Court says Amazon Flex drivers exempt from federal arbitration law

California's 4th District Court of Appeal has affirmed a trial court's ruling that Amazon Flex drivers are exempt from mandatory arbitration under the Federal Arbitration Act.

The unanimous panel decision solidifies the legal standing of "last-mile" delivery drivers as transportation workers engaged in interstate commerce under Section 1 of the act (FAA) and carries potentially far-reaching implications for thousands of gig workers and the broader labor landscape in the state.

The panel, which consisted of Justices Martha K. Gooding, Thomas A. Delaney and Orange County Judge Julianne S. Bancroft sitting by assignment, pointed to previous rulings in the 9th Circuit, "as well as other federal circuit and California courts that held local delivery drivers like plaintiffs, who do not cross borders but nonetheless transport interstate goods to the final leg to their destinations, fall within section 1's exemption." Clinton et al. v. Amazon Logistics, Inc. et al. G064704, Cal. App. 4th, Jan. 7, 2026).

Jennifer D. Bennett of Gupta Wessler LLP in San Francisco, who represented delivery drivers in the case, celebrated the decision in an email on Thursday.

"This ruling makes clear that Amazon, one of the largest transportation companies in the world, cannot escape responsibility for violating wage laws by forcing its drivers into arbitration," Bennett said.

Plaintiffs were also represented by attorneys with Blumenthal Nordrehaug Bhowmik De Blouw LLP, Burton Employment Law, Haines Law Group, Lavi & Ebrahimian LLP, Patterson Law Group and Kesluk Silverstein Jacob & Morrison.

Amazon was represented by attorneys with Gibson Dunn & Crutcher LLP, including Megan M. Cooney and Min S. Kim in Irvine, Dhananjay S. Manthripragada and Patrick J. Fuster in Los Angeles and Lucas C. Townsend in Washington, D.C. They did not respond to phoned or emailed requests for comment by press time on Thursday.

The legal battle centered on whether drivers who deliver packages on the final leg of an interstate journey--even if they never leave California--fall under the "transportation worker" exemption in Section 1 of the FAA. Amazon had moved to compel the drivers into private arbitration, citing terms of service the drivers accepted when signing up via the Amazon Flex app. However, the appellate court agreed with the Orange County Superior Court's 2019 determination that these drivers are "engaged in ... interstate commerce" and thus cannot be forced into arbitration. Dirk Clinton v. Amazon Logistics, Inc., 30-2017-00938102-CU-OE-CXC, (O.C. Super., Ct., filed Aug. 16, 2017)

During the proceedings, Amazon argued that its warehouse operations break the chain of interstate commerce, contending that because many packages are stored locally before final delivery, they are no longer in the stream of interstate commerce when a Flex driver picks them up, according to Wednesday's opinion.

The appellate panel rejected this argument, concluding that a warehouse stop is merely a "pause in the journey" and that the transportation of these goods would be "incomplete" without the last-mile delivery drivers.

The court relied on established precedents, including the 9th Circuit's decision in Rittmann v. Amazon.com, Inc. and the U.S. Supreme Court's ruling in Southwest Airlines Co. v. Saxon. These cases helped define the "class of workers" as those who play a direct and necessary role in the flow of goods across borders. The court noted that Amazon's own marketing describes these drivers as crucial to its "last-mile" logistics network.

Bennett stated in May that the FAA was never intended to apply to transportation workers, and that Amazon could not "credibly claim" otherwise.

The appellate panel ordered that the drivers should recover their costs on appeal.