Document ID: ./input/supremecourt_opinions/opinions/21pdf/21-309_o758.pdf
Page Number: 3.0

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

3 

Syllabus 

all those employed by companies engaged in maritime shipping when 
the FAA was enacted.  Pp. 8–9. 

(2) Southwest’s three counterarguments all fail.  First, Southwest 
narrowly construes §1’s catchall category—“any other class of workers
engaged in foreign or interstate commerce”—to include only workers 
who  physically  transport  goods  or  people  across  foreign  or  interna-
tional boundaries.  Southwest relies on the definition of “seamen” as 
only those “employed on board a vessel,” McDermott Int’l, Inc. v. Wilan-
der, 498 U. S. 337, 346, and argues  that the catchall category should 
be  read  along  the  same  lines  to  exclude  airline  workers,  like  Saxon, 
who do not ride aboard an airplane in interstate or foreign transit.  But 
Southwest’s acknowledgment that the statute’s reference to “railroad
employees” is somewhat ambiguous in effect concedes that the three 
statutory categories in §1—“seamen, railroad employees, or any other 
class  of  workers  engaged  in foreign  or  interstate  commerce”—do  not
share the attribute that Southwest would like read into the catchall 
provision.  Well-settled canons of statutory interpretation neither de-
mand nor permit limiting a broadly worded catchall phrase based on 
an  attribute  that  inheres  in  only  one  of  the  list’s  preceding  specific 
terms.  Second, Southwest argues that cargo loading is similar to other 
activities that this Court has found to lack a necessary nexus to inter-
state commerce in other contexts.  But the cases Southwest invokes all 
addressed activities far more removed from interstate commerce than 
physically loading cargo directly on and off an airplane headed out of
State.  See, e.g., Gulf Oil Corp. v. Copp Paving Co., 419 U. S. 186.  Fi-
nally,  Southwest  argues  that  the  FAA’s  “proarbitration  purposes” 
counsel in favor of an interpretation that errs on the side of fewer §1 
exemptions.  Here, however, plain text suffices to show that airplane
cargo loaders, and thus ramp supervisors who frequently load and un-
load cargo, are exempt from the FAA’s scope under §1.  Pp. 9–11. 

993 F. 3d 492, affirmed. 

THOMAS, J., delivered the opinion of the Court, in which all other Mem-
bers joined, except BARRETT, J., who took no part in the consideration or 
decision of the case.