Document ID: ./input/supremecourt_opinions/opinions/21pdf/21-309_o758.pdf
Page Number: 10

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

7 

Opinion of the Court 

A  final  piece  of  statutory  context  further  confirms  that
cargo loading is part of cross-border “commerce.”  The first 
sentence  of  §1  of  the  FAA  defines  exempted  “maritime 
transactions” to include, among other things, “agreements
relating to wharfage, supplies furnished vessels or repairs 
to vessels, collisions, or any other matters in foreign com-
merce.” 
(Emphasis  added.)    The  use  of  “other”  in  the 
catchall  provision  indicates  that  Congress  considered  the
preceding items to be “matters in foreign commerce.”  And 
agreements related to the enumerated “matte[r] in foreign 
commerce”  of  “wharfage,”  to  take  one  example,  included
agreements for mere access to a wharf—which is simply a 
cargo-loading  facility. 
See  Black’s  1226  (wharfage:
“[m]oney paid for landing wares at a wharf, or for shipping
or  taking  goods  into  a  boat  or  barge  from  thence”);  Web-
ster’s 2323 (similar); see also, e.g., Black’s 1226 (wharf: “A 
perpendicular bank or mound . . . extending some distance
into the water, for the convenience of lading and unlading 
ships and other vessels”).  It stands to reason, then, that if 
payments  to  access  a  cargo-loading  facility  relate  to  a 
“matte[r] in foreign commerce,” then an individual who ac-
tually  loads  cargo  on  foreign-bound  ships  docked  along  a 
wharf is himself engaged in such commerce.  Likewise, any
class of workers that loads or unloads cargo on or off air-
planes bound for a different State or country is “engaged in
foreign or interstate commerce.”

In sum, text and context point to the same place: Work-
ers, like Saxon, who load cargo on and off airplanes belong 
to a “class of workers in foreign or interstate commerce.” 

III 
Both Saxon and Southwest proffer arguments that disa-
gree  with  portions  of  our  analysis.  Neither  of  them  con-
vinces us to change course. 

A 
For  her  part,  Saxon  thinks  that  we  should  define  the