular leg of the goods journey that has crossed somehow. There's nothing textually in section one that's compelling to focus on the good to the contrary. Section one is sort of dripping with workers' work and vehicles.

The enumerated classes are defined by the relationship between workers and vehicles. If by definition, cement or crew on a vessel. So Miss Saxon is not herself on a vehicle moving a vehicle going across the border. But you say she counts under your view because why? She has loaded or unloaded cargo off of a vehicle that crossed the border because in Saxon held

that the cross-border transportation begins at loading and ends at unloading. Yeah, but it's loading what? It's loading goods.

She's not going across the border. The vehicle that she's touching is not going across the border at the time. She's touching it. What causes the interstateness of that scenario is that goods she's picking up and touching goods that have crossed. No, but the court held with all the respect. Yeah, Saxon to say that the interconnection is not just the loading of the goods.

It's loading the goods on a vehicle that's on an interstate journey.

That second, the court would not have needed to labor as much as it did over the fact that

“the vehicle is on interstate journey and the labor over the fact that you have to be crossing the border.”

If the test was an easy as a goods test. It's love it. There does seem to me a lot of room for dispute about whom the goods are ordered from home and lots of facts here. You have some excellent diagrams and the tense circuit opinion that are helpful to me at least. But I wonder whether we need to really get into any of that because as I understand it, you're advocating for a bright-line rule.

You think there needs to be clarity here and the bright-line rule I think you're asking us to adopt is that a delivery driver is in interstate commerce unless he does not cross state borders

and he doesn't interact with vehicles, the cross state borders, right?

Close. I think we would say you book in the transportation with loading and unloading. That's the result of that. I'm not really interested in any of that. I'm saying I don't see that in a QP. I don't see goods. I don't see anything like that in the QP. And loading and whatever I see. But do not transport the goods across borders nor that means

“they interact with vehicles across borders. That's the question you asked us to decide, right?”

Do we adopt a bright-line rule that delivery drivers are in interstate commerce unless they do both of those things? Unless I would say, let's say do either of those things? Well, you say, okay, either. They're loading or unloading across borders. Either interacting with vehicles or crossing the borders themselves. And if we can answer that question, yes or no, and be done with this case.

And yes, and I think section one is demanding as a threshold requirement. It's a bright-line rule. It's a bright-line rule. It's a bright-line rule. And it argues for. You're not asking us to get into whether Brock takes title to the goods, whether the grocery stores order products from him or from you. How long the good stay in a warehouse and Colorado after arriving from out of state, whether the goods are transformed to repackaged,

whether the contract here with a corporation is covered by the FAA or how much control flowers has over Brock. None of those questions we need to get into.

“Correct. And I think that's what's steering the tin circuit in the wrong direction,”

because none of those facts have anything to do with the workers' war. Well, whether they do or don't, we don't need to get into them. Exactly. I mean, I think there are another ground on which we win, but that's not what we're are you in here.

The problem is it goes to company structures, it's delivery drivers, so that driver one drives

10 hours on an interest-state leg. Then driver two drives one minute across an interest-state border, then driver three completes the journey with another 10-hour interest-state drive. Each driver uses a different vehicle. Is driver two the only person covered by the exemption? Can I ask a clarifying question? Because as I read Saxon, the cross-quarter transportation ends with unloading. So if there's no unloading,

that's one cross-quarter transportation. But if you're, when you add at different vehicles, it makes me question whether you have an unloading process which would debarkate and do leg-up transportation. Yeah, there's an unloading, obviously, the goods have to get from one truck to another. But under that situation, only driver two would be covered by the exemption. Yep, because the book ends are loading and unloading, and Saxon says that the transportation

continues until the unloading process. And we read that, and looking through to the cases, at Saxon's sighting, those cases are about windows in transportation end, because transportation needs to end at some point. And they're holding the cross-quarter transportation ends of the unloading process, which makes sense. If you've ever been stuck on the subway and you can't get out, you really feel like your transportation hasn't ended until the door

is open. And those cases are saying, there is a clear demarcation in transportation, loading, unloading, and the movement in the between. And if the movement in between is cross-quarter or interstate, it falls within the role. And it may sound simple, but this is the kind of clarity that section one really needs to have, because it is a threshold requirement.

juistum, which tells us that the workers in the residual clause are transportation markers, and then it also comes from, this course, where does it come from in the language of the statute? Engaged in. This court interpreted engaged in, in both Saxon and Beesonette, as being directly and actively employed. And then add to it the interstate component, which requires interstate transportation, because you're talking about transportation workers. It's all three of those

“principles coming together that say you have to be a transportation worker that's active”

properly and directly involved in cross-quarter transportation. And then Saxon asked the question, "Well, what is cross-quarter transportation? Is it just the movement of the vehicle?" And the court helped, no, actually, that process continues through loading and unloading. I'm sorry, this Justice Alito is asking a lot of questions. I'm trying to deal with our cases. And we have a bunch of them at the time of the FA, okay?

Which said let's start with Philadelphia and Redding versus Hancock. This court held that a first

mile training whose duties involved transporting coal from a mine to a storage yard, solely within Philadelphia. And that coal was then transferred by a different crew

“to another train that was going in interstate commerce. The court explained that that first”

mile driver, not the last mile driver, that had done everything in Philadelphia and the goods were unloaded and reshipped somewhere else. The court said that shipment was but a step in the transportation of the coal to real and ultimate destinations in another state. And so that trainman that first trainman was involved in interstate commerce. You want to distinguish that case. Here, the same thing happened. You want to distinguish all the cases with first mile drivers,

second mile drivers. You want to create a new test. And I still want to come to where in the language of the FA that uses the word "engaged" which is the same word we used in Saxon that defined all of these people as engaged in interstate commerce. So two answers to your question. The first is we would disagree with the characterization of Hancock because in Hancock that was

a rail car, a single rail car that started at the mines and when interstate was never unloaded.

So if the corollary here to Hancock would be if Mr. Abrock got into the truck that actually and drove the final 10 miles to the warehouse, that's the corollary to Hancock. That's not what Mr. Brock is doing. And again, Fila is focused on what exactly are the instrumentalities of the rail car you're doing. The instrumentality, the rail car was crossing the state lines. So that's actually what it's not called. The issue of the rail car and you're saying don't look at the goods,

look at the worker and the worker wasn't doing any of that. Well, I mean we're saying Fila is an opposite. You shouldn't be in the, you know, these are Fila cases that have a very different structure. But just try to distinguish them, but they're what we relied on. It's Saxon. But we did, you did rely on it and you actually rely on two cases in Saxon which were birch and short. The birch cases of Fila case which said that cargo that transportation continues until

you're unloaded and short was a bill of lading case that's loaded at the point of destination. But unloading of the vehicle, unloading of the vehicle. And because they're, they're defining what transportation is, their transportation needs can have an end that's different from the goods end. And what section, what they add is here. Sorry, I may have interrupt the judge

I'll just ask one or two questions. What, how do you handle first mile drivers? Is your analysis

different than those? No, they're the mirror image of rock. If a first mile driver, so that's and you clarify terms because I don't, there's a lot of loading of what first and last mile mean. If the driver were to pick up the goods at the bakery and take them to a local warehouse, where they were an unload them. That's to me the first mile driver. That's the mirror image

“of rock and they would not be exempt. Thank you. I'd be just to go back to, I think, the point”

that Justice Alita was making with his hypothetical is like whether or not you are if test is clear, it has a real arbitrariness to it. Practically speaking, what you want to be thinking about here, it would seem to me is there's a manufacturer of bread and the manufacturer of bread needs to get it

what we're thinking of is the trip by which the manufacturer might be one leg or three legs or eight legs, it might different legs, might cross different state boundaries or not, but what the manufacturer needs to do is to get it the bread from the factory to the supermarket. And if that's in interstate commerce, if the goods, the cargo, the bread is crossing state lines, then everybody who's involved in making the goods cross those state lines ought to fall into the same category, not be split up,

based on this sort of happenstance of, did you take the first mile, did your 10 hour shift

“across the state line or didn't it, or whatnot? So to answer your question, I think the textual”

hook here is engaged in, and this court held in Saxon and in Bisenet that engaged in requires direct and active employment in cross-border transportation, the performance of cross-border transportation, not in interstate commerce, and second in Bisenet at, well they're all regardless of which leg that they're exactly on, they're all directly engaged in the interstate shipment of your bread. But that's not the, that's not the, respectively is we read Saxon and Bisenet,

the text is, what is the class of workers doing? Well, worker that performing in Bisenet says,

you shouldn't be looking at what flowers is doing. That was the hard lesson we learned from Bisenet,

is it doesn't matter that we're in the industry of selling bread across borders, that the court shouldn't be looking at that. That was the clear takeaway from Bisenet. It should be looking at what is this class of workers doing? What's their task? What's their job? What are they performing? They're all driving the trucks that get your bread from the factory

“to the supermarket. That's what all of them are doing. And when those trucks, when that trip”

is an interstate trip, they're all doing the same thing, regardless of the happenstance of whether one or the other of them is crossing a state line. And that's where we respectfully disagree because we think crossing the state line matters, it's in the text of section one, that it has to be interstate. And so if you're looking at whether the class of workers is actually performing cross-border transportation, they need to be crossing the border. And crossing the border.

Well, the Saxon workers were not crossing the border. So we've given that one up already. Well, they, but they were, but they were involved in shipments of goods that did cross-borders. And that's what mattered. Well, as I, again, as I read Saxon, it's saying that cross-border transportation is a definable thing that starts with loading and ends with unloading. And if you're loading on a vehicle that's traveling interstate, that is part and parcel of the journey across

the border. Because you can't journey across the border until the goods loaded. You can't

“end the journey until the goods off. And I think that's a question about that to just test your”

hypothetical. What, what if the goods were always in state? But the vehicle somehow crossed the border.

Is that not going? You say loading and unloading. And I guess you're assuming that it's loaded in another state and unloaded in this one, or could it be that you are a worker who is working with vehicles that have themselves crossed the border regardless of where the loading and unloading happens. So this, you know, this court has always talked about moving goods. But I think in your example of your class of workers are our interstate truck drivers. And this is actually akin to the

Zachary case where you have an empty truck. And you're driving the truck across state lines to pick something up. I would think-- No, not across state lines, not across-- Miss Saxon didn't go across state lines. So let's hold the worker constant. They're not moving. You say what makes Saxon count is not that the goods that she was loading and unloading had been across state lines. It was that the airplane that she was loading from had been across state lines. So I'm testing this hypothetical

or this theory by isolating the goods, having the goods remain in state and just having workers who are working with vehicles that have cross state lines. In that situation are the workers interstate workers from your perspective? I'm going to have to ask the clarifying questions. I'm not understanding what the worker's relationship is with the vehicle. Are they loading it? But they're loading it for goods that were loaded still in the state. But the vehicle has cross state lines.

The vehicle themselves for some reason, for some reason. In my hypothetical, the vehicle is

with the kind of vehicle that you say counts. And the goods are staying put in the same state.

“Is that person an interstate in the class of workers that is operating interstate in your view?”

So if the class of workers is loading a vehicle that is not in interstate, not all the vehicle is an interstate. The vehicle comes in from New York and I'm in New Jersey and I'm the worker and I'm loading this vehicle in New Jersey with goods that started in New Jersey and that are going to end in New Jersey. But the vehicle came in in the morning from New York. The vehicle has been an interstate commerce or interstate traffic for your purposes. Is that worker an interstate

class of worker? Under Saxon, the transportation, that like a transportation begins with loading. And so you wouldn't look at where the vehicle is. Don't look at the vehicle at that point. Because now the question is when does the cross border transportation begin and end? And Saxon says it begins with loading and it continues through the unloading. So that leg, you would start the analysis at the loading and say where now where is this vehicle? Without regard, without regard to

where the vehicle came from. Because Saxon's draws a clear line at loading. Thank you. Thank you, Council. Justice Thomas. Justice Lito. Justice Hon Mayor. Justice. Justice Gorsuch. Quick question. Why didn't you argue the title? That the title changed. Once you delivered it to Brock in Colorado, you're done. That would have been an interesting argument. We argued that in the lower court. I know you lost that one below. But it doesn't stop you from

no circuits. It made for, you know, it would be an interesting question. That's a question for an honest answer. So it's a question for another day. If you, if you win, there's no need to

“resolve it. But if you should lose, it's a question for another day. I think if we prevail on”

this rule, you're solving 99 cases. I understand that. But if, if it could happen, it could happen. If you should lose, that's a question for another day. And then maybe you'll see me here again another year. I, I, I, I'll look forward to it. Justice, can I have it all? Justice spirit. So that's one question that might be reserved. Let's just, let's imagine a hypothetical world that you don't want to be in in which you do lose. Things that you would want to

reserve would be this title question. Correct. What else? Contractive employment. And that's where the next circuit split is developing is, you know, when do you have a contract of employment

as opposed to a third party service provider? Okay. And if I envision the movement, the

interstate movement of goods in a relay race way. This goes to some of the hypotheticals. Justice is a Lito and Kagan, we're asking you, you know, where the goods pass from one to the other. So it doesn't really matter, you know, if the, if the, if the mile three driver was solely interested or not, what? And again, we're imagining a world in which that is viewed as a continuous journey. What would in your view be an interrupting point? Because they're being, it can't just be,

if in that world, it can't just be loading and unloading, because they're loading and unloading into trucks. Would it be when they're off wheels? And so then they're put into a warehouse? I mean,

“what, what would be the, um, danger spots in your view? I think Saxon draws a bright line at unloading.”

Saxon says that the, the, the, the transportation process continues until unloading. So I think once the goods are off the vehicle, but I'm imagining a world in which you lose that point, because it goes right to another vehicle and Saxon, they were unloaded and then, you know, maybe they went on to the little cart in the airport that moves them to the, to the line. But I mean, they had reached their destination. In the hypothetical, Justice is Kagan and Lito,

we're giving you in that series of hypotheticals. They were being loaded from one truck to another truck.

So maybe there was always movement. It was just like a relay race where it went from

one to another, but it wasn't unloaded at a destination, right? In that, in those hypotheticals. In, in those hypotheticals, in, in our view, it doesn't matter if it's at its destination, not sure, not looking at the goods you're looking at the worker. So if it's unloaded a bit, if it's a true relay, if it's like the Hancock case, and you have a Mr. Brock jumping into the truck, or, you know, the true analogy to Hancock is, you take the trailer and you put it on a new

tractor. You know, that is not the, you know, taking the goods off of the vehicle. It's the relay, and the relay counts until the goods actually come off of the vehicle. Okay, Dr. Thank you. Does Jack said anything for you? Can I just clarify that the title contract of employment, all those issues are just factors that help us to determine whether this person is a last mile driver.

conceded that at the beginning, for the purpose of this case. Well, for the purposes of the

“purpose of this case, we were just to focus on assuming he's a last mile driver. What is the answer?”

And those questions about title and contracting what not that the tensor could actually grapple with are about whether he qualifies as a last mile driver. Well, I mean, not to push back on the term last mile driver. But I think that begs the question of last mile of what, you know, our argument is he's not the last mile driver of the crossquarter transportation. But to your point, I think that, you know, this court could, if it wanted to look at those factors, but that's, that's definitely

doesn't answer the question. It doesn't answer the question. It doesn't answer the question of what it does. Thank you. Thank you, council. Mr. Chief Justice and may it please the court. As this court recognized in Saxon, interstate commerce is not merely the act of crossing a

“state line. It is trade and traffic between the people of different states. That's why interstate”

commerce has never been understood to end the moment that freight crosses the border. It ends when

the goods reach their final destination. And workers who transport goods that are traveling in interstate commerce are by definition engaged in that commerce, regardless of whether they personally cross-state lines or interact with a vehicle that does. These principles were well established in 1925 when Congress exempted any class of workers engaged in interstate commerce. And last mile drivers transport goods on the last leg of an interstate journey. Under the FAA's plain text,

these last mile drivers are exempt. Now, flowers ask this court to add an additional requirement that workers interact with a border crossing vehicle. But as I just heard, flowers can't point to a single case in any context from any time period where a court has ever adopted that requirement. So not only is this interpretation a textual, it would require courts to develop a whole new jurisprudence about what it means to interact with a vehicle. So we just heard that if the

trailer goes from one truck to another that counts, I'm not sure whether the trailer is a vehicle

or not, but apparently it is. What if the goods were taken directly off the first truck,

and handed to Mr. Brock, to put on his truck with that count? Highway gas station attendance, the trucks cross-border vehicles all the time, are they exempt? And none of this would eliminate the need to determine where an interstate journey begins and ends, because you can't know if a vehicle is in interstate commerce without knowing where that journey begins and ends. But on flowers view, history and precedent can't help answer that question, because the words of the FAA mean something

different than they've ever meant in any other context at any other time. So this requirement of interaction with the vehicle doesn't make the worker exemption easier to apply, it just makes it more arbitrary. I welcome the courts questions. In Saxon, we refer to activities within the flow of interstate commerce, and that at some point begins and it ends. In this case, what would be the final destination of the bread? In the final destination, in this case, is the retail stores that are

flowers customers. So the Walmart, the Sam's Club. And the reason for that is because in 1925, it was really clear that what the final destination was is where the parties to the commerce intended the journey to end. And I realize the ten circuits decision is written in a complicated

“way, but I think this case is actually a straightforward case as most cases will be. Flowers repeatedly”

has admitted and described what's going on here as, as the destination are its retail stores. So if you look at, for example, the Court of Appeals join appendix at 272, flower says, the destination of these goods is the retail stores and the distribution depose or just a temporary pause. And if you look at the contract, Mr. Brock would be fired if he didn't bring the goods to the retail store. Well, but I mean, look the other way. Why isn't the ultimate destination?

You're the person reads the bread, right? And without that, there's no reason. And it's just, I don't know how you over, you skip over the step from the warehouse to the driver, but not skip over, particularly as skip over the step from the store to the consumer.

that will get the bread from the local warehouse. Sure. So this question came up in 1925.

I didn't remember that.

“And the way courts answered that, how do you figure out what the final destination of one”

journey is and where there's an independent journey? And you look at the intention of the shipper and the parties to the commerce. So when flowers, flowers at the shipper here, when flowers shipped, it's goods. The journey was to the retail store. The commerce of a local retail store sending by Instacard or something groceries to a local consumer. There are different parties to that commerce at the separate journey. We need to get in any of that. One might argue that

in some cases, at least, the manufacturer really doesn't care what happens once a pass is

title to a wholesaler, right? I mean, delivers it to Brock's warehouse. Let's just suppose hypothetically, title passed. Doesn't care whether that bread gets to a store or consume or spoils. It's got its money. It's done. One can see that argument. But that's not in this case.

“So why are we, why are we fussing over it? I think that's right. And I think the question you've”

just asked is exactly that the question that was asked in 1925, which is when this good was shipped, where was the end of that journey? And if the shipper doesn't care, it goes beyond a particular point. That's the end of the journey, right? And that could be the answer. And if you prevail that that's an argument that would be available to mislove it and our friends in the next case, along with what a contractive employment is, along with, can a corporation be a transportation worker,

along with a whole bunch of other things? All we need to decide in this case is mislove its proposed bright-line rule that you're in interstate commerce and last, you drive across state lines or, and I take the OR, interact with vehicles that do. And we need to answer that question be done in this case. That's exactly right, you're in, and there's lots of things that followers conceded for purposes of this particular thing. And we will get to see you back here,

again, and again, and again, right? You, you would. Council, can I ask you a question, how would you define the class of workers here? I mean, last mile driver seems fairly imprecise, because you could be a last mile driver. For this purpose, you could be a last mile driver of a fully interstate journey. You could be, I mean, there are many different ways in which that term could be used. So, how would you define the class of workers here that's engaged in

our state commerce? I would define it as workers who perform the last slide of an interstate journey.

And that's similar to the, why do you want us to define it that way, because it could be the third

leg of an interstate journey. If we're answering the question that mislead it proposed, it could be driving the third leg of an interstate journey, but only an interstate portion of it. So, why do we have to use this word last mile drivers at all? Is it truckers? Who is the class here to whom you're climbing, which is your climb belongs? Sure, you don't have to. I would

“have no objection to drivers who drive an interstate leg of an interstate journey. I think that”

also works. I think potentially the class of truck drivers is analogous to seeming in railroad employees with the caveat of Saxon that because truck drivers are doing the actual transportation work we're not pulling in. Any other employees, although that's not the question presented here. The reason we have picked last mile drivers, well, two reasons in the cert petition and the reply, that is the class of workers that flour said we were talking about. Well, let me take you back

to the short. Sure, sure. But is that a term I get what mean my concern here is do we spend off of jurisprudence of what is the last mile driver and does that apply to different contexts? So, just to wrap this up, you're not wed to this term. You don't think that this term particularly matters the class could be defined differently. No, and I think you could, you know, you see in the real, what we're getting at is a class of workers that exist in the real world as well as

established. It's not Jerrymandered for this case, like Seaman and Railroad employees in 1925 and now in the real world, you can advertise for essentially an interest state light of an industry journey. They're often called last mile drivers regardless of what leg variant, but no objection to defining it that way. Let me take you back to the Chief Justice's question. So, suppose, a grocery item is produced in one state. It is shipped across state lines to a grocery

store in another state and then an Uber Eats driver picks up goods that have been ordered by a

within the exemption? No, and here's why. Why, he's the last minute driver because the last mile

“driver. For the same reason that he wouldn't have been in 1925 and what we're looking at is”

the intent of the parties to the commerce to see whether the journey begins and ends. So, here, flowers shipped its goods to retail stores and head and the parties to that commerce are flowers and the retail stores. The parties to a commerce of an Uber Eats driver is a local consumer, a local store, and a local driver. And that case was clear in 1925. You can look at the waggle versus Christmas. That's hard to understand. The person who the company that produces the goods

out of state intends to be paid for those goods and is not going to be paid for those goods

unless they're sold. The intent of that company is not just to have them shipped to a grocery store and sit there. So, my understanding is that the sale is from flowers to the grocery store. And so, flowers doesn't care whether the grocery store sells the goods or not. Flowers has completed its sale when it's purchased and arrives at the grocery store. And what the grocery store is buying is the goods plus transportation. There is a separate sale between a retail store and a local consumer.

And again, that line was clear in 1925. It's the waggle case. And lower courts are unanimous. On this question, they have had no trouble distinguishing last mile drivers that is people who are doing the last leg. You know, goods are ordered from one state, ordered from another state. And people who are doing the last leg of that journey to get the goods from one state. Okay. So, I make these, I produce these goods in one state. I sell them to someone else,

title passes, then that company ships them to the grocery store. And that's the end of it. The person who, the shipment from the person to whom I sold the goods to the grocery store, that's not, that person is not engaged in their stakeholders.

“I think it might depend. And again, I want to, you know, what we're asking about here is not”

whether last mile drivers, however, defined are a class of workers that are exempt. What we're talking about now is how do you know whether someone is in that class? How do you know what is an independent journey from an interstate journey? And I think on your hypothetical, as I understand it, you have a manufacturer shipping goods to either a distributor or retailer. And that's the end of that transaction. The manufacturer doesn't care what happens to those goods. And what the retail,

what is purchased is just transportation from the manufacturer to sell. If I understand what you're saying, and this is a clarification question. In other words, you could have manufacturer A. And manufacturer A wants to get his goods all the way to the stores, the grocery stores. And then you could have manufacturer B. And manufacturer B just conceives of his business in a different way and just wants to get the goods to wholesalers. And after that, what the wholesalers do, how they get the goods to

grocery stores or anybody else, is up to them. So then if manufacturer B just got the goods to the wholesaler, that would be it. That's exactly right. What we're looking at is what was the intent of the

shipper at the time it was shipped. And so do you just look to contracts for this? Is it always going

to be clear whether the manufacturer is just dealing with a wholesaler or whether the manufacturer

“is engaged and getting goods to retailers? How do you decide that? So I think the easiest way”

is the manufacturer will, or the employer will, in almost every case, I think every case will just will know that. And so all you will need is a declaration that says, here's where we're shipping our goods. Here's the intended final destination. In fact, flowers here, there's no discovery. There is no mini trial, but flowers describes its work in documents that just and declarations that say our intended destination is the retail server, and you will be able to get that easily in every

case, I think. Well, I don't know about that. So a title is a clear line, right? If title passes boom, and you seem to be sort of endorsing that view once title passes, that's it. But if you look at this case, the contracts kind of muddled, right? It says title passes to Brock. So you might think,

But it says title passes. But then, flowers also maintains lots of control over Brock,

“and what happens in the retail. What do you do when you got a muddled contract like that?”

Sure, so I don't think that title is the line. It could be evidence. If you're having trouble figuring out where the end of the journey is, it could be some evidence. But again, I don't think it is usually going to matter, but let me, there's two parts of that. So one, just title matter, and I think the answer to that is, is no, if you like. It doesn't matter at all. It will matter as evidence of what the end of the journey is, but the fact that title passes is not dispositive.

If you, this court said that in the rear at case, which was the case where it's very-- So what's dispositive is, but I get, because often a manufacturer be in just as Cagan's hypothetical, will have lots of restrictions on how wholesaler see, I dare, bays, and interacts with grocery stores as representatives. They facto of the manufacturer. And, you know, they're very levels of that. They're an infinite variety. I mean, are we going to wind up in this

love its world where everything's relevant and nothing's dispositive? I don't think so, because

“the only thing that is relevant is the intended final destination. So long as the parties say,”

I intend it to end here, period, is that dispositive? I think unless you think what's happening is oddfuscation. So there-- Well, it's a contract. It's a contract. Now, you're going to say, it's a contract of adhesion, and then, you know, I had to sign it, and, you know, public policy, and, I mean, where are we going to go with this? How far down the rabbit hole are you going to take us, Ms. Bennett? I don't think, and very far at all, if I don't think you need to get in the rabbit hole.

And here's why, you know, look, you can take this case, right, the-- Well, don't take this case, help me with the presidents from 1925 of which you are so knowledgeable, because this is what the understanding of the commerce clause meant a long time ago, pre-wicked, and there have to be cases deciding all these questions. And what's the rule that you're going to advocate for? That's right. So the rule I would advocate for is intended final destination, and I hear you

saying that sometimes that might have a line-drying problem, usually it doesn't, you know, because shippers know where they sent their goods. And if you say, file a declaration under oath to where you intended these goods to go, unless they're lying under oath, that will-- Public cases handle this. So the-- It's complicated, question the rabbit hole of questions. So I'm happy to give you, you know, sort of, where the lines were, and the same lines

that the lower courts have had no trouble adopting here. There are really, I think, three categories of cases that were hard potentially in 1925, and because they're solved in 1925, or not hard here. So one is the question of, I think Justice Alito was asking, how do you distinguish between

the first sale or transaction from, say, you know, the manufacturer out of state, or the whole

sale or to the retailer, and then is the retailer to the consumer a separate journey, and that the Y-go case answers that in 1925 separate journey. So that's established, courts have all agreed on that. The second kind of case is the case where manufacturers are sending their goods. They're essentially pre-shipping their goods, and sending them to a place where they know a customer is going to order them, but the customer hasn't yet ordered them. The customer orders it either along the way,

or sometime very quickly thereafter. You can think of part of Amazon's business like that. That seems like it should be a genuinely hard question, except that's exactly how the livestock industry worked in 1925. And so if you look at cases like sector like Stafford V Wallace,

those questions, and the third case, they're just set of three cases. One is Stafford V Wallace,

one is Shector, and one is Swift versus the United States. And those cases dealt with exactly

“this anticipatory shipping question and answer that. And that's why, again, the lower courts are all”

in agreement about how that case comes out because they apply that rule. I find this extremely, you're arguing extremely confusing. Maybe that is inherent in the pre-1925 case law. I would think that anybody who produces consumer goods intends for the final destination of those goods to be with the consumer, because unless the consumer pays for the goods, then the producer of the goods isn't going to make money. So I don't understand

So let me try to clarify that. The question that was asked in 1925, and that we would say should

“be asked here is not the final endpoint of the distribution chain. It's the final endpoint of what?”

Of the journey when you shipped the goods. So the goods here, you take a case, you ship through UPS. Most of this kind of commerce happens through something like UPS, FedEx, you ship through UPS. Where are you trying to get those goods to go to? When you ship them, not where are they then going to subsequently go after that. So here, when flower ships, it's goods, where it's trying to get them to go is the retail stores. That's the end of that journey. There may be a separate

journey, if someone buys that. Why do you say flowers intends the retail stores to be the end of

the journey? Because that is how flowers describes what is happening here. Flowers in the record

has said the destination. Again, this is a quarter of appeal. Join appendix at 272. The destination is the retail stores and distribution depose or just a temporary pause. And if Brock doesn't deliver to the retail stores, he's fired. So suppose flowers had said, I intend for

“my bread to make it to consumers. This would be a different case. I think if flowers ships,”

it's bread to consumers. If consumers ordered from flowers, that would be a different case. And maybe I can explain it. Let me try a different way, which is to say, you know, in 1925, the easy cases were cases where somebody orders it from one state. Order something from another state.

That journey is from shipment in the other state to the person or business who ordered it.

And that is what is going on here. The retail stores order goods and flowers ships them from another state. That is engaged in interstate commerce in 1925. And there's a host of cases, most of which don't involve interacting with a vehicle at all. I'll give you some examples. So the reeric case for example is a case of brooms that were manufactured in one state, ordered by customers from another, and workers exactly like those here. So I don't want to, I can read the cases, and I appreciate

your descriptions of them. So is what you're saying that the Federal arbitration act incorporates 1925 understanding of the limits of the interstate commerce clause. And so we have to go back and try to sort out what that meant. That was a body of case law with a lot of arbitrary lines.

“That's what you want us to do. No, you're wondering. Followed with the lower courts at that time,”

thought about the limits of the interstate of Congress's power to regulate interstate commerce. No, you're on our, and I want to be really clear about this. This court, this case has nothing to do with what the limits of the commerce clause were in 1925. What we're asking this court to do is look at what the meaning of the words, interstate commerce meant in 1925, and then what it meant to be engaged in interstate commerce. And whether you look at cases under anybody of law,

if you look at cases under the commerce clause, if you look at cases under fiela, if you look at cases under the interstate commerce act under the motor carrier, I could just pass a little bit later, those cases are not defining the utility of those cases is that they're showing what it means meant to be engaged in interstate commerce. And those courts were not, they were not trying to understand. They were not basing their understanding of the meaning of interstate commerce. On the meaning of

interstate commerce under the commerce clause, this was independent of that. They, I think the, like the scope of the commerce clause is about not what the meaning of interstate commerce is, it's about what relationship to interstate commerce and activity has to have to be regulable. So under any doctrine, the meaning of the words interstate commerce was the same, and the question under various cases under various statues under the commerce clause is,

is this activity have the relationship required either by the commerce clause or various statutes, two interstate commerce to count? And that's not, that's not before us, right? I mean, that's, so can I focus us on what is before us? I think I'm just trying to really get back to the issue of the day. As I understand your argument, you are starting, or we are all starting from the position of taking for the purpose of today that both sides agree that the retail stores

were the end of the journey at issue. That's right, right? So no dispute on that. For the purpose,

are the end. And we know that Mr. Brock drives these goods to the retail stores,

in trust state, he gets the goods in the state, and he gets them to the retail store. That is the end of this interstate journey that the goods have been on. That's right. All right, so the only question before us right now is how do we characterize Mr. Brock? His role, his work in that particular journey or set of circumstances. Your friend on the other side, Ms. Loveett, says, we have to look

“at the class of cross-border workers that the only way that Mr. Brock gets to have this exemption”

is that if we can say that he is a cross-border worker, I think she has that terminology. The worker at each leg, or at his leg, has to be engaged in cross-border transportation work. Now, we know that we've already said he himself doesn't have to cross the border. So she says how you make that determination about cross-border transportation work is whether he engages in vehicles that have crossed the border. What is your response to why she's

wrong about the extent to which he would have to, you know, to the extent to, first of all,

is she right that we should be looking at whether he is engaged in, quote, cross-border transportation work. And if so, is she right that the way to do that is to focus on his engagement with the vehicle? Sure, so in 1925, the ordinary meaning of the words engage in interstate commerce, and I took flowers to agree with this and they're opening brief, but maybe has backed away from it, is a worker who is engaged in interstate transportation or work that is so closely related to that

to be practically a part of it. So what we're looking at, this, Mr. Brock, and drivers like him are engaged in interstate transportation. That's the question. And so the question is,

and to be engaged in interstate transportation in 1925, you do not have to interact with a vehicle

and with apologies to Justice Alito, I'll just give you a few examples. There's the rear case which I mentioned, that's workers exactly like this, held to be engaged in interstate commerce. There's a case called C-Board Airline Railroad versus Moore, which is in our brief. There, the worker is a railroad worker who was held to be, quote, "actually engaged in interstate commerce," even though his work didn't take him out of Florida. And the reason for that is because he

transported a train that had lumber, and that lumber was then unloaded and put on a boat to a different state. So it's, again, it was that good that was due. That's exactly what we,

“I mean, I think that's the key question. Correct. Do you get it because you are working or engaging”

with goods that have been in interstate commerce or not? That's right. It's exactly right. You know, Hancock, the question they said, the worker is employed in interstate commerce if any of the cars in his train contained interstate freight. So it's keyed to the freight. And the cars was actually a harder question in 1925. You could, of course, some workers were either engaged in interstate transportation or work so closely related to it because they interacted with the instrumentalities

of commerce. That was a hard question in 1925. Right. I was just saying, in Hancock, I mean, it doesn't seem to me that you get clearer than the statement, quote, "the determining circumstance is that the shipment was but a step in the transportation of the coal to real an ultimate destinations in another state." So it was the coal that was moving in interstate commerce that became the quote unquote determining circumstance in Hancock. Is that right? That's exactly

right. And the Zachary case that they mentioned with the court said is because the cars cross-state lines, there's a reasonable inference that the freight did and that would make the worker engaged in

“interstate. So the oranges that are delivered by the Uber Eats guy in Colorado to them. I think”

it's just shifted to the goods. So I want to be clear. The question isn't whether the goods have been transported in interstate commerce. Your question is, once it gets to the retail store, is the next like steel in interstate commerce? I'll flag with that's a different question and the question here, which is, are the goods in interstate commerce for the journey to the retail store? So if there's a separate journey for the instacart driver in the oranges, the question there is,

are those oranges still in interstate commerce? I think the answer to that is no. Again, that's the

if you look at the rear at case, the Seaboard case, when goods are ordered, from one state or from

another state, the interstate journey is from the manufacturing plant or whoever's selling those goods to the person or company who ordered them. That's the journey. In an ultimate consumer does the ordering. I mean suppose that I get on the internet and I click into some cosmetics company. And so I'm getting these cosmetics from the cosmetics company. Then it's everything that happens from where the cosmetics company is making the products to the ultimate consumer, isn't it? Right, because it's

you look at who ordered the goods and the shipment from, whoever's selling or manufacturing the goods to who ordered them. That's a journey. And then anything happens. And does it matter if when I order those goods from the cosmetics company, the cosmetics company actually has a way of like

“signaling some wholesaler or signaling even a retail store, you know, get the cosmetics to miscaggin?”

I don't think so. But again, to answer that question, what I would do is say, would that have counted as interstate transportation in 1925 and I would look at the livestock cases actually that I was mentioning to Justice Boresage to figure that out because this wasn't an uncommon situation then. Thank you, Council. If you have a big wholesaler, right, and you know, you know that I understand your argument there and you say, well, between the wholesaler and the

consumer, no, right? Well, the way businesses these days in products and consumer products, they're often big wholesalers and then little wholesalers. And so I mean, you can chop this up, as many ways as you want. Well, what is it between the big wholesaler and, you know, Chicago and the little wholesaler in a little count outside of Chicago? Well, I mean, it doesn't

always go from this big wholesaling to the individual home. So where do you stop? What's your

choice between those two? Big wholesaler, the little wholesaler, little wholesaler at home, you're saying, I guess, that doesn't count. But what about the link between the two different types of wholesalers? If I understand correctly, you're saying, somebody in, you know, a wholesaler

“orders goods from a bigger wholesaler in the state. I think when those goods are shipped to the”

person who ordered them, that journey is over. And then you look to the, there may be a subsequent journey after that, that's independent, that may or may not be interstate. But when goods are shipped to the person or company that ordered them, that's the journey. Even if it's not, even if they've already stopped at a wholesale facility, apart from the truck. I'm not understanding, here's the truck goes to the wholesaler, right? And the wholesaler, instead of going right to the consumer,

goes to another wholesale facility, which happens a lot. Great. I think if what's happening is the consumer is ordering a good from out of state. And the, what's happening when the out of state company ships the good, that that journey is in interstate commerce. From the time, it leaves the

manufacturing or first wholesaler until it gets to the consumer, because that was well established

in 1925. If you look at Lipscomb or Rerec, what you'll see is the interstate journey is from order to place that is selling or manufacturing it. Well, I don't know if they had this sophisticated and

“multi-variegated distribution system we have today in 1925. That is, I think a little bit less,”

but you'd be surprised. So again, these livestock cases had these kinds of complicated arrangements, but they often boil down to fundamental principles, which is what did the parties to the commerce intend to the shipment to be when you shipped this good, where was it going? And if somebody orders a good that gets shipped to them from out of state, that's a journey. And whatever happens after that is an independent journey, but that's where I would put the beginning and end.

Whatever happens. I'm sorry. Yeah, Justice Thomas. If flowers were simply shipped to, it's a final destination at a distribution center, and relinquished title to your client. Would that change your argument? I think if the commerce was truly between flowers and Mr. Brock, that would be a different case,

Justice Lito, this is so many more.

The cases you're relying on are also putting court cases correct. Correct. So they're not lower court cases. They're what the cases defined as interstate commerce and workers involved in interstate commerce. Correct. Correct. For purposes of field and many examples, but it was what engaged in commerce meant at the time.

“That's exactly right. And that's what this court, you know, you have pieces from 1925,”

you have this court's decision in Morris versus McCone, which says that drivers are engaged in interstate commerce when they do this kind of last mile journeys. There are a number of precedents from this court that this court, I think, would have to overrule to say that last mile drivers or interstate like drivers are not engaged in interstate commerce, or the court would have to say the FAA means something different with those words,

then it has meant those words have ever meant. And Justice Gorsuch has put a question to your adversary about what opposing councils, I shouldn't use the word adversary, opposing council, about what how to define her the question presented. Answer the question he posed. It would be no, it doesn't matter whether. I would say the answer, I think, to the question presented as pose, which I take to be our workers who don't physically cross-state lines and don't interact with a

vehicle engaged in interstate commerce, or exempt from the FAA, I would say it depends on what

“class of workers they are a member of and what the work of that class is. Justice Kagan? Justice Gorsuch?”

Justice Camp Nou? Two questions. One, you said in response to Justice Barrett, last mile drivers doesn't need to be the term, I wasn't clear on what the exact phrase you would use as a substitute for the term. So I understood the question to be, could we define the class as people who perform an interstate line of an interstate journey? And that's your good with that thing. Absolutely, yes. And then in response to Justice Gorsuch, I think you were going through

very helpful in categories of cases and you got through one and two, which I'm not sure you

got through the third, but maybe you covered it in later questions. I just want to make sure

I'm not missing that third category. Sure, so I think there are three, and I think the ones I got through were anticipatory shipping. So what do you do when the order is anticipated, but not

“actually got third one, yes. I think the second one, I actually don't remember what the second one”

was that I answered to you, so I'm not sure what two and three are, but the second one, I think was the retail stores, also clear line in 1925. And that's again, it follows from the order. And then the third one is this obfuscation question, where a company was trying to obfuscate exactly what the commerce is happening, or where the journey begins in ends, that was very common in 1925 where a company is trying to get out of, say, the interstate commerce act, or Fila,

by obfuscating where the beginning and end of the journey is. And there are lots of cases about that in 1925 that says you can't convert an interstate shipment into intrust state transportation, just by dividing up the legs. You can look at the bare brothers' case, you can look at the southern Pacific terminal case, you can look at the sea-bind tram case, and that's how those courts analyzed it. What we're going to do is we're going to look at where were the goods ordered,

and where were they ordered from. Thank you. The spirit. To be sure, I understand your position. You've been asked a lot of questions about the line drawing in your position, because it doesn't involve some complicated lines. You said, I think in response to Justice Sotomayor, that the answer to the QP technically in your view would be it depends. It seems to me that the further question of depends on what is pretty complicated. How do you figure out intent? Are we looking at when

title passes? Are we looking at some sort of declaration? Are we looking at who gets the profit? How that? I mean, you can start to see why the 10-circuit opinion was quite complicated, right? But I think those are questions for another day. Is that your position? Just answer it depends. There's no automatic rule of exclusion, but what it depends on can be very complicated.

And it may not always be the case that these 19-25 cases you're pointing as to answer the

question in the modern complicated world with different kinds of distribution change, livestock, maybe there's some good analogies to be drawn between livestock and computer equipment. But those are pretty complicated questions, and I think most of it correctly points out, that there would be very difficult line drawing questions, that even if your position is right,

Yes, although I want to be clear, I think in most cases there will not be complicated line drawing

questions, and you see this because most of the cases flower sites for their complicated line drawing questions are cases where the district courts easily granted a motion to compel arbitration and had almost nothing to do with last mile drivers. And the other categories of cases are ride share cases, which on our view, that comes to the court once. And what you would look at, I think the difficulty with ride share drivers is that some of them cross-state lines

that are in Kansas City, or DC, and an RV of the question there would be in 1925, where workers who are performing, what is fundamentally local transportation,

but sometimes cross-state lines where they engage in interstate commerce versus embugates,

cross-state lines. There would, but we don't have to answer those questions.

“Yes, you don't have to answer any of these questions. The only thing this court has to say to answer”

the question presented is there is no absolute requirement that you physically cross a state line, or interact with a vehicle that does whatever it might mean to interact with a vehicle. Justice Jackson. One final quick thing, you say, or you've set this all up to have the analysis turning on the intended destination of the goods of the freight as the parties agreed. Ms. Loveett has it turning on loading and unloading. There was a key part of her analysis

that was about loading and unloading. In 1925 is there any evidence that that was a factor in how we're supposed to be thinking about this? So the yes and no, which is to say, I think in 1925 the interstate transportation ended when the goods were unloaded at their final destination. So I think it's clear that anything that happens once you get to the destination and unload the goods that's out, but it wasn't whether the goods were unloaded and unloaded

and unloaded at intermediate points. The re-recase loaded and unloaded the seaboard airline case. That's lumber that is, so that's not a factor you think in isolating or answering this question. No, I don't think that's a factor. It does help make clear about why some of the hypotheticals posed about what's going to happen afterwards are not implicated by this case. A retail clerk that handles goods after they've been unloaded at the final destination, that commerce has ended,

but it doesn't answer the intermediate question. Thank you. Thank you, council. A re-bottle mislaw it. Thank you, Mr. Chief Justice. Section 1 asks a fundamentally different question than the commerce clause was asking in 1925. It's asking whether or not the transportation worker is engaged in cross-border transportation

“work. That's what this court held in Saxon and Beesonette. It's different from the commerce”

clause analysis because of the words engaged in, which this court has twice held are narrower than the scope of the commerce clause that are intended to limit to something much more direct and active in the movement of goods across borders. So to answer the question, you shouldn't be looking to commerce clause cases. There's going far too broadly. The key cases in this context are Saxon and Beesonette and they explain the question is what is the work

the worker is performing? Ms Saxon's work, the task that she was performing was loading and unloading goods onto vehicles that were traveling to different states. It is the transportation work that matters, not the destination of the good. So you heard a lot of, you heard a lot from the last 35 minutes. You heard a lot about parties intent. You heard about what you have to know where the profit turns.

“You have to know where things are pre-ordered. You have to know whether your manufacturer”

or manufacturer be. All of which Beesonette says shouldn't matter because that's about the business that the manufacturer is not the business of what the worker is doing. What you didn't hear about was any defense of the four circuit court decisions that have adopted Brock's approach, not in the briefing and not here today. That's because all you have to do is read those four cases and see how quickly this analysis spins out of control or read Judge Brec's descent

in Whitman, the first case that adopted the approach. He predicted that exactly this would occur

because in 1925 the lines weren't bright. They weren't clear. They were so muddled that people were asking questions about whether brooms were in the same package that they were or whether they'd been disentangled. That is not the kind of bright line rule that a threshold requirement like

under the FAA, the whole point of which is to avoid litigation to have speed and efficiency

in resolving conflicts. This is out adding a whole separate layer, Brock's approach is adding a whole separate layer of litigation over intent. There is no more fact-bound question in the law than what are the parties intent and you heard that today because you can't answer it without

it depends and section one is answer is begging for an answer other than it depends and that answer

is directly from the text of section one. It's not an ambiguous rule. It's not a made up rule. section one is saying you had to be engaged in cross-border movement, cross-border transportation

“and we know that from Saxon and Beaconette. I think the lower courts are showing what happens”

when you don't approach what happens when you adopt this rule. For 100 years this court has lived

with the FAA section one and there has not been any lack of clarity because the industry understands what it means to be a transportation worker. You move a good across a border, you load it, you unloaded. That's where transportation begins and ends. That was been clear since 1925 because this court

“in Saxon, a side of the cases showing that that's how transportation work, not interstate commerce,”

but transportation work was judged in 1925 from the point of loading and unloading. The question of final destination is a question of interstate commerce under the commerce clause and the commerce clause, despite what council says, and none of the cases that she's siding under the commerce clause defined the terms engaged in. You can read the commerce clause for a long time and you won't find those terms within the commerce clause. You will find them in section one and it's engaged

in interstate commerce that's used in conjunction with Adjunctum, the tells you that the commerce, that the workers have to be engaged in, isn't a transaction in interstate commerce, it's transportation that crosses the border. In our view, this is a clear case and section one

“demands a clear rule. The clear rule, the narrow of the disputes and that's what section one demands.”

Thank you, council. The case is submitted.