Labor & Employment Law Daily Wrap Up, ARBITRATION—10th Cir.: Application of FAA’s transportation worker exemption to airline CSAs was unsupported below, (Sep 2, 2026)

By Jason Albright, J.D.

The district court focused exclusively on the work the CSAs perform, rather than the work performed generally by the class of workers to which they belong.

A federal district court erred in finding that a putative class of current or former employees of Menzies Aviation and Frontier Airlines, Inc., who brought various causes of action based on Colorado wage laws, are transportation workers excluded from the coverage of the Federal Arbitration Act, the Tenth Circuit held. In ruling that the customer service agents are transportation workers, the district court focused exclusively on the work the employees perform, rather than on the work performed generally by the class of workers to which the employees belong. Because that error left the court without a properly defined class of workers, the necessary first step under the test set out in Southwest Airlines Co. v. Saxon, 596 U.S. 450, 456 (2022), the appeals court reversed and remanded for additional findings (Joyner v. Frontier Airlines, Inc., No. 25-1211 (10th Cir. Sept. 1, 2026)).

Section 1’s residual clause. Section 1 of the Federal Arbitration Act (FAA) exempts from the FAA’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 (emphasis added). The any-other-class-of-workers language, observed the court, is commonly referred to as Section 1’s residual clause.

2022 Supreme Court precedent. Southwest Airlines Co. v. Saxon, 596 U.S. 450, 456 (2022), in turn, set out a two-part framework for determining whether an employment contract containing a mandatory arbitration clause is exempt from the FAA’s purview under the residual clause: “First, we must define the relevant class of workers to which the individual belongs. Second, we must determine whether that class of workers is engaged in foreign or interstate commerce.” As to the first step, observed the Tenth Circuit, the relevant metric is the “actual work that the members of the class, as a whole, typically carry out.” Under the second step, a class of workers is engaged in foreign or interstate commerce only if its members “play a direct and necessary role in the free flow of goods” across borders.

Frontier. Frontier Airlines is a commercial airline operating out of the Denver International Airport (DIA), among others. Menzies Aviation provides “ground, fuel, and air cargo support services to airlines, including passenger services such as ticketing, check-in, and boarding,” and it provides these services to Frontier at DIA.

CSAs. The named plaintiffs began working for Menzies in 2022 as customer service agents (CSAs). The first two worked at Frontier’s ticket counters, and the third worked at Frontier’s boarding gates.

Wage-hour claims. In their complaint, the employees alleged Menzies and Frontier “routinely and improperly deducted time from their worked hours for lunch breaks they did not receive, forced them to work through rest breaks, failed to pay them overtime wages for hours worked over 40 per week, and didn’t pay them the commissions they earned.”

Motion to compel. Menzies filed a motion to compel arbitration, noting the existence of mandatory arbitration provisions in each of the employees’ employment contracts and preemptively arguing that Section 1’s residual clause did not apply. Menzies argued, inter alia, that DIA-based CSAs were not transportation workers because they only handled interstate cargo (i.e., passenger luggage) on an incidental or infrequent basis.

Video evidence. In replies in support of their motions to compel, Menzies and Frontier asserted the duties performed by CSAs as a class, rather than by particular employees within that class, controlled the analysis. Among other things, Frontier submitted a video recording that showed check-in-area CSAs performing their duties without ever touching a passenger bag.

District court proceedings. During closing arguments, the district court acknowledged that Menzies and Frontier believed evidence of how the entire class of DIA-based CSAs performed their job was important. The district court concluded, however, that the relevant question was how the three named plaintiffs performed their duties. It noted “[w]e have a theory of the case over here that’s in part about what the expectations are, and then over here we have, well, that might be the expectations but here’s what we [i.e., the Employees] actually do.”

Decision below. The district court then issued a written order denying the motions to compel. Consistent with the views it expressed during a prior evidentiary hearing, the district court focused narrowly on the work performed by the employees in determining whether those individuals were transportation workers. Emphasizing that it defined the class of workers for purposes of Saxon’s first step around the work performed by the employees, rather than making any findings as to whether the ways in which the employees performed their duties was consistent with the work of all of Menzies’s and Frontier’s CSAs, the district court ruled that any potential future class would consist only of those CSAs “who perform the same duties as [the Employees].” And having described the relevant classes of workers by reference to the plaintiffs, the district court moved on to conclude those classes fell within the FAA’s residual clause, thereby exempting them from mandatory arbitration.

Appeal. Menzies and Frontier appealed to the Tenth Circuit, arguing that the district court’s analysis was flawed because it improperly defined the relevant class of workers for purposes of the first step of the Saxon framework.

Improperly defined “class of worker.” The appeals court agreed. Reversing and remanding, it said the district court erred in defining the attributes of the work performed by the relevant class of workers. Consistent with Section 1’s focus on a “class of worker,” as opposed to any particular worker, the Tenth Circuit observed, Saxon focused on “the actual work that the members of the class, as a whole, typically carry out.” On that point, for instance, Saxon noted that the employer in the case did not meaningfully contest that all employees belonging to the relevant class of workers frequently load and unload cargo from airplanes.

Focus on work performed by typical class member. “The language employed by the Supreme Court,” the appeals court continued, “makes it abundantly clear that in constructing the relevant class at Saxon’s first step, courts must focus on the work performed by a typical member of the class, not on the work performed by any particular employee.” And because, as the appeals court previously described, the district court failed to properly define the work routinely undertaken by the class of workers to which the named plaintiffs belong, the court below erred.

The district court’s order denying the motion to compel was accordingly reversed and the matter remanded for application of the appropriate standard.

The case is No. 25-1211.

Judge: Murphy, M.

Attorneys: Adam Murdoch-Kitt Harrison (HKM Employment Attorneys) for Chiquita Joyner, Helen Dixon, and Tajahne Hobley. Michael F. Ryan (Foley & Lardner) for Frontier Airlines, Inc., Simplicity Ground Services, LLC dba Menzies Aviation, and Aircraft Service International, Inc.

Companies: Frontier Airlines, Inc.; Simplicity Ground Services, LLC; Menzies Aviation; Aircraft Service International, Inc.

Cases: Arbitration Exemptions WageHour ClassActions WorkingTime Overtime Procedure ColoradoNews KansasNews NewMexicoNews OklahomaNews UtahNews WyomingNews