Wilson v. Get It Now, LLC
- Eric Tostrud
- 0:25-cv-01067
- U.S. District Court · District of Minnesota
- 15
In Wilson v. Get It Now, LLC, Judge Tostrud granted the company's motion to send plaintiff Ryan Wilson's wrongful-termination claims to arbitration, ruling that Wilson failed to prove he belonged to the narrow category of 'transportation workers' who are exempt from the Federal Arbitration Act's requirement to arbitrate.
Employees who have signed arbitration agreements with their employers and seek to avoid arbitration by claiming they are 'transportation workers' — particularly retail district managers or similar managerial workers whose jobs involve some degree of interstate commerce activity but who are not primarily engaged in transporting goods across state lines.
What happened
In Wilson v. Get It Now, LLC, Ryan Wilson, a former district manager for a household-goods retail company operating stores in Minnesota and Wisconsin, sued his former employer claiming he was fired for reporting illegal activity and for seeking workers' compensation benefits, raising claims under two Minnesota state laws. Get It Now moved to send the dispute to arbitration under an agreement Wilson had signed, and Wilson opposed the motion by arguing he fell within a legal exemption that shields certain 'transportation workers' from being required to arbitrate their disputes.
The key legal question was whether Wilson belonged to a class of workers whose job centrally involves moving goods across state lines — the test for the 'transportation worker' exemption under the Federal Arbitration Act. The court identified Wilson's worker class as managers who oversee multiple household-goods retail store locations within a defined geographic area. Wilson submitted a declaration describing his own duties at Get It Now, including overseeing deliveries to Wisconsin and occasionally crossing state lines himself, but the court found he failed to present evidence about what that broader class of workers does generally, not just what he personally did at one company. The court also found that even taking Wilson's own description at face value, his interstate activities appeared occasional rather than central to his job, and Get It Now's official job description for district managers made no mention of interstate transportation.
Judge Tostrud granted Get It Now's motion to compel arbitration and stayed (paused) the court case pending the outcome of arbitration. The court emphasized that the transportation-worker exemption is narrow, that the burden was on Wilson to prove it applied, and that he did not meet that burden — both because he failed to address the governing legal framework and because his evidence was insufficient even on his own terms.
The detailed version
- Wilson v. Get It Now, LLC, No. 25-cv-1067 (ECT/DTS)
- Eric C. Tostrud
- August 11, 2025
Background
Plaintiff Ryan Wilson was a district manager for Get It Now, LLC, a company that operates household-goods retail stores in Minnesota (under the name 'Home Choice') and Wisconsin (under the name 'Get It Now'). Wilson alleged he was terminated in retaliation for reporting illegal company conduct and for seeking workers' compensation benefits, asserting claims under the Minnesota Whistleblower Act and the retaliatory-discharge provision of the Minnesota Workers' Compensation Act. The case was removed from Ramsey County District Court on diversity jurisdiction grounds (the parties are citizens of different states and the amount in controversy exceeds $75,000).
Motion
Get It Now moved to compel arbitration under the Federal Arbitration Act (FAA), 9 U.S.C. §§ 3–4, pointing to an arbitration agreement Wilson had signed. Wilson did not dispute signing the agreement, which broadly covered all employment-related claims and delegated to the arbitrator the authority to decide disputes about the agreement's own validity and enforceability.
Legal framework — FAA and the transportation-worker exemption
The FAA generally makes written arbitration agreements in commercial contracts enforceable. Section 1 of the FAA, however, exempts 'contracts of employment of transportation workers' from the Act's coverage. The Supreme Court has construed this exemption narrowly to cover only transportation workers, though such workers need not be employed in the transportation industry (Bissonnette v. LePage Bakeries Park St., LLC, 601 U.S. 246 (2024)). The party seeking to avoid arbitration bears the burden of proving the exemption applies.
Two-step inquiry
Under Southwest Airlines Co. v. Saxon, 596 U.S. 450 (2022), courts apply a two-step analysis: (1) define the relevant 'class of workers' to which the plaintiff belongs, based on job function rather than the employer's industry; and (2) determine whether that class of workers is 'engaged in foreign or interstate commerce,' meaning the interstate movement of goods must be a central part of the class's job description — not merely occasional.
Step 1 — Class of workers
The court found Wilson belonged to a class of workers who manage or oversee multiple household-goods retail store locations within a defined geographic territory. Both Wilson's own declaration and Get It Now's Senior Vice President of Retail Operations described his role in consistent terms: managing employees, staffing, expense control, marketing, vehicle fleet management, and meeting with other district managers. Wilson did not meaningfully address this first question in his briefing, instead simply asserting he was a 'transportation worker' — a label the court found unhelpful.
Step 2 — Engagement in interstate commerce
The court found Wilson failed to carry his burden on this question for two independent reasons. First, Wilson addressed the question only from his personal perspective as a Get It Now employee, not from the perspective of the broader class of workers to which he belonged. He introduced no evidence describing the job description of that class more broadly or showing his duties at Get It Now were representative of the class. Because the court could not assess the class's central duties without such evidence, it could not find the exemption applied.
Second, even accepting Wilson's own declaration testimony as probative of the class, it was insufficient. Wilson testified that his daily duties involved 'extensive interstate commerce activities,' including regularly selling, transporting, and delivering merchandise across state lines to Wisconsin, coordinating and approving interstate deliveries performed by employees he supervised, managing a delivery fleet, personally crossing state lines multiple times, and attending quarterly meetings in Wisconsin. However, the court found: (a) this testimony lacked specificity about the centrality of these activities to his role; (b) Get It Now's official job description for district managers — which Wilson did not dispute — made no mention of interstate movement of goods; (c) several of the interstate activities Wilson described (deliveries, repossessions, investigations, quarterly meetings) appeared to be occasional, not central duties; and (d) accepting Wilson's evidence as sufficient would make it difficult to distinguish his situation from countless other retail workers who oversee interstate sales, an outcome inconsistent with the Supreme Court's repeated characterization of the exemption as narrow.
Eighth Circuit's Lenz factors
The court also applied the Eighth Circuit's non-exclusive multi-factor test from Lenz v. Yellow Transportation, Inc., 431 F.3d 348 (8th Cir. 2005), noting uncertainty about whether that test survives Saxon and Bissonnette but finding Wilson failed under it regardless. Wilson did not work in the transportation industry; any interstate transportation duties were occasional, not central; his supervision of delivery employees was described too vaguely to show he supervised workers who were themselves transportation workers; he was not in a class with special pre-FAA arbitration history; and the record did not show a nexus between his job and vehicle use.
Cases distinguished
The court rejected Wilson's reliance on cases involving Amazon last-mile delivery drivers, coal mine workers, and ride-share drivers, finding those cases factually inapposite to a class of regional retail-store managers.
Ruling
Judge Tostrud granted Get It Now's motion to compel arbitration and stayed the case pending arbitration, as required by 9 U.S.C. § 3 and Smith v. Spizzirri, 601 U.S. 472 (2024).
Reviewer note from the AI+
Read the full 15-page opinion on CourtListener, the free public archive maintained by the Free Law Project.