The meaning of a single phrase can shape national law. One University of South Carolina professor’s study of how ordinary speakers understand language has reached the highest court in the country. 

Brandon Waldon, an assistant professor of linguistics and philosophy in the McCausland College of Arts and Sciences, contributed to the core linguistic analysis in an amicus brief filed in Flowers Foods v. Brock, a case before the U.S. Supreme Court involving the interpretation of a federal commerce law.  

Amicus briefs are submissions from experts or stakeholders who are not formally involved in a case but who offer specialized insight relevant to the Court’s decision. In this instance, Waldon and his collaborators examined how the language of the law in question functions grammatically and what its structure would have conveyed to an ordinary English speaker at the time it was written. 

The case concerns the Federal Arbitration Act, which requires some commercial disputes to be settled through arbitration rather than lawsuits when the disputing parties have a written agreement in place. If an employee belongs to a “class of workers engaged in foreign or interstate commerce,” according to the FAA, that employee can still sue rather than be forced into arbitration.  

The Supreme Court has been asked to determine whether this exemption applies to a delivery driver who does not cross state lines, but who delivers goods locally that have been shipped from out of state.  

The “ordinary” interpretation component of this case is significant. Modern U.S. legal practice prioritizes how ordinary speakers understand language and is the dominant interpretation framework in U.S. courts. 

Waldon and his collaborators analyzed the Federal Arbitration Act’s reference to a “class of workers,” drawing on principles of syntax — the study of phrase and sentence structure — and semantics — the study of linguistic meaning. His research focuses on whether that phrasing describes a category of workers as a whole or requires that each individual worker personally cross state lines.  

From a linguistic standpoint, the phrase operates generically, directing attention to the characteristics of a group rather than the specific actions of each member. That distinction carries significant legal consequences and would impact more of the 3.7 million truck drivers in the U.S. 

“A positive ruling for Brock could expand protection to more workers within this expansive group,” Waldon says.  

Waldon also helped draft the brief and compile linguistic data to support its claims, grounding the argument in patterns of ordinary language use rather than policy preference. His analysis offers the Supreme Court a way to interpret the statute based on how English grammar works, without redefining broader legal concepts. 

This is not the first time Waldon’s scholarship has appeared before the U.S. Supreme Court. In Bondi v. VanDerStok, a major gun control case decided last year, the Court’s majority opinion cited an amicus brief he co-authored, and the dissent noted the majority’s reliance on its linguistic reasoning. The citation underscored the growing role that linguistic expertise can play in statutory interpretation. 

As the Supreme Court prepares to hear arguments in Flowers Foods v. Brock, Waldon’s work again places linguistic analysis at the center of legal decision-making. The Court will hear oral arguments in late March, and a decision will likely follow in the months after.