Document ID: ./input/supremecourt_opinions/opinions/21pdf/21-309_o758.pdf
Page Number: 14.0

Cite as:  596 U. S. ____ (2022) 

11 

Opinion of the Court 

when they handle goods traveling in interstate and foreign
commerce,  either  to  load  them  for  air  travel  or  to  unload 
them when they arrive.  See Burtch, 263 U. S., at 544. 

Third, Southwest falls back on statutory purpose.  It ob-
serves that §2 of the FAA broadly requires courts to enforce 
arbitration agreements in any “contract evidencing a trans-
action involving commerce,” while §1 provides only a nar-
rower exemption.  This structure, in its view, demonstrates 
the FAA’s “proarbitration purposes” and counsels in favor
of an interpretation that errs on the side of fewer §1 exemp-
tions.  Brief for Petitioner 16, 30–33. 

To be sure, we have relied on statutory purpose to inform 
our interpretation of the FAA when that “purpose is readily 
apparent from the FAA’s text.”  AT&T Mobility LLC v. Con-
cepcion, 563 U. S. 333, 344 (2011).  But we are not “free to 
pave over bumpy statutory texts in the name of more expe-
ditiously advancing a policy goal.”  New Prime, 586 U. S., at 
___ (slip op., at 14).  Here, §1’s plain text suffices to show
that  airplane  cargo  loaders  are  exempt  from  the  FAA’s 
scope, and we have no warrant to elevate vague invocations 
of statutory purpose over the words Congress chose. 

* 

* 

* 

Latrice Saxon frequently loads and unloads cargo on and 
off airplanes that travel in interstate commerce.  She there-
fore belongs to a “class of workers engaged in foreign or in-
terstate  commerce”  to  which  §1’s  exemption  applies.    Ac-
cordingly, we affirm the judgment of the Court of Appeals. 

 JUSTICE BARRETT took no part in the consideration or de-

cision of this case. 

It is so ordered.