LUV - Supreme Court: Drivers Hauling Baked Goods Are in Transportation Not Baking | Benzinga
The decision, written by Chief Justice John Roberts, was unanimous.
It overturned both a decision by the U.S. District Court for the District of Connecticut and an appellate decision by the 2nd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals. They had ruled that the drivers, who were independent contractors delivering the products of Flowers Foods (NYSE: FLO) in certain parts of Connecticut, were in the bakery business, not transportation.
If the lower court decisions — that the drivers who had secured the rights to those Nutmeg State routes, Neal Bissonnette and Tyler Wojnarowski, were in baking rather than transportation — had been upheld, they would need to settle their pay disputes with Flowers through arbitration under the Federal Arbitration Act (FAA).
But the Supreme Court's April 12 ruling that they are in the transportation business opens the door for them to take the dispute to court.
That's because the FAA — in its very first section — exempts from its mandate several types of workers, ...