The U.S. Supreme Court recently unanimously ruled that a baggage-handling supervisor who participated in loading and unloading cargo on and off planes transporting goods across state or international borders did not have to arbitrate her wage claims under the Federal Arbitration Act (FAA). The win for the employee may be a narrow one, however, and have limited application to other jobs, legal experts say.
Applying the transportation worker exemption of Section 1 of the FAA to the plaintiff, the Supreme Court found that the employee is a member of a class of workers engaged in foreign or interstate commerce exempt from the arbitration requirement in her employment contract. Section 1 exempts from the statute's coverage "contracts of employment of seamen, railroad employees, or any other class of workers engaged in foreign or interstate commerce.'
"The court did not find—but rather specifically rejected the employee's argument—that the exemption broadly applied to all airline employees who carry out the customary work of the airline, which the court noted would include virtually all employees of major transportation providers," said Marc Zimmerman, an attorney with Freeborn & Peters in New York City.
"The court also did not expand the exemption to other industries or other classes of workers, specifically limiting its decision to the facts of the case and declining to decide whether the FAA exemption applied to workers who carry out duties further removed from the...
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