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Page Number: 13

10 

SOUTHWEST AIRLINES CO. v. SAXON 

Opinion of the Court 

the catchall phrase.”  Ali, 552 U. S., at 225.  By recognizing
that the term “railroad employees” is at most ambiguous,
Southwest  in  effect  concedes  that  it  does  not  necessarily
share  the  attribute  that  Southwest  would  like  us  to  read 
into  the  catchall  provision.    Ejusdem  generis  neither  de-
mands nor permits that we limit 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 neces-
sary nexus to interstate 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.  In Gulf Oil Corp. v. Copp Paving Co., 419 U. S. 186 
(1974), for instance, this Court held that a firm making in-
trastate  sales  of  asphalt  was  not  “engaged  in  [interstate]
commerce,” id., at 194 (internal quotation marks omitted),
merely because the asphalt was later used to make inter-
state  highways,  id.  at  198.  Being  only  “perceptibly  con-
nected to . . . instrumentalities” of interstate commerce was 
not enough.  Ibid.  Similarly, in United States v. American 
Building Maintenance Industries, 422 U. S. 271 (1975), this
Court held that “simply supplying localized [janitorial] ser-
vices to a corporation engaged in interstate commerce does
not satisfy the ‘in commerce’ requirement” in §7 of the Clay-
ton  Act,  38  Stat.  731,  as  amended,  15  U. S. C.  §18.    422 
U. S.,  at  283.    In  each  case,  the  Court  explained  that  the 
relevant firm was not “engaged in” interstate commerce be-
cause it did not perform “activities within the flow of inter-
state  commerce.”  Id.  at  276  (internal  quotation  marks 
omitted); Gulf Oil, 419 U. S., at 195. 

But unlike those who sell asphalt for intrastate construc-
tion or those who clean up after corporate employees, our 
case law makes clear that airplane cargo loaders plainly do
perform “activities within the flow of interstate commerce”