Heidi Eastus v. ISS Facility Services, Inc., 960 F.3d 207

Heidi Eastus worked for ISS Facility Services as an account manager at George Bush Intercontinental Airport, supervising ticketing and gate agents for Lufthansa and occasionally handling passenger luggage.
Her complaint alleged employment discrimination and retaliation against ISS and Lufthansa-related entities.
ISS moved to compel arbitration based on an arbitration clause Eastus signed in her employment contract; Eastus conceded she signed but invoked the FAA Section 1 Transportation Worker Exemption.
The district court compelled arbitration, concluding Eastus’s baggage-handling duties were incidental and she was not engaged in the movement of goods in interstate commerce.
Eastus appealed, arguing the residual clause in Section 1 covers airline workers whose duties relate to passenger or baggage movement and urging a broader reading of Circuit City.
The Fifth Circuit reviewed de novo and considered whether the residual clause requires a worker to be actually engaged in the movement of goods in interstate commerce.

Issue	Plaintiff's Argument	Defendant's Argument	Held
Whether FAA §1 Transportation Worker Exemption covers Eastus	Eastus: her duties involved handling passengers' goods (luggage) and thus she is engaged in interstate commerce; airline employees analogous to railroad workers	Defendants: her duties were limited to loading/unloading and incidental to transport, not the movement of goods in interstate commerce	Exemption does not apply; arbitration compelled
Whether Circuit City limits the residual clause to workers actually moving goods	Eastus: Circuit City did not intend to confine the exemption to "goods" movers	Defendants: Fifth Circuit precedent (Rojas/Brown) preserves the narrow "movement of goods" standard	Court follows Rojas/Brown narrow reading; Circuit City did not displace that standard
Whether to adopt the Lenz multi-factor test	Eastus: urged broader multi-factor approach from the Eighth Circuit	Defendants: oppose expanding test beyond Fifth Circuit precedent	Court declined to adopt Lenz; kept the simpler Rojas standard

Rojas v. TK Commc’ns, Inc., 87 F.3d 745 (5th Cir. 1996) (defines residual clause to cover workers actually engaged in movement of goods)
Circuit City Stores, Inc. v. Adams, 532 U.S. 105 (2001) (interprets §1 to exempt transportation workers and discusses scope of residual clause)
Brown v. Nabors Offshore Corp., 339 F.3d 391 (5th Cir. 2003) (holds Rojas standard remains operative after Circuit City)
Asplundh Tree Expert Co. v. Bates, 71 F.3d 592 (6th Cir. 1995) (articulates "actually engaged in the movement of goods" formulation cited in Rojas)
Singh v. Uber Techs. Inc., 939 F.3d 210 (3d Cir. 2019) (holds some passenger-transport workers may fall within §1 exemption)
Lenz v. Yellow Transp., 431 F.3d 348 (8th Cir. 2005) (proposes an eight-factor test for §1 exemption analysis)
McDermott Int’l, Inc. v. Wilander, 498 U.S. 337 (1991) (distinguishes seamen from land-based workers for maritime statutes)
Epic Sys. Corp. v. Lewis, 138 S. Ct. 1612 (2018) (reaffirms federal policy favoring enforcement of arbitration agreements)
Holtzclaw v. DSC Commc’ns Corp., 255 F.3d 254 (5th Cir. 2001) (appeals-court principle that affirmance may rest on any ground supported by the record)