FAA section 1 held to exempt some California truck drivers from FAA coverage in Nieto v. Fresno Beverage Co.

The arbitration battle lines have somewhat diminished in their spectacular scope, but that doesn’t mean the war is entirely over. Case in point: in Nieto v. Fresno Beverage Co. (certified for publication March 22, 2019), the Court of Appeal (Fifth Appellate District) affirmed a trial court ruling that found beverage company deliver drivers to be exempt from Federal Arbitration Act (9 U.S.C. §1 et seq., the “FAA”) by operation of the exemption in Section 1 for what the Supreme Court has denominated “transportation workers.”

The case is not too long of a read, but it nevertheless does a thorough job of reviewing decisions addressing the Section 1 exemption (see pages 6-13 for the state of affairs).

There is also a quick reminder in the discussion about waiver of arguments not raised in the Opening Brief.

Kenneth H. Yoon, Stephanie E. Yasuda, and Brian G. Lee of Yoon Law and Douglas Han, Shunt Tatavos-Gharajeh, and Daniel J. Par of Justice Law Corporation represented the prevailing plaintiff on appeal.