Amazon Flex Drivers Keep Arbitration Exemption Win on Appeal

Amazon.com Inc.'s Flex delivery drivers fall under a transportation worker exemption, the Ninth Circuit said Friday, affirming a lower court decision allowing the drivers to avoid arbitrating wage claims.

The drivers are part of a class of workers engaged in interstate commerce, even if the tip-producing trips at the heart of their wage-and-hour allegations are purely local, so the Federal Arbitration Act’s transportation worker exemption applies, the court said in an unpublished opinion.

The drivers accuse Amazon and subsidiary Amazon Logistics Inc. of failing to hand over all delivery tips to workers as promised. The trial court rejected Amazon’s ...