His truck never crosses a state line – so why can't the company arbitrate?
The Supreme Court just made it harder for employers to force certain delivery workers into arbitration instead of open court.
In a unanimous ruling on May 28, 2026, the justices decided that a delivery worker who never leaves his home state can still slip free of an arbitration clause, as long as his route is one leg of a longer interstate trip.
The dispute pitted Flowers Foods, one of the country's largest makers of packaged baked goods, against Angelo Brock, a franchisee who distributes its products around Denver. Brock collects goods from a Colorado warehouse and drops them at local stores, never crossing a state line.
In 2022, Brock sued the company, saying it had underpaid him and other distributors under a mix of federal and state laws. Flowers wanted the fight settled in private arbitration instead of court, pointing to a distribution agreement Brock had signed. The Federal Arbitration Act usually requires judges to enforce those deals.
There is a catch, though. The law carves out an exemption for certain transportation workers engaged in interstate commerce. The justices had to decide whether Brock fit that description, given that his truck stays inside Colorado.
They concluded that he could. Writing for the Court, Justice Gorsuch held that a worker moving goods on an intrastate leg of an interstate journey can qualify for the exemption without crossing state lines or interacting with...
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