Zoanthropy is a mental disorder in which a person believes he or she is an animal. In this recent case, a 54-year old Belgian woman mistook herself for a chicken. The rare condition — and the woman’s clucking — stopped suddenly when she had a seizure, which apparently is a decidedly un-chickenlike thing to have.

Identity crises continue to plague the courts too. As we reported here, arbitration agreements can become unenforceable when applied to drivers of goods, if those drivers are in “interstate commerce.” What it means to drive in “interstate commerce” is not so clear. We reported last month on seemingly contradictory decisions by the New Jersey Supreme Court and the First Circuit Court of Appeals.

Last week, the Seventh Circuit Court of Appeals muddied things up more, ruling that GrubHub’s arbitration agreements with independent contractor drivers were enforceable, meaning that drivers who sued, claiming employee status, had to bring their claims individually through arbitration, not in a class action in court. The court ruled that these local food delivery drivers were not driving in “interstate commerce.” (Tip: If you’re craving fries, order from a fast food joint in your home state. )

That’s a nice win for GrubHub and for the enforcement of arbitration agreements in general.

Eventually, the Supreme Court is going to have to sort this out and tell us when drivers of goods are in “interstate commerce” and when they are not. Courts have tried to draw distinctions around whether the drivers cross state lines, whether the goods cross state lines even if the drivers do not, and whether the goods were “at rest” before being driven the last mile. We have different standards being used by different courts in different states — even though they’re all just trying to interpret the meaning of an exception in a federal law, the Federal Arbitration Act.

The end result is that companies using arbitration agreements with drivers of goods may — or may not — be able to enforce their arbitration agreements under the Federal Arbitration Act.

For now, confusion reigns. But at least our Belgian chicken lady is back to normal. OddityCentral reports that some cases of zoanthropy have lasted decades.

© 2020 Todd Lebowitz, posted on WhoIsMyEmployee.com, Exploring Issues of Independent Contractor Misclassification and Joint Employment. All rights reserved.