Kristi VonDeylen v. Aptive Environmental, LLC

United States Court of Appeals
For the Eighth Circuit
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No. 24-3578
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Kristi VonDeylen
Plaintiff - Appellee
v.
Aptive Environmental, LLC
Defendant - Appellant
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Appeal from United States District Court
for the District of Minnesota
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Submitted: October 23, 2025
Filed: March 5, 2026
[Unpublished]
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Before GRUENDER, STRAS, and KOBES, Circuit Judges.
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PER CURIAM.
The district court let Kristi VonDeylen make a federal case out of some
unwanted texts. We agree with the sender, Aptive Environmental, LLC, that the
dispute belongs in arbitration.

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I.
VonDeylen hired Aptive to provide pest-control services. In addition to
requiring quarterly home treatments, the service agreement had an arbitration
provision. Two years after the company made its final service call, it sent her several
text messages, including one about enabling the “autopay” feature on her account
and another about an “upcoming appointment.”
She filed a lawsuit in federal court alleging that the messages violated the
Telephone Consumer Protection Act, see 47 U.S.C. § 227(b)(3), and invaded her
privacy under Minnesota law. When Aptive moved to compel arbitration, the district
court concluded the dispute did not belong there. We review the denial de novo.
See Indus. Wire Prods., Inc. v. Costco Wholesale Corp., 576 F.3d 516, 520 (8th Cir.
2009); see also 9 U.S.C. § 16(a)(1)(A), (B).
II.
“[A]rbitration is a matter of contract.” Zetor N. Am., Inc. v. Rozeboom, 861
F.3d 807, 810 (8th Cir. 2017) (citation omitted). Rather than just interpreting the
text, however, we have added a special framework for arbitration provisions. Under
it, “broad” ones are read inclusively: even collateral matters are arbitrable “as long
as the underlying factual allegations . . . touch matters covered by” the language.
Parm v. Bluestem Brands, Inc., 898 F.3d 869, 874 (8th Cir. 2018) (citation omitted).
“[N]arrow” clauses are not. United Steelworkers v. Duluth Clinic, Ltd., 413 F.3d
786, 789–90 (8th Cir. 2005). Although there is reason to believe, as VonDeylen
argues, that a recent Supreme Court decision requires us to reexamine this line of
precedent, see Morgan v. Sundance, Inc., 596 U.S. 411, 418 (2022) (directing us to
treat arbitration agreements like “any other kind” of contract), we can decide this
case without doing so. Here, with or without the extra step, the outcome is the same:
VonDeylen’s claims are subject to arbitration.

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The service agreement sends “any controversy, dispute[,] or claim . . . arising
out of or relating to this Agreement, or the services performed by Aptive under this
Agreement or any other agreement, or the relationship between [VonDeylen] and
Aptive resulting from any of the foregoing” to arbitration. (Emphasis added). As
we have recognized, the phrase “arising out of or relating to” is “the broadest
language the parties could [have] reasonably use[d].” Parm, 898 F.3d at 874
(citation omitted). It means that VonDeylen’s claims must head to arbitration if they
“pertain” or have some logical “connection,” Morales v. Trans World Airlines, Inc.,
504 U.S. 374, 383 (1992), to the parties’ contractual “relationship.” See id. (defining
“relating to” as “to stand in some relation; to have bearing or concern; to pertain;
refer; to bring into association with or connection with” (quoting Black’s Law
Dictionary 1158 (5th ed. 1979))).
Here, they do. The unwanted texts have a “connection,” id., to the
“relationship between [VonDeylen] and Aptive resulting from” the “Agreement”
and “services performed by Aptive under [it].” For the texts about setting up autopay
and closing her account, the link comes from a provision contemplating
“communicat[ions] . . . regarding [her] account.” Even the ones apparently sent in
error, which let her know about an upcoming appointment and a technician visit,
were arguably for the purpose of “schedul[ing] and/or confirm[ing] service times.”
In short, each dispute centers around what the service agreement allowed Aptive to
do.
It makes no difference that Aptive sent them approximately two years after its
last service call. VonDeylen argues that the texts could not “relat[e] to” a
“relationship” or “agreement” that had already ended. But the arbitration provision
does not have a sunset clause. See Lawn Managers, Inc. v. Progressive Lawn
Managers, Inc., 959 F.3d 903, 913 (8th Cir. 2020) (“[A] court may not read into a
contract words which the contract does not contain.” (citation omitted)). To the
contrary, it says that the parties’ obligation to go to arbitration “survive[s] the
termination of this Agreement,” suggesting they expected some arbitrable disputes
to arise after it expired.

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This interpretation is all the more reasonable given that the arbitration
provision covers “dispute[s] . . . relating to . . . the [parties’] relationship.”1 To have
any meaning at all, the “relationship” must contemplate something beyond “th[e]
Agreement” and the “services performed by Aptive”—the other two categories of
arbitrable disputes. See Am. Italian Pasta Co. v. Austin Co., 914 F.2d 1103, 1104
(8th Cir. 1990) (“We construe a contract to give effect to all of its provisions and to
avoid rendering any provisions meaningless.”).
For VonDeylen, its purpose is to sweep in events during the service period
that require continuing contact afterward, like a message about an unpaid bill. The
only problem is that a billing dispute like that one would “aris[e] out of or relat[e] to
th[e] Agreement” and “services performed . . . under [it],” without ever getting to
the parties’ “relationship.” See D & S Consulting, Inc. v. Kingdom of Saudi Arabia,
961 F.3d 1209, 1213 (D.C. Cir. 2020) (concluding that a forum-selection clause
covering “disputes . . . related to this contract” included claims “concerning unpaid
invoices for work performed under the contract” (emphasis added) (citation
omitted)). The better reading, in other words, is that, to the extent this dispute is not
one relating to the agreement or the services performed by Aptive, it “relat[es] to . . .
the relationship” between the parties.
III.
We accordingly reverse and remand with instructions to grant the motion to
compel arbitration and stay the proceedings.
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1 It is telling that the cases relied upon by VonDeylen lack comparable
contractual language. See Anderson v. Hansen, 47 F.4th 711, 713–14 (8th Cir. 2022)
(addressing an arbitration provision that covered only “dispute[s] arising under or
related in any way to this Agreement”); Zetor, 861 F.3d at 809 (considering one
reaching “controvers[ies] arising out of or relating to this Agreement”).

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