‘Act of God’ Claim Denied in Starbucks Supplier Labor Dispute

A Starbucks Corp. supplier failed to overturn an arbitrator’s ruling in a labor contract dispute, as the Seventh Circuit found that Covid-related shutdown orders didn’t count as an “Act of God.”

Quality Custom Distribution and the International Brotherhood of Teamsters Local 710 chose to resolve their dispute via arbitration, and the court’s role isn’t to second-guess an arbitrator’s contract interpretation, a three-judge panel for the US Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit ruled Thursday.

The case sprang from the Teamsters’ claim that Quality Custom Distribution failed in 2020 to meet a contractual requirement to provide at least 40 ...