Whether the Federal Arbitration Act's exemption for 'any other class of workers engaged in foreign or interstate commerce' applies to rideshare drivers who regularly transport passengers across state lines, or whether the exemption requires that interstate transportation be the primary focus of the workers' job description

No question identified. : TO: The Honorable Samuel A. Alito, Jr., Associate Justice of the United States Supreme Court and Circuit Justice for the United States Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit Applicant respectfully seeks a 30-day extension of time within which to file a petition for a writ of certiorari to review the Third Circuit’s judgment in this case, to and including November 3, 2023. Absent an extension, the deadline for filing the petition will be October 4, 2023. This application is being filed on September 22, 2023—more than 10 days before the petition is due. See S. Ct. R. 13.5. Respondent’s counsel has confirmed that Uber does not oppose the extension. In support of this request, the applicant states as follows: 1. The Third Circuit issued its opinion on April 26, 2023, and issued an amended opinion on May 4, 2023, which contained only typographical amendments. App. 1a. It denied rehearing en banc on July 6, 2023. App. 29a. Copies of the amended appellate opinion issued in this case as well as the order denying rehearing en banc are attached. This Court has jurisdiction under 28 U.S.C. § 1254(1). 2. This case involves a recurring question that, despite this Court’s recent intervention, continues to split the circuits: Which transportation workers are exempt from the Federal Arbitration Act (FAA)? The FAA exempts the “contracts of employment of seamen, railroad employees, or any other class of workers engaged in foreign or interstate commerce.” 9 U.S.C. § 1. This exemption, this Court has explained, applies to the employment contracts of “transportation workers.” Cir. City Stores, Inc. v. Adams, 532 U.S. 105, 109 (2001). 3. In this case, the plaintiff and putative class members are rideshare drivers, a class of workers that transports passengers across state borders tens of millions of times every year, making them a class of transportation workers “engaged in foreign or interstate commerce.” App. 13a. Nevertheless, the Third Circuit held that rideshare drivers are not exempt from the FAA because they are not “primarily” engaged in interstate commerce. App. 12a.1 To be exempt from the FAA, the panel held, the “Interstate movement of goods or passengers” must be “a central part of the job description of the class.” App. 12a (internal quotation marks omitted). This requirement does not appear in the text of the statute, but the panel determined it existed based on its determination that the exemption’s enumerated classes of workers, seamen and railroad workers, “are primarily devoted to the movement of goods and people beyond state boundaries.” App. 13a. The panel further discounted the tens of millions of interstate trips performed by rideshare drivers as merely “local rides that sometimes—as a happenstance of geography—cross state borders.” App. 17a. The panel’s analysis was “guideld]” in part by the FAA’s purpose, which, the panel determined, required it to narrowly construe the exemption to further the FAA’s statutory goal. App. 5a, 11a n.6. 4. Prior to the panel’s decision in this case, this Court decided Southwest Airlines Co. v. Saxon, 142 S. Ct. 1783 (2022), which was an appeal of a Seventh Circuit decision that applied the same test as the panel: Whether engagement in interstate movement of goods or passengers is a central part of the class of workers’ job description. Saxon v. Sw. Airlines Co., 993 F.3d 492, 497 (7th Cir. 2021). 1 For purposes of this application, Applicant states the facts as the panel understood them. -2 Though this Court affirmed the Seventh Circuit’s decision, it did not adopt the “central part of the job description” test and, instead, held that “any class of workers directly involved in transporting goods across state or international borders falls within [the FAA’s] exemption. Saxon, 142 S. Ct. at 1789. 5. Moreover, this Court has also recently repeatedly “made clear that statutory exceptions are to be read fairly, not narrowly.” See, eg: HollyFrontier Cheyenne Ret, LIC v. Ren