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Flowers Foods, Inc. v. Brock
Opinion: https://www.supremecourt.gov/opinions/25pdf/24-935_k53m.pdf
Case background
Flowers Foods, Inc., is one of the Nation’s largest producers of packaged
baked goods, with bakeries in 19 States. To get its products to market,
Flowers depends in part on franchisees who buy the rights to distribute
Flowers’s products in specific geographic territories. Angelo Brock is one
such franchisee serving the Denver area; he picks up Flowers’s products from
a warehouse in Colorado and delivers them to local stores, all without
leaving the State. In 2022, Brock sued Flowers in federal district court,
alleging that the company had underpaid him and other distributors in
violation of federal and state law. Flowers moved to compel arbitration
under the Federal Arbitration Act, but the district court denied the motion
and the Tenth Circuit affirmed, holding that Brock belonged to a class of
workers engaged in interstate commerce and so fell within the Act’s § 1
exemption from arbitration.
Questions Presented
Holding
A worker who transports goods on an intrastate leg of an interstate journey
can qualify for § 1’s exemption from the Federal Arbitration Act without
crossing state lines or interacting with vehicles that do. The statutory
phrase “engaged in . . . interstate commerce” does not require either
border-crossing or vehicle-touching; longstanding cases interpreting that
language describe individuals who, like Brock, play a direct, necessary, and
active role in moving goods between States while operating entirely within
one of them.
The Court
Justice Gorsuch delivered the opinion for a unanimous Court.
What this episode contains
This episode is an AI-narrated reading of the majority opinion in
Flowers Foods, Inc. v. Brock, written by Justice Gorsuch.
AI disclosure: The voice in this episode is AI-generated, using a machine
learning model styled to loosely resemble the authoring justice. Tone,
inflection, pacing, and emphasis are artifacts of the model and should not be
attributed to Justice Gorsuch. The text being read is the Court’s published
majority opinion, lightly adapted to improve readability for the spoken format.
View all episodes
By So OrderedOpinion: https://www.supremecourt.gov/opinions/25pdf/24-935_k53m.pdf
Case background
Flowers Foods, Inc., is one of the Nation’s largest producers of packaged
baked goods, with bakeries in 19 States. To get its products to market,
Flowers depends in part on franchisees who buy the rights to distribute
Flowers’s products in specific geographic territories. Angelo Brock is one
such franchisee serving the Denver area; he picks up Flowers’s products from
a warehouse in Colorado and delivers them to local stores, all without
leaving the State. In 2022, Brock sued Flowers in federal district court,
alleging that the company had underpaid him and other distributors in
violation of federal and state law. Flowers moved to compel arbitration
under the Federal Arbitration Act, but the district court denied the motion
and the Tenth Circuit affirmed, holding that Brock belonged to a class of
workers engaged in interstate commerce and so fell within the Act’s § 1
exemption from arbitration.
Questions Presented
Holding
A worker who transports goods on an intrastate leg of an interstate journey
can qualify for § 1’s exemption from the Federal Arbitration Act without
crossing state lines or interacting with vehicles that do. The statutory
phrase “engaged in . . . interstate commerce” does not require either
border-crossing or vehicle-touching; longstanding cases interpreting that
language describe individuals who, like Brock, play a direct, necessary, and
active role in moving goods between States while operating entirely within
one of them.
The Court
Justice Gorsuch delivered the opinion for a unanimous Court.
What this episode contains
This episode is an AI-narrated reading of the majority opinion in
Flowers Foods, Inc. v. Brock, written by Justice Gorsuch.
AI disclosure: The voice in this episode is AI-generated, using a machine
learning model styled to loosely resemble the authoring justice. Tone,
inflection, pacing, and emphasis are artifacts of the model and should not be
attributed to Justice Gorsuch. The text being read is the Court’s published
majority opinion, lightly adapted to improve readability for the spoken format.