Source: https://supreme.justia.com/cases/federal/us/532/105/
Timestamp: 2019-04-20 16:44:10+00:00

Document:
A provision in respondent's application for work at petitioner electronics retailer required all employment disputes to be settled by arbitration. Mter he was hired, respondent filed a state-law employment discrimination action against petitioner, which then sued in federal court to enjoin the state-court action and to compel arbitration pursuant to the Federal Arbitration Act (FAA). The District Court entered the requested order. The Ninth Circuit reversed, interpreting § 1 of the FAA-which excludes from that Act's coverage "contracts of employment of seamen, railroad employees, or any other class of workers engaged in foreign or interstate commerce" -to exempt all employment contracts from the FAA's reach.
Held: The § 1 exemption is confined to transportation workers.
(a) The FAA's coverage provision, § 2, compels judicial enforcement of arbitration agreements "in any ... contract evidencing a transaction involving commerce." In Allied-Bruce Terminix Coso v. Dobson, 513 U. S. 265, the Court interpreted § 2's "involving commerce" phrase as implementing Congress' intent "to exercise [its] commerce power to the full." Id., at 277. Pp. 111-113.
(b) The Court rejects respondent's contention that the word "transaction" in § 2 extends only to commercial contracts, and that therefore an employment contract is not a "contract evidencing a transaction involving interstate commerce" at all. If that were true, the separate § 1 exemption that is here at issue would be pointless. See, e. g., Pennsylvania Dept. of Public Welfare v. Davenport, 495 U. S. 552, 562. Accordingly, any argument that arbitration agreements in employment contracts are not covered by the FAA must be premised on the language of the § 1 exclusion itself. pp. 113-114.
tual obstacle that, unlike § 2's "involving commerce" language, the § 1 words "any other class of workers engaged in ... commerce" constitute a residual phrase, following, in the same sentence, explicit reference to "seamen" and "railroad employees." The wording thus calls for application of the maxim ejusdem generis, under which the residual clause should be read to give effect to the terms "seamen" and "railroad employees," and should be controlled and defined by reference to those terms. See, e. g., Norfolk & Western R. Co. v. Train Dispatchers, 499 U. S. 117, 129. Application of ejusdem generis is also in full accord with other sound considerations bearing upon the proper interpretation of the clause. In prior cases, the Court has read "engaged in commerce" as a term of art, indicating a limited assertion of federal jurisdiction. See, e. g., United States v. American Building Maintenance Industries, 422 U. S. 271, 279-280. The Court is not persuaded by the assertion that its § 1 interpretation should be guided by the fact that, when Congress adopted the FAA, the phrase "engaged in commerce" came close to expressing the outer limits of its Commerce Clause power as then understood, see, e. g., The Employers' Liability Cases, 207 U. S. 463, 498. This fact alone does not provide any basis to adopt, "by judicial decision, rather than amendatory legislation," Gulf Oil Corp. v. Copp Paving Co., 419 U. S. 186, 202, an expansive construction of the FAA's exclusion provision that goes beyond the meaning of the words Congress used. While it is possible that Congress might have chosen a different jurisdictional formulation had it known that the Court later would embrace a less restrictive reading of the Commerce Clause, § 1's text precludes interpreting the exclusion provision to defeat the language of § 2 as to all employment contracts. The statutory context in which the "engaged in commerce" language is found, i. e., in a residual provision, and the FAA's purpose of overcoming judicial hostility to arbitration further compel that the § 1 exclusion be afforded a narrow construction. The better reading of § 1, in accord with the prevailing view in the Courts of Appeals, is that § 1 exempts from the FAA only employment contracts of transportation workers. Pp. 114-119.
transportation workers' employment relationships and did not wish to unsettle established or developing statutory dispute resolution schemes covering those workers. As for the residual exclusion of "any other class of workers engaged in foreign or interstate commerce," it would be rational for Congress to ensure that workers in general would be covered by the FAA, while reserving for itself more specific legislation for transportation workers. Pp. 119-121.
(e) Amici argue that, under the Court's reading, the FAA in effect pre-empts state employment laws restricting the use of arbitration agreements. That criticism is not properly directed at today's holding, but at Southland Corp. v. Keating, 465 U. S. 1, holding that Congress intended the FAA to apply in state courts, and to pre-empt state antiarbitration laws to the contrary. The Court explicitly declined to overrule Southland in Allied-Bruce, supra, at 272, and Congress has not moved to overturn Southland in response to Allied-Bruce. Nor is Southland directly implicated in this case, which concerns the application of the FAA in a federal, rather than in a state, court. The Court should not chip away at Southland by indirection. Furthermore, there are real benefits to arbitration in the employment context, including avoidance of litigation costs compounded by difficult choice-of-Iaw questions and by the necessity of bifurcating the proceedings where state law precludes arbitration of certain types of employment claims but not others. Adoption of respondent's position would call into doubt the efficacy of many employers' alternative dispute resolution procedures, in the process undermining the FAA's proarbitration purposes and breeding litigation from a statute that seeks to avoid it. Allied-Bruce, supra, at 275. Pp. 121-124.
KENNEDY, J., delivered the opinion of the Court, in which REHNQUIST, C. J., and O'CONNOR, SCALIA, and THOMAS, JJ., joined. STEVENS, J., filed a dissenting opinion, in which GINSBURG and BREYER, JJ., joined, and in which SOUTER, J., joined as to Parts II and III, post, p. 124. SOUTER, J., filed a dissenting opinion, in which STEVENS, GINSBURG, and BREYER, JJ., joined, post, p. 133.
David E. Nagle argued the cause for petitioner. With him on the briefs were W Stephen Cannon, Pamela G. Parsons, Walter E. Dellinger, Samuel Estreicher, and Rex Darrell Berry.
*Briefs of amici curiae urging reversal were filed for the American Arbitration Association by Florence M. Peterson, Jay W Waks, and James H. Carter; for the Chamber of Commerce of the United States of America by Lawrence Z. Lorber, Lawrence R. Sandak, Stephen A. Bokat, and Robin S. Conrad; for the Council for Employment Law Equity by Garry G. Mathiason; for Credit Suisse First Boston by Stephen J. Marzen, Meredith Kolsky Lewis, and Joseph T. McLaughlin; for the Employers Group by Daniel H. Bromberg, Richard H. Sayler, and William J. Emanuel; for the Equal Employment Advisory Council et al. by Ann Elizabeth Reesman, Daniel V. Yager, and Heather L. MacDougall; for the Securities Industry Association by Michael Delikat, Stuart J. Kaswell, and George Kramer; for the Society for Human Resource Management by David E. Block and Christine L. Wilson; and for the Texas Employment Law Council by W Carl Jordan and Robert L. Ivey.
JUSTICE KENNEDY delivered the opinion of the Court. Section 1 of the Federal Arbitration Act (FAA or Act) excludes from the Act's coverage "contracts of employment of seamen, railroad employees, or any other class of workers engaged in foreign or interstate commerce." 9 U. S. C. § 1. All but one of the Courts of Appeals which have addressed the issue interpret this provision as exempting contracts of employment of transportation workers, but not other employment contracts, from the FAA's coverage. A different interpretation has been adopted by the Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit, which construes the exemption so that all contracts of employment are beyond the FAA's reach, whether or not the worker is engaged in transportation. It applied that rule to the instant case. We now decide that the better interpretation is to construe the statute, as most of the Courts of Appeals have done, to confine the exemption to transportation workers.
H. Gottesman, Jeffrey W Stempel, Katherine Van Wezel, and Clyde W Summers; for the Lawyers' Committee for Civil Rights Under Law et al. by Paul W Mollica, Daniel F. Kolb, John Payton, Norman Redlich, Barbara R. Arnwine, Thomas J. Henderson, Richard T. Seymour, Teresa A. Ferrante, Elaine R. Jones, Theodore M. Shaw, Norman J. Chachkin, Charles Stephen Ralston, Dennis C. Hayes, Antonia Hernandez, Judith L. Lichtman, Donna R. Lenhoff, Marcia D. Greenberger, Julie Goldscheid, and Yolanda S. Wu; for the National Academy of Arbitrators by David E. Feller and John Kagel; and for the National Employment Lawyers Association by James M. True III and Paula A. Brantner.
relating to my application or candidacy for employment, employment and/or cessation of employment with Circuit City, exclusively by final and binding arbitration before a neutral Arbitrator. By way of example only, such claims include claims under federal, state, and local statutory or common law, such as the Age Discrimination in Employment Act, Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, as amended, including the amendments of the Civil Rights Act of 1991, the Americans with Disabilities Act, the law of contract and [the] law of tort." App. 13 (emphasis in original).
Two years later, Adams filed an employment discrimination lawsuit against Circuit City in state court, asserting claims under California's Fair Employment and Housing Act, Cal. Govt. Code Ann. § 12900 et seq. (West 1992 and Supp. 1997), and other claims based on general tort theories under California law. Circuit City filed suit in the United States District Court for the Northern District of California, seeking to enjoin the state-court action and to compel arbitration of respondent's claims pursuant to the FAA, 9 U. S. C. §§ 116. The District Court entered the requested order. Respondent, the court concluded, was obligated by the arbitration agreement to submit his claims against the employer to binding arbitration. An appeal followed.
conclusion that all employment contracts are excluded from the FAA conflicts with every other Court of Appeals to have addressed the question. See, e. g., McWilliams v. Logicon, Inc., 143 F.3d 573, 575-576 (CAlO 1998); O'Neil v. Hilton Head Hospital, 115 F.3d 272, 274 (CA4 1997); Pryner v. Tractor Supply Co., 109 F.3d 354, 358 (CA7 1997); Cole v. Burns Int'l Security Servs., 105 F.3d 1465, 1470-1472 (CADC 1997); Rojas v. TK Communications, Inc., 87 F.3d 745,747-748 (CA5 1996); Asplundh Tree Co. v. Bates, 71 F.3d 592, 596-601 (CA6 1995); Erving v. Virginia Squires Basketball Club, 468 F.2d 1064, 1069 (CA2 1972); Dickstein v. DuPont, 443 F.2d 783, 785 (CA1 1971); Tenney Engineering, Inc. v. United Elec. & Machine Workers of Am., 207 F. 2d 450 (CA3 1953). We granted certiorari to resolve the issue. 529 U. S. 1129 (2000).
grounds as exist at law or in equity for the revocation of any contract." 9 U. S. C. § 2.
We had occasion in Allied-Bruce, supra, at 273-277, to consider the significance of Congress' use of the words "involving commerce" in § 2. The analysis began with a reaffirmation of earlier decisions concluding that the FAA was enacted pursuant to Congress' substantive power to regulate interstate commerce and admiralty, see Prima Paint Corp. v. Flood & Conklin Mfg. Co., 388 U. S. 395, 405 (1967), and that the Act was applicable in state courts and pre-emptive of state laws hostile to arbitration, see Southland Corp. v. Keating, 465 U. S. 1 (1984). Relying upon these background principles and upon the evident reach of the words "involving commerce," the Court interpreted § 2 as implementing Congress' intent "to exercise [its] commerce power to the full." Allied-Bruce, supra, at 277.
The instant case, of course, involves not the basic coverage authorization under § 2 of the Act, but the exemption from coverage under § 1. The exemption clause provides the Act shall not apply "to contracts of employment of seamen, railroad employees, or any other class of workers engaged in foreign or interstate commerce." 9 U. S. C. § 1. Most Courts of Appeals conclude the exclusion provision is limited to transportation workers, defined, for instance, as those workers "'actually engaged in the movement of goods in interstate commerce.''' Cole, supra, at 1471. As we stated at the outset, the Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit takes a different view and interprets the § 1 exception to exclude all contracts of employment from the reach of the FAA. This comprehensive exemption had been advocated by amici curiae in Gilmer, where we addressed the question whether a registered securities representative's employment discrimination claim under the Age Discrimination in Employment Act of 1967, 81 Stat. 602, as amended, 29 U. S. C. § 621 et seq., could be submitted to arbitration pursuant to an agreement in his securities registration application.
Concluding that the application was not a "contract of employment" at all, we found it unnecessary to reach the meaning of § 1. See Gilmer, supra, at 25, n. 2. There is no such dispute in this case; while Circuit City argued in its petition for certiorari that the employment application signed by Adams was not a "contract of employment," we declined to grant certiorari on this point. So the issue reserved in Gilmer is presented here.
there is an argument to be made that arbitration agreements in employment contracts are not covered by the Act, it must be premised on the language of the § 1 exclusion provision itself.
Respondent, endorsing the reasoning of the Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit that the provision excludes all employment contracts, relies on the asserted breadth of the words "contracts of employment of ... any other class of workers engaged in ... commerce." Referring to our construction of § 2's coverage provision in Allied-Bruce-concluding that the words "involving commerce" evidence the congressional intent to regulate to the full extent of its commerce power-respondent contends § l's interpretation should have a like reach, thus exempting all employment contracts. The two provisions, it is argued, are coterminous; under this view the "involving commerce" provision brings within the FAA's scope all contracts within the Congress' commerce power, and the "engaged in ... commerce" language in § 1 in turn exempts from the FAA all employment contracts falling within that authority.
embrace only objects similar in nature to those objects enumerated by the preceding specific words." 2A N. Singer, Sutherland on Statutes and Statutory Construction § 47.17 (1991); see also Norfolk & Western R. Co. v. Train Dispatchers, 499 U. S. 117, 129 (1991). Under this rule of construction the residual clause should be read to give effect to the terms "seamen" and "railroad employees," and should itself be controlled and defined by reference to the enumerated categories of workers which are recited just before it; the interpretation of the clause pressed by respondent fails to produce these results.
congressional intent to regulate to the outer limits of authority under the Commerce Clause. Id., at 273; see also United States v. American Building Maintenance Industries, 422 U. S. 271, 279-280 (1975) (phrase "engaged in commerce" is "a term of art, indicating a limited assertion of federal jurisdiction"); Jones v. United States, 529 U. S. 848, 855 (2000) (phrase "used in commerce" "is most sensibly read to mean active employment for commercial purposes, and not merely a passive, passing, or past connection to commerce").
It is argued that we should assess the meaning of the phrase "engaged in commerce" in a different manner here, because the FAA was enacted when congressional authority to regulate under the commerce power was to a large extent confined by our decisions. See United States v. Lopez, 514 U. S. 549, 556 (1995) (noting that Supreme Court decisions beginning in 1937 "ushered in an era of Commerce Clause jurisprudence that greatly expanded the previously defined authority of Congress under that Clause"). When the FAA was enacted in 1925, respondent reasons, the phrase "engaged in commerce" was not a term of art indicating a limited assertion of congressional jurisdiction; to the contrary, it is said, the formulation came close to expressing the outer limits of Congress' power as then understood. See, e. g., The Employers' Liability Cases, 207 U. S. 463, 498 (1908) (holding unconstitutional jurisdictional provision in Federal Employers Liability Act (FELA) covering the employees of "every common carrier engaged in trade or commerce"); Second Employers' Liability Cases, 223 U. S. 1, 48-49 (1912); but cf. Illinois Central R. Co. v. Behrens, 233 U. S. 473 (1914) (noting in dicta that the amended FELA's application to common carriers "while engaging in commerce" did not reach all employment relationships within Congress' commerce power). Were this mode of interpretation to prevail, we would take into account the scope of the Commerce Clause, as then elaborated by the Court, at the date of the FAA's enactment in order to interpret what the statute means now.
A variable standard for interpreting common, jurisdictional phrases would contradict our earlier cases and bring instability to statutory interpretation. The Court has declined in past cases to afford significance, in construing the meaning of the statutory jurisdictional provisions "in commerce" and "engaged in commerce," to the circumstance that the statute predated shifts in the Court's Commerce Clause cases. In FTC v. Bunte Brothers, Inc., 312 U. S. 349 (1941), the Court rejected the contention that the phrase "in commerce" in § 5 of the Federal Trade Commission Act, 38 Stat. 719, 15 U. S. C. § 45, a provision enacted by Congress in 1914, should be read in as expansive a manner as "affecting commerce." See Bunte Bros., supra, at 350-351. We entertained a similar argument in a pair of cases decided in the 1974 Term concerning the meaning of the phrase "engaged in commerce" in § 7 of the Clayton Act, 38 Stat. 731, 15 U. S. C. § 18, another 1914 congressional enactment. See American Building Maintenance, supra, at 277-283; Gulf Oil Corp. v. Copp Paving Co., 419 U. S. 186, 199-202 (1974). We held that the phrase "engaged in commerce" in § 7 "means engaged in the flow of interstate commerce, and was not intended to reach all corporations engaged in activities subject to the federal commerce power." American Building Maintenance, supra, at 283; cf. Gulf Oil, supra, at 202 (expressing doubt as to whether an "argument from the history and practical purposes of the Clayton Act" could justify "radical expansion of the Clayton Act's scope beyond that which the statutory language defines").
The plain meaning of the words "engaged in commerce" is narrower than the more open-ended formulations "affecting commerce" and "involving commerce." See, e. g., Gulf Oil, supra, at 195 (phrase "engaged in commerce" "appears to denote only persons or activities within the flow of interstate commerce"). It would be unwieldy for Congress, for the Court, and for litigants to be required to deconstruct statutory Commerce Clause phrases depending upon the year of a particular statutory enactment.
seled in favor of an expansive reading of § 2, gives no reason to abandon the precise reading of a provision that exempts contracts from the FAA's coverage.
S. 4213 and S. 4214 before a Subcommittee of the Senate Committee on the Judiciary, 67th Cong., 4th Sess., 9 (1923). Legislative history is problematic even when the attempt is to draw inferences from the intent of duly appointed committees of the Congress. It becomes far more so when we consult sources still more steps removed from the full Congress and speculate upon the significance of the fact that a certain interest group sponsored or opposed particular legislation. Cf. Kelly v. Robinson, 479 U. S. 36, 51, n. 13 (1986) ("[N]one of those statements was made by a Member of Congress, nor were they included in the official Senate and House Reports. We decline to accord any significance to these statements"). We ought not attribute to Congress an official purpose based on the motives of a particular group that lobbied for or against a certain proposal-even assuming the precise intent of the group can be determined, a point doubtful both as a general rule and in the instant case. It is for the Congress, not the courts, to consult political forces and then decide how best to resolve conflicts in the course of writing the objective embodiments of law we know as statutes.
Nor can we accept respondent's argument that our holding attributes an irrational intent to Congress. "Under petitioner's reading of § 1," he contends, "those employment contracts most involving interstate commerce, and thus most assuredly within the Commerce Clause power in 1925 ... are excluded from [the] Act's coverage; while those employment contracts having a less direct and less certain connection to interstate commerce ... would come within the Act's affirmative coverage and would not be excluded." Brief for Respondent 38 (emphases in original).
at issue by the enactment of statutes specific to them. By the time the FAA was passed, Congress had already enacted federal legislation providing for the arbitration of disputes between seamen and their employers, see Shipping Commissioners Act of 1872, 17 Stat. 262. When the FAA was adopted, moreover, grievance procedures existed for railroad employees under federal law, see Transportation Act of 1920, §§ 300-316, 41 Stat. 456, and the passage of a more comprehensive statute providing for the mediation and arbitration of railroad labor disputes was imminent, see Railway Labor Act of 1926, 44 Stat. 577, 46 U. S. C. § 651 (repealed). It is reasonable to assume that Congress excluded "seamen" and "railroad employees" from the FAA for the simple reason that it did not wish to unsettle established or developing statutory dispute resolution schemes covering specific workers.
As for the residual exclusion of "any other class of workers engaged in foreign or interstate commerce," Congress' demonstrated concern with transportation workers and their necessary role in the free flow of goods explains the linkage to the two specific, enumerated types of workers identified in the preceding portion of the sentence. It would be rational for Congress to ensure that workers in general would be covered by the provisions of the FAA, while reserving for itself more specific legislation for those engaged in transportation. See Pryner v. Tractor Supply Co., 109 F. 3d, at 358 (Posner, C. J.). Indeed, such legislation was soon to follow, with the amendment of the Railway Labor Act in 1936 to include air carriers and their employees, see 49 Stat. 1189, 45 U. S. C. §§ 181-188.
FAA, the statute in effect pre-empts those state employment laws which restrict or limit the ability of employees and employers to enter into arbitration agreements. It is argued that States should be permitted, pursuant to their traditional role in regulating employment relationships, to prohibit employees like respondent from contracting away their right to pursue state-law discrimination claims in court.
It is not our holding today which is the proper target of this criticism. The line of argument is relevant instead to the Court's decision in Southland Corp. v. Keating, 465 U. S. 1 (1984), holding that Congress intended the FAA to apply in state courts, and to pre-empt state antiarbitration laws to the contrary. See id., at 16.
The question of Southland's continuing vitality was given explicit consideration in Allied-Bruce, and the Court declined to overrule it. 513 U. S., at 272; see also id., at 282 (O'CONNOR, J., concurring). The decision, furthermore, is not directly implicated in this case, which concerns the application of the FAA in a federal, rather than in a state, court. The Court should not chip away at Southland by indirection, especially by the adoption of the variable statutory interpretation theory advanced by the respondent in the instant case. Not all of the Justices who join to day's holding agreed with Allied-Bruce, see 513 U. S., at 284 (SCALIA, J., dissenting); id., at 285 (THOMAS, J., dissenting), but it would be incongruous to adopt, as we did in Allied-Bruce, a conventional reading of the FAA's coverage in § 2 in order to implement proarbitration policies and an unconventional reading of the reach of § 1 in order to undo the same coverage. In All iedBruce the Court noted that Congress had not moved to overturn Southland, see 513 U. S., at 272; and we now note that it has not done so in response to Allied-Bruce itself.
statute, while the argument here is that a state statute ought not be denied state judicial enforcement while awaiting the outcome of arbitration. That matter, though, was addressed in Southland and Allied-Bruce, and we do not revisit the question here.
the FAA evinces Congress' intent to exercise its full Commerce Clause power, id., at 277, the case did not involve a contract of employment, nor did it consider whether such contracts fall within either category of § 2's coverage provision, however broadly construed, in light of the legislative history detailed infra this page and 126-127.
2 Consistent with this understanding, Rep. Mills, who introduced the original bill in the House, explained that it "provides that where there are commercial contracts and there is disagreement under the contract, the court can [en]force an arbitration agreement in the same way as other portions of the contract." 65 Congo Rec., at 11080 (emphasis added). And before the Senate, the chairman of the New York Chamber of Commerce, one of the many business organizations that requested introduction of the bill, testified that it was needed to "enable business men to settle their disputes expeditiously and economically, and will reduce the congestion in the Federal and State courts." Hearing on S. 4213 and S. 4214 before a Subcommittee of the Senate Committee on the Judiciary, 67th Cong., 4th Sess., 2 (1923) (Hearing) (emphasis added). See also id., at 14 (letter of H. Hoover, Secretary of Commerce) ("I have been, as you may know, very strongly impressed with the urgent need of a Federal commercial arbitration act. The American Bar Association has now joined hands with the business men of this country to the same effect and unanimously approved" the bill drafted by the ABA committee and introduced in both Houses of Congress (emphasis added)).
was first introduced in 1922,3 it did not mention employment contracts, but did contain a rather precise definition of the term "maritime transactions" that underscored the commercial character of the proposed bill. 4 Indeed, neither the history of the drafting of the original bill by the ABA, nor the records of the deliberations in Congress during the years preceding the ultimate enactment of the Act in 1925, contain any evidence that the proponents of the legislation intended it to apply to agreements affecting employment.
3 S. 4214, 67th Cong., 4th Sess. (1922) (S. 4214); H. R. 13522, 67th Cong., 4th Sess. (1922) (H. R. 13522). See 64 Congo Rec. 732, 797 (1922).
4 "[M]aritime transactions" was defined as "charter parties, bills of lading of water carriers, agreements relating to wharfage, supplies furnished vessels or repairs to vessels, seamen's wages, collisions, or any other matters in foreign or interstate commerce which, if the subject of controversy, would be embraced within admiralty jurisdiction." S. 4214, § 1; H. R. 13522, § 1. Although there was no illustrative definition of "contract evidencing a transaction involving commerce," the draft defined "commerce" as "commerce among the several States or with foreign nations, or in any Territory of the United States or in the District of Columbia, or between any such Territory and another, or between any such Territory and any State or foreign nation, or between the District of Columbia and any State or Territory or foreign nation." S. 4214, § 1; H. R. 13522, § 1. Considered together, these definitions embrace maritime and nonmaritime commercial transactions, and with one possible exception do not remotely suggest coverage of employment contracts. That exception, "seamen's wages," was eliminated by the time the bill was reintroduced in the next session of Congress, when the exclusions in § 1 were added. See Joint Hearings on S. 1005 and H. R. 646 before the Subcommittees of the Committees on the Judiciary, 68th Cong., 1st Sess., 2 (1924) (Joint Hearings); see also infra, at 127. These definitions were enacted as amended and remain essentially the same today.
contracts be signed? Esau agreed, because he was hungry. It was the desire to live that caused slavery to begin and continue. With the growing hunger in modern society, there will be but few that will be able to resist. The personal hunger of the seaman, and the hunger of the wife and children of the railroad man will surely tempt them to sign, and so with sundry other workers in 'Interstate and Foreign Commerce.''' Proceedings of the Twenty-sixth Annual Convention of the International Seamen's Union of America 203-204 (1923) (emphasis added).
That amendment is what the Court construes today. History amply supports the proposition that it was an uncontroversial provision that merely confirmed the fact that no one interested in the enactment of the FAA ever intended or expected that § 2 would apply to employment contracts. It is particularly ironic, therefore, that the amendment has provided the Court with its sole justification for refusing to give the text of § 2 a natural reading. Playing ostrich to the substantial history behind the amendment, see ante, at 119 ("[WJe need not assess the legislative history of the exclusion provision"), the Court reasons in a vacuum that "[i]f all contracts of employment are beyond the scope of the Act under the § 2 coverage provision, the separate exemption" in § 1 "would be pointless," ante, at 113. But contrary to the Court's suggestion, it is not "pointless" to adopt a clarifying amendment in order to eliminate opposition to a bill. Moreover, the majority's reasoning is squarely contradicted by the Court's approach in Bernhardt v. Polygraphic Co. of America, 350 U. S. 198, 200, 201, n. 3 (1956), where the Court concluded that an employment contract did not "evidence 'a transaction involving commerce' within the meaning of § 2 of the Act," and therefore did not "reach the further question whether in any event petitioner would be included in 'any other class of workers' within the exceptions of § 1 of the Act."
herein contained shall apply to contracts of employment of seamen, railroad employes or any other class of workers engaged in foreign or interstate commerce.' This exempted labor from the provisions of the law, although its sponsors denied there was any intention to include labor disputes." Proceedings of the Forty-fifth Annual Convention of the American Federation of Labor 52 (1925).
pass employment contracts by expressly exempting the labor agreements not only of "seamen" and "railroad employees," but also of "any other class of workers engaged in foreign or interstate commerce." 9 U. S. C. § 1 (emphasis added). Today, however, the Court fulfills the original-and originally unfounded-fears of organized labor by essentially rewriting the text of § 1 to exclude the employment contracts solely of "seamen, railroad employees, or any other class of [transportation] workers engaged in foreign or interstate commerce." See ante, at 119. In contrast, whether one views the legislation before or after the amendment to § 1, it is clear that it was not intended to apply to employment contracts at all.
9 Lincoln Mills of Ala. v. Textile Workers, 230 F.2d 81, 86 (CA5 1956), rev'd on other grounds, 353 U. S. 448 (1957); Electrical Workers v. Miller Metal Products, Inc., 215 F.2d 221, 224 (CA4 1954); Electric R. and Motor Coach Employees v. Pennsylvania Greyhound Lines, Inc., 192 F.2d 310, 313 (CA3 1951). Apparently, two other Circuits shared this view. See Mercury Oil Refining Co. v. Oil Workers, 187 F.2d 980, 983 (CAW 1951); Shirley-Herman Co. v. Hod Carriers, 182 F.2d 806, 809 (CA2 1950).
10 Electrical Workers v. General Elec. Co., 233 F.2d 85, 100 (CA1 1956), aff'd on other grounds, 353 U. S. 547 (1957); Hoover Motor Express Co., Inc. v. Teamsters, 217 F.2d 49,53 (CA6 1954).
ment of workers engaged in interstate commerce." Gatliff Coal Co. v. Cox, 142 F.2d 876, 882 (1944).
The contrary view that the Court endorses today-namely, that only employees engaged in interstate transportation are excluded by § 1-was not expressed until 1954, by the Third Circuit in Tenney Engineering, Inc. v. Electrical Workers, 207 F.2d 450, 452 (1953). And that decision, significantly, was rejected shortly thereafter by the Fourth Circuit. See Electrical Workers v. Miller Metal Products, Inc., 215 F.2d 221, 224 (1954). The conflict among the Circuits that persisted in the 1950's thus suggests that it may be inappropriate to attach as much weight to recent Court of Appeals opinions as the Court does in this case. See ante, at 109, 110-111, 112.
Even if Justice Frankfurter's description of the majority's rejection of the applicability of the FAA does not suffice to establish Textile Workers as precedent for the meaning of § 1, his opinion unquestionably reveals his own interpretation of the Act. Moreover, given that Justice Marshall and I have also subscribed to that reading of § 1,13 and that three more Members of this Court do so in dissenting from today's decision, it follows that more Justices have endorsed that view than the one the Court now adopts. That fact, of course, does not control the disposition of this case, but it does seem to me that it is entitled to at least as much respect as the number of Court of Appeals decisions to which the Court repeatedly refers.
"Naturally enough, I find rejection, though not explicit, of the availability of the Federal Arbitration Act to enforce arbitration clauses in collectivebargaining agreements in the silent treatment given that Act by the Court's opinion. If an Act that authorizes the federal courts to enforce arbitration provisions in contracts generally, but specifically denies authority to decree that remedy for 'contracts of employment,' were available, the Court would hardly spin such power out of the empty darkness of § 301. I would make this rejection explicit, recognizing that when Congress passed legislation to enable arbitration agreements to be enforced by the federal courts, it saw fit to exclude this remedy with respect to labor contracts." Textile Workers v. Lincoln Mills of Ala., 353 U. S., at 466 (dissenting opinion).
13 See Gilmer v. Interstate/Johnson Lane Corp., 500 U. S. 20, 36, 38-41 (1991) (dissenting opinion).
lum far beyond a neutral attitude and endorsed a policy that strongly favors private arbitration.14 The strength of that policy preference has been echoed in the recent Court of Appeals opinions on which the Court relies.15 In a sense, therefore, the Court is standing on its own shoulders when it points to those cases as the basis for its narrow construction of the exclusion in § 1. There is little doubt that the Court's interpretation of the Act has given it a scope far beyond the expectations of the Congress that enacted it. See, e. g., Southland Corp. v. Keating, 465 U. S. 1, 17-21 (1984) (STEVENS, J., concurring in part and dissenting in part); id., at 21-36 (O'CONNOR, J., dissenting).
14 See, e. g., Gilmer v. Interstate/Johnson Lane Corp., 500 U. S. 20 (1991); Rodriguez de Quijas v. Shearson/American Express, Inc., 490 U. S. 477 (1989); Shearson/American Express Inc. v. McMahon, 482 U. S. 220 (1987); Mitsubishi Motors Corp. v. Soler Chrysler-Plymouth, Inc., 473 U. S. 614 (1985); Southland Corp. v. Keating, 465 U. S. 1 (1984); Moses H. Cone Memorial Hospital v. Mercury Constr. Corp., 460 U. S. 1 (1983); Prima Paint Corp. v. Flood & Conklin Mfg. Co., 388 U. S. 395 (1967).
15 See, e. g., O'Neil v. Hilton Head Hosp., 115 F.3d 272, 274 (CA4 1997) ("The circuit courts have uniformly reasoned that the strong federal policy in favor of arbitration requires a narrow reading of this section 1 exemption. Thus, those courts have limited the section 1 exemption to seamen, railroad workers, and other workers actually involved in the interstate transportation of goods").
employment from mandatory arbitration. When the Court simply ignores the interest of the unrepresented employee, it skews its interpretation with its own policy preferences.
thought to implement the more limited view of the Commerce Clause in 1925. The first possibility would result in a statutory ambit frozen in time, behooving Congress to amend the statute whenever it desired to expand arbitration clause enforcement beyond its scope in 1925; the second would produce an elastic reach, based on an understanding that Congress used language intended to go as far as Congress could go, whatever that might be over time.
1 Compare, e. g., Asplundh Tree Expert Co. v. Bates, 71 F.3d 592, 600601 (CA6 1995) (construing exclusion narrowly), with Willis v. Dean Witter Reynolds, 948 F.2d 305,311-312 (CA6 1991) (concluding, in dicta, that contracts of employment are generally excluded), and Gatliff Coal Co. v. Cox, 142 F.2d 876, 882 (CA6 1944) ("[T]he Arbitration Act excluded employment contracts"). See also Craft v. Campbell Soup Co., 177 F.3d 1083, 1086, n. 6 (CA9 1999) (noting intracircuit inconsistency).
jority of this Court now puts its imprimatur on the majority view among the Courts of Appeals.
The number of courts arrayed against reading the § 1 exemption in a way that would allow it to grow parallel to the expanding § 2 coverage reflects the fact that this minority view faces two hurdles, each textually based and apparent from the face of the Act. First, the language of coverage (a contract evidencing a transaction "involving commerce") is different from the language of the exemption (a contract of a worker "engaged in ... commerce"). Second, the "engaged in ... commerce" catchall phrase in the exemption is placed in the text following more specific exemptions for employment contracts of "seamen" and "railroad employees." The placement possibly indicates that workers who are excused from arbitrating by virtue of the catchall exclusion must resemble seamen and railroad workers, perhaps by being employees who actually handle and move goods as they are shipped interstate or internationally.
we had long understood "affecting commerce" to be the quintessential expression of an intended plenary exercise of commerce power. 513 U. S., at 273-274; see also Wickard v. Filburn, 317 U. S. 111 (1942).
Again looking to the context of the time, I reach the same conclusion about the phrase "engaged in commerce" as a description of employment contracts exempted from the Act. When the Act was passed (and the commerce power was closely confined) our case law indicated that the only employment relationships subject to the commerce power were those in which workers were actually engaged in interstate commerce. Compare The Employers' Liability Cases, 207 U. S. 463, 496, 498 (1908) (suggesting that regulation of the employment relations of railroad employees "actually engaged in an operation of interstate commerce" is permissible under the Commerce Clause but that regulation of a railroad company's clerical force is not), with Hammer v. Dagenhart, 247 U. S. 251, 271-276 (1918) (invalidating statute that had the "necessary effect" of "regulat[ing] the hours of labor of children in factories and mines within the States"). Thus, by using "engaged in" for the exclusion, Congress showed an intent to exclude to the limit of its power to cover employment contracts in the first place, and it did so just as clearly as its use of "involving commerce" showed its intent to legislate to the hilt over commercial contracts at a more general level. That conclusion is in fact borne out by the statement of the then-Secretary of Commerce, Herbert Hoover, who suggested to Congress that the § 1 exclusion language should be adopted "[i]f objection appears to the inclusion of workers' contracts in the law's scheme." Sales and Contracts to Sell in Interstate and Foreign Commerce, and Federal Commercial Arbitration: Hearing on S. 4213 and S. 4214 before a Subcommittee of the Senate Committee on the Judiciary, 67th Cong., 4th Sess., 14 (1923) (hereinafter Hearing on S. 4213 et al.).
The Court cites FTC v. Bunte Brothers, Inc., 312 U. S. 349 (1941), United States v. American Building Maintenance Industries, 422 U. S. 271 (1975), and Gulf Oil Corp. v. Copp Paving Co., 419 U. S. 186 (1974), for the proposition that "engaged in" has acquired a more restricted meaning as a term of art, immune to tampering now. Ante, at 117-118. But none of the cited cases dealt with the question here, whether exemption language is to be read as petrified when coverage language is read to grow. Nor do the cases support the Court's unwillingness to look beyond the four corners of the statute to determine whether the words in question necessarily "'have a uniform meaning whenever used by Congress,'" ante, at 118 (quoting American Building Maintenance, supra, at 277). Compare ante, at 119 ("[WJe need not assess the legislative history of the exclusion provision"), with, e. g., American Building Maintenance, supra, at 279283 (examining legislative history and agency enforcement of the Clayton Act before resolving meaning of "engaged in commerce").
The Court has no good reason, therefore, to reject a reading of "engaged in" as an expression of intent to legislate to the full extent of the commerce power over employment contracts. The statute is accordingly entitled to a coherent reading as a whole, see, e. g., King v. St. Vincent's Hospital, 502 U. S. 215, 221 (1991), by treating the exemption for employment contracts as keeping pace with the expanded understanding of the commerce power generally.
exemptions: for "contracts of employment of seamen, railroad employees, or any other class of workers engaged in foreign or interstate commerce." Like those other courts, this Court sees the sequence as an occasion to apply the interpretive maxim of ejusdem generis, that is, when specific terms are followed by a general one, the latter is meant to cover only examples of the same sort as the preceding specifics. Here, the same sort is thought to be contracts of transportation workers, or employees of transporters, the very carriers of commerce. And that, of course, excludes respondent Adams from benefit of the exemption, for he is employed by a retail seller.
2 What is more, the Court has repeatedly explained that the canon is triggered only by uncertain statutory text, e. g., Garcia v. United States, 469 U. S. 70, 74-75 (1984); Gooch v. United States, 297 U. S. 124, 128 (1936), and that it can be overcome by, inter alia, contrary legislative history, e. g., Watt v. Western Nuclear, Inc., 462 U. S. 36, 44, n. 5 (1983). The Court today turns this practice upside down, using ejusdem generis to establish that the text is so clear that legislative history is irrelevant. Ante, at 119.
ployees, many of whom lack the bargaining power to resist an arbitration clause if their prospective employers insist on one.3 And excluding all employment contracts from the Act's enforcement of mandatory arbitration clauses is consistent with Secretary Hoover's suggestion that the exemption language would respond to any "objection ... to the inclusion of workers' contracts."
"'The trouble about the matter is that a great many of these contracts that are entered into are really not voluntar[y] things at all .... It is the same with a good many contracts of employment. A man says, "These are our terms. All right, take it or leave it." Well, there is nothing for the man to do except to sign it; and then he surrenders his right to have his case tried by the court, and has to have it tried before a tribunal in which he has no confidence at all.''' Hearing on S. 4213 et al., at 9.
contracts that had not been targeted with special legislation. Congress did not need to worry especially about the FAA's effect on legislation that did not exist and was not contemplated. As to workers uncovered by any specific legislation, Congress could write on a clean slate, and what it wrote was a general exclusion for employment contracts within Congress's power to regulate. The Court has understood this point before, holding that the existence of a special reason for emphasizing specific examples of a statutory class can negate any inference that an otherwise unqualified general phrase was meant to apply only to matters ejusdem generis.4 On the Court's own reading of the history, then, the explanation for the catchall is not ejusdem generis; instead, the explanation for the specifics is ex abundanti cautela, abundance of caution, see Fort Stewart Schools v. FLRA, 495 U. S. 641, 646 (1990).
4 In Watt v. Western Nuclear, Inc., supra, at 44, n. 5, the Court concluded that the ejusdem generis canon did not apply to the words "coal and other minerals" where "[t]here were special reasons for expressly addressing coal that negate any inference that the phrase 'and other minerals' was meant to reserve only substances ejusdem generis," namely that Congress wanted "to make clear that coal was reserved even though existing law treated it differently from other minerals."

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