Document ID: s3://data.kl3m.ai/documents/govinfo/USCOURTS/USCOURTS-ca1-16-01901/USCOURTS-ca1-16-01901-0/pdf.json

Parties Involved:
James Adam Cox
Appellant
Dairy Farmers of America, Inc.
Appellee
Michael Fraser
Appellant
Robert McNally
Appellant
Christopher O'Connor
Appellant
Kevin O'Connor
Appellant
Oakhurst Dairy
Appellee

Document Text:

United States Court of Appeals 

For the First Circuit 

No. 16-1901 

KEVIN O'CONNOR; CHRISTOPHER O'CONNOR; JAMES ADAM COX; MICHAEL 

FRASER; ROBERT MCNALLY, 

Plaintiffs, Appellants, 

v. 

OAKHURST DAIRY; DAIRY FARMERS OF AMERICA, INC., 

Defendants, Appellees. 

APPEAL FROM THE UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT 

FOR THE DISTRICT OF MAINE 

[Hon. Nancy Torresen, Chief U.S. District Judge] 

Before 

Lynch, Lipez, and Barron, 

Circuit Judges. 

David G. Webbert, with whom Jeffrey Neil Young, Carol J. 

Garvan, and Johnson, Webbert, and Young, LLP were on brief, for 

appellants. 

David L. Schenberg, with whom Patrick F. Hulla and 

Ogletree, Deakins, Nash, Smoak and Stewart, P.C. were on brief, 

for appellees. 

March 13, 2017 

 

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BARRON, Circuit Judge. For want of a comma, we have 

this case. It arises from a dispute between a Maine dairy 

company and its delivery drivers, and it concerns the scope of 

an exemption from Maine's overtime law. 26 M.R.S.A. § 664(3). 

Specifically, if that exemption used a serial comma to mark off 

the last of the activities that it lists, then the exemption 

would clearly encompass an activity that the drivers perform. 

And, in that event, the drivers would plainly fall within the 

exemption and thus outside the overtime law's protection. But, 

as it happens, there is no serial comma to be found in the 

exemption's list of activities, thus leading to this dispute 

over whether the drivers fall within the exemption from the 

overtime law or not. 

The District Court concluded that, despite the absent 

comma, the Maine legislature unambiguously intended for the last 

term in the exemption's list of activities to identify an exempt 

activity in its own right. The District Court thus granted 

summary judgment to the dairy company, as there is no dispute 

that the drivers do perform that activity. But, we conclude 

that the exemption's scope is actually not so clear in this 

regard. And because, under Maine law, ambiguities in the 

state's wage and hour laws must be construed liberally in order 

to accomplish their remedial purpose, we adopt the drivers' 

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narrower reading of the exemption. We therefore reverse the 

grant of summary judgment and remand for further proceedings. 

I. 

Maine's wage and hour law is set forth in Chapter 7 of 

Title 26 of the Maine Revised Statutes. The Maine overtime law 

is part of the state's wage and hour law. 

The overtime law provides that "[a]n employer may not 

require an employee to work more than 40 hours in any one week 

unless 1 1/2 times the regular hourly rate is paid for all hours 

actually worked in excess of 40 hours in that week." 26 

M.R.S.A. § 664(3). The overtime law does not separately define 

the term, "employee." Instead, it relies on the definition of 

"employee" that the Chapter elsewhere sets forth. 

That definition, which applies to the Chapter as a 

whole, provides that an "employee" is "any individual employed 

or permitted to work by an employer," id. at § 663(3). However, 

the definition expressly excludes a few categories of workers 

who are specifically defined not to be "employee[s]," id. at § 

663(3)(A)-(L). 

The delivery drivers do not fall within the categories 

of workers excluded from the definition. They thus are plainly 

"employees." But some workers who fall within the statutory 

definition of "employee" nonetheless fall outside the protection 

of the overtime law due to a series of express exemptions from 

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that law. The exemption to the overtime law that is in dispute 

here is Exemption F. 

Exemption F covers employees whose work involves the 

handling -- in one way or another -- of certain, expressly 

enumerated food products. Specifically, Exemption F states that 

the protection of the overtime law does not apply to: 

The canning, processing, preserving, 

freezing, drying, marketing, storing, 

packing for shipment or distribution of: 

 (1) Agricultural produce; 

 (2) Meat and fish products; and 

 (3) Perishable foods. 

26 M.R.S.A. § 664(3)(F). The parties' dispute concerns the 

meaning of the words "packing for shipment or distribution." 

The delivery drivers contend that, in combination, 

these words refer to the single activity of "packing," whether 

the "packing" is for "shipment" or for "distribution." The 

drivers further contend that, although they do handle perishable 

foods, they do not engage in "packing" them. As a result, the 

drivers argue that, as employees who fall outside Exemption F, 

the Maine overtime law protects them. 

Oakhurst responds that the disputed words actually 

refer to two distinct exempt activities, with the first being 

"packing for shipment" and the second being "distribution." And 

because the delivery drivers do -- quite obviously -- engage in 

the "distribution" of dairy products, which are "perishable 

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foods," Oakhurst contends that the drivers fall within Exemption 

F and thus outside the overtime law's protection. 

The delivery drivers lost this interpretive dispute 

below. They had filed suit against Oakhurst on May 5, 2014 in 

the United States District Court for the District of Maine. The 

suit sought unpaid overtime wages under the federal Fair Labor 

Standards Act, 29 U.S.C. §§ 201 et seq., and the Maine overtime 

law, 26 M.R.S.A. § 664(3).1 The case was referred to a 

Magistrate Judge, and the parties filed cross-motions for 

partial summary judgment to resolve their dispute over the scope 

of Exemption F. After hearings on those motions, the Magistrate 

Judge ruled that Oakhurst's reading of Exemption F was the 

better one and recommended granting Oakhurst's motion. The 

District Court agreed with the Magistrate Judge's recommendation 

and granted summary judgment for Oakhurst on the ground that 

"distribution" was a stand-alone exempt activity.2 

 1 The delivery drivers also made claims based on other 

provisions of Maine wage and hour law. 26 M.R.S.A. § 621-A 

(timely and full payment of wages); id. § 626 (payment of wages 

after cessation of employment); id. § 626-A (penalties 

provisions). These claims appear to rise or fall based on the 

success of the overtime claim, so we do not consider them 

separately. 

2 After granting Oakhurst's motion for partial summary 

judgment on the meaning of Exemption F, the District Court 

dismissed all of plaintiffs' state law claims. At the same 

time, the federal claims were all dismissed without prejudice. 

As a result, we have appellate jurisdiction over the District 

Court's order under 28 U.S.C. § 1291. 

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The delivery drivers now appeal that ruling. They 

raise a single legal question: what does the contested phrase in 

Exemption F mean? Our review on this question of state law 

interpretation is de novo. See Manchester Sch. Dist. v. 

Crisman, 306 F.3d 1, 9 (1st Cir. 2002). 

II. 

The issue before us turns wholly on the meaning of a 

provision in a Maine statute. We thus first consider whether 

there are any Maine precedents that construe that provision. 

Oakhurst identifies one: the Maine Superior Court's 

unpublished opinion in Thompson v. Shaw's Supermarkets, Inc., 

No. Civ. A. CV-02-036, 2002 WL 31045303 (Me. Sup. Ct. Sept. 5, 

2002). In that case, the Superior Court ruled that Exemption F 

"is clear that an exemption exists for the distribution of the 

three categories of foods," id. at *3, as a matter of both text 

and purpose, id. at *2. 

But, a Superior Court decision construing Maine law 

would not bind the Maine Law Court, and thus does not bind us. 

See generally King v. Order of United Commercial Travelers of 

Am., 333 U.S. 153, 159–62 (1948) (rejecting an unreported state 

trial court decision as binding on federal courts); Keeley v. 

Loomis Fargo & Co., 183 F.3d 257, 269 n.9 (3d Cir. 1999) 

(finding a state trial court decision to be "at most persuasive 

but nonbinding authority," with the federal court instead 

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"look[ing] to the plain language of the statute and our own 

interpretation . . . in predicting how the state supreme court" 

would rule). Moreover, the Superior Court's decision in 

Thompson was appealed to the Maine Law Court, which declined to 

follow the Superior Court's approach and instead decided the 

case on different grounds altogether. See Thompson v. Shaw's 

Supermarkets, Inc., 847 A.2d 406, 409 (Me. 2004).

Nevertheless, the reasons that the Superior Court 

decision in Thompson gave -- even if not adopted by the Maine 

Law Court -- figure prominently in the arguments that Oakhurst 

now presents to us on appeal. We thus consider those reasons in 

the course of our analysis, to which we now turn. 

III. 

Each party recognizes that, by its bare terms, 

Exemption F raises questions as to its scope, largely due to the 

fact that no comma precedes the words "or distribution." But 

each side also contends that the exemption's text has a latent 

clarity, at least after one applies various interpretive aids. 

Each side then goes on to argue that the overtime law's evident 

purpose and legislative history confirms its preferred reading. 

We conclude, however, that Exemption F is ambiguous, 

even after we take account of the relevant interpretive 

aids and the law's purpose and legislative history. For that 

reason, we conclude that, under Maine law, we must construe the 

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exemption in the narrow manner that the drivers favor, as doing 

so furthers the overtime law's remedial purposes. See Dir. of 

Bureau of Labor Standards v. Cormier, 527 A.2d 1297 (Me. 1987). 

Before explaining our reasons for reaching this conclusion, 

though, we first need to work our way through the parties' 

arguments as to why, despite the absent comma, Exemption F is 

clearer than it looks. 

A. 

First, the text. See Harrington v. State, 96 A.3d 

696, 697–98 (Me. 2014) ("Only if the statute is reasonably 

susceptible to different interpretations will we look beyond the 

statutory language . . . ."). In considering it, we do not 

simply look at the particular word "distribution" in isolation 

from the exemption as a whole. We instead must take account of 

certain linguistic conventions -- canons, as they are often 

called -- that can help us make sense of a word in the context 

in which it appears. Oakhurst argues that, when we account for 

these canons here, it is clear that the exemption identifies 

"distribution" as a stand-alone, exempt activity rather than as 

an activity that merely modifies the stand-alone, exempt 

activity of "packing." 

Oakhurst relies for its reading in significant part on 

the rule against surplusage, which instructs that we must give 

independent meaning to each word in a statute and treat none as 

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unnecessary. See Stromberg-Carlson Corp. v. State Tax Assessor, 

765 A.2d 566, 569 (Me. 2001) ("When construing the language of a 

statute . . . [w]ords must be given meaning and not treated as 

meaningless and superfluous."). To make this case, Oakhurst 

explains that "shipment" and "distribution" are synonyms. For 

that reason, Oakhurst contends, "distribution" cannot describe a 

type of "packing," as the word "distribution" would then 

redundantly perform the role that "shipment" -- as its synonym -

- already performs, which is to describe the type of "packing" 

that is exempt. See Thompson, 2002 WL 31045303 at *2 ("[I]t is 

not at all clear how packing for shipment would be different 

from packing for distribution."). By contrast, Oakhurst 

explains, under its reading, the words "shipment" and 

"distribution" are not redundant. The first word, "shipment," 

describes the exempt activity of "packing," while the second, 

"distribution," describes an exempt activity in its own right. 

Oakhurst also relies on another established linguistic 

convention in pressing its case -- the convention of using a 

conjunction to mark off the last item on a list. See The 

Chicago Manual of Style § 6.123 (16th ed. 2010) (providing 

examples of lists with such conjunctions). Oakhurst notes, 

rightly, that there is no conjunction before "packing," but that 

there is one after "shipment" and thus before "distribution." 

Oakhurst also observes that Maine overtime law contains two 

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other lists in addition to the one at issue here and that each 

places a conjunction before the last item. See 26 M.R.S.A. § 

664(3) ("The regular hourly rate includes all earnings, bonuses, 

commissions and other compensation . . ." (emphasis added)); id. 

at § 664(3)(A) (exempting from overtime law "automobile 

mechanics, automobile parts clerks, automobile service writers 

and automobile salespersons as defined in section 663" (emphasis 

added)). 

Oakhurst acknowledges that its reading would be beyond 

dispute if a comma preceded the word "distribution" and that no 

comma is there. But, Oakhurst contends, that comma is missing 

for good reason. Oakhurst points out that the Maine Legislative 

Drafting Manual expressly instructs that: "when drafting Maine 

law or rules, don't use a comma between the penultimate and the 

last item of a series." Maine Legislative Drafting Manual 113 

(Legislative Council, Maine State Legislature 2009), 

http://maine.gov/legis/ros/manual/Draftman2009.pdf ("Drafting 

Manual"); see also Jacob v. Kippax, 10 A.3d 1159, 1166 (Me. 

2011) (invoking the Drafting Manual to help resolve a statutory 

ambiguity). In fact, Oakhurst notes, Maine statutes invariably 

omit the serial comma from lists. And this practice reflects a 

drafting convention that is at least as old as the Maine wage 

and hour law, even if the drafting manual itself is of more 

recent vintage. See, e.g., Me. Stat. tit. 26, § 663(3)(G) 

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(1965) ("processing, canning or packing"); Me. Stat. tit. 26, § 

665(1) (1965) ("hours, total earnings and itemized deductions"). 

B. 

If no more could be gleaned from the text, we might be 

inclined to read Exemption F as Oakhurst does. But, the 

delivery drivers point out, there is more to consider. And 

while these other features of the text do not compel the 

drivers' reading, they do make the exemption's scope unclear, at 

least as a matter of text alone. 

The drivers contend, first, that the inclusion of both 

"shipment" and "distribution" to describe "packing" results in 

no redundancy. Those activities, the drivers argue, are each 

distinct. They contend that "shipment" refers to the 

outsourcing of the delivery of goods to a third-party carrier 

for transportation, while "distribution" refers to a seller's 

in-house transportation of products directly to recipients. And 

the drivers note that this distinction is, in one form or 

another, adhered to in dictionary definitions. See New Oxford 

English American Dictionary 497, 1573-74 (2001); Webster's Third 

New International Dictionary 666, 2096 (2002). 

Consistent with the drivers' contention, Exemption F 

does use two different words ("shipment" and "distribution") 

when it is hard to see why, on Oakhurst's reading, the 

legislature did not simply use just one of them twice. After 

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all, if "distribution" and "shipment" really do mean the same 

thing, as Oakhurst contends, then it is odd that the legislature 

chose to use one of them ("shipment") to describe the activity 

for which "packing" is done but the other ("distribution") to 

describe the activity itself. 

The drivers' argument that the legislature did not 

view the words to be interchangeable draws additional support 

from another Maine statute. That statute clearly lists both 

"distribution" and "shipment" as if each represents a separate 

activity in its own right. See 10 M.R.S.A. § 1476 (referring to 

"manufacture, distribution or shipment"). And because Maine law 

elsewhere treats "shipment" and "distribution" as if they are 

separate activities in a list, we do not see why we must assume 

that the Maine legislature did not treat them that way here as 

well. After all, the use of these two words to describe 

"packing" need not be understood to be wasteful. Such usage 

could simply reflect the legislature's intention to make clear 

that "packing" is exempt whether done for "shipment" or for 

"distribution" and not simply when done for just one of those 

activities.3

 3 We also note that there is some reason to think that the 

distinction between "shipment" and "distribution" is not merely 

one that only a lawyer could love. Oakhurst's own internal 

organization chart seems to treat the two as if they are 

separate activities. 

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Next, the drivers point to the exemption's grammar. 

The drivers note that each of the terms in Exemption F that 

indisputably names an exempt activity -- "canning, processing, 

preserving," and so forth on through "packing" -- is a gerund. 

By, contrast, "distribution" is not. And neither is "shipment." 

In fact, those are the only non-gerund nouns in the exemption, 

other than the ones that name various foods. 

Thus, the drivers argue, in accord with what is known 

as the parallel usage convention, that "distribution" and 

"shipment" must be playing the same grammatical role -- and one 

distinct from the role that the gerunds play. See The Chicago 

Manual of Style § 5.212 (16th ed. 2010) ("Every element of a 

parallel series must be a functional match of the others (word, 

phrase, clause, sentence) and serve the same grammatical 

function in the sentence (e.g., noun, verb, adjective, 

adverb)."). In accord with that convention, the drivers read 

"shipment" and "distribution" each to be objects of the 

preposition "for" that describes the exempt activity of 

"packing." And the drivers read the gerunds each to be 

referring to stand-alone, exempt activities -- "canning, 

preserving . . . ." 

By contrast, in violation of the convention, 

Oakhurst's reading treats one of the two non-gerunds 

("distribution") as if it is performing a distinct grammatical 

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function from the other ("shipment"), as the latter functions as 

an object of a preposition while the former does not. And 

Oakhurst's reading also contravenes the parallel usage 

convention in another way: it treats a non-gerund (again, 

"distribution") as if it is performing a role in the list -- 

naming an exempt activity in its own right -- that gerunds 

otherwise exclusively perform.4 

 4 We note that the other Maine statutory list that uses 

these same two words -- "distribution" and "shipment" -- does 

assign each of them the same grammatical function. See 10 

M.R.S.A. § 1476(2)(A)(3) (referring to "manufacture, 

distribution or shipment"). And when the Maine legislature has 

elsewhere listed the activity of "distribution" alongside other 

activities that appear in the gerund form, it has used the 

gerund "distributing." See, e.g., 9 M.R.S.A. § 5003(5) ("for 

purposes of raising and distributing money"); 10 M.R.S.A. § 

9021(1) ("business of manufacturing, brokering, distributing, 

selling, installing or servicing manufactured housing"); 32 

M.R.S.A. § 13702-A(24) ("dispensing, delivering or distributing 

prescription drugs"). 

Oakhurst did point out at oral argument that there are 

provisions of Maine labor law in which a single noun is included 

at the end of a list predominately comprised of gerunds. But 

none of the provisions that Oakhurst points to have the unique 

structure that Exemption F would have under Oakhurst's reading, 

in which a contested term is grammatically parallel with some 

list items but not others, and yet is used, as Oakhurst 

contends, to serve a different grammatical function than the 

term to which it is parallel. Instead, Oakhurst's examples are 

of more garden-variety lists. See, e.g., 26 M.R.S.A § 

1043(1)(A)(1) (referencing "the raising, shearing, feeding, 

caring for, training and management of" various animals); id. at 

§ 1043(1)(A)(4) (referencing "hatching or processing of poultry, 

transportation of poultry; grading of eggs or packing of eggs, 

transportation of eggs; the processing of any meat product or 

the transportation of any meat product"). Moreover, the 

provisions that Oakhurst cites are not ambiguous as to whether 

the non-gerund terms are in fact stand-alone list items. The 

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Finally, the delivery drivers circle back to that 

missing comma. They acknowledge that the drafting manual 

advises drafters not to use serial commas to set off the final 

item in a list -- despite the clarity that the inclusion of 

serial commas would often seem to bring. But the drivers point 

out that the drafting manual is not dogmatic on that point. The 

manual also contains a proviso -- "Be careful if an item in the 

series is modified" -- and then sets out several examples of how 

lists with modified or otherwise complex terms should be written 

to avoid the ambiguity that a missing serial comma would 

otherwise create. See Drafting Manual at 114. 

Thus, the drafting manual's seeming -- and, from a 

judge's point of view, entirely welcome -- distaste for 

ambiguous lists does suggest a reason to doubt Oakhurst's 

insistence that the missing comma casts no doubt on its 

preferred reading. For, as the drivers explain, the drafting 

manual cannot be read to instruct that the comma should have 

been omitted here if "distribution" was intended to be the last 

item in the list. In that event, the serial comma's omission 

would give rise to just the sort of ambiguity that the manual 

 

provisions Oakhurst references are unambiguous, so the principle 

of parallel construction -- an aid to resolving statutory 

ambiguities -- would never come into play with respect to those 

provisions. 

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warns drafters not to create.5

Still, the drivers' textual points do not account for 

what seems to us to be Oakhurst's strongest textual rejoinder: 

no conjunction precedes "packing." Rather, the only conjunction 

in the exemption -- "or" -- appears before "distribution." And 

so, on the drivers' reading, the list is strangely stingy when 

it comes to conjunctions, as it fails to use one to mark off the 

 5 For related reasons, the consistent omission of serial 

commas in the various other statutory lists that Oakhurst points 

to is not all that probative. None of Oakhurst's examples are 

of lists in which the missing comma creates an ambiguity as to 

what the final list item is. Thus, the omission of the serial 

comma in those lists does not show the legislature would have 

omitted the comma in this list, as the omission of the comma 

from this list does create an ambiguity. 

Before leaving our discussion of serial commas, we would be 

remiss not to note the clarifying virtues of serial commas that 

other jurisdictions recognize. In fact, guidance on legislative 

drafting in most other states and in the Congress appears to 

differ from Maine's when it comes to serial commas. Some state 

legislative drafting manuals expressly warn that the absence of 

serial commas can create ambiguity concerning the last item in a 

list. One analysis notes that only seven states -- including 

Maine -- either do not require or expressly prohibit the use of 

the serial comma. See Amy Langenfeld, Capitol Drafting: 

Legislative Drafting Manuals in the Law School Classroom, 22 

Perspectives: Teaching Legal Res. & Writing 141, 143-144 (2014); 

see also Grace E. Hart, Note, State Legislative Drafting Manuals 

and Statutory Interpretation, 126 Yale L.J. 438 (2016). Also, 

drafting conventions of both chambers of the federal Congress 

warn against omitting the serial comma for the same reason. See 

U.S. House of Representatives Office of the Legislative Counsel, 

House Legislative Counsel's Manual on Drafting Style, No. HLC 

104-1, § 351 at 58 (1995) (requiring a serial comma to 

"prevent[] any misreading that the last item is part of the 

preceding one"); U.S. Senate Office of the Legislative Counsel, 

Legislative Drafting Manual § 321(c) at 79 (1997) (same language 

as House Manual). 

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last listed activity. 

To address this anomaly, the drivers cite to Antonin 

Scalia & Bryan Garner, Reading Law: The Interpretation of Legal 

Texts (2012), in which the authors observe that "[s]ometimes 

drafters will omit conjunctions altogether between the 

enumerated items [in a list]," in a technique called 

"asyndeton," id. at 119. But those same authors point out that 

most legislative drafters avoid asyndeton. Id. And, the 

delivery drivers do not provide any examples of Maine statutes 

that use this unusual grammatical device. Thus, the drivers' 

reading of the text is hardly fully satisfying.6

IV. 

The text has, to be candid, not gotten us very far. 

 6 The drivers do also contend that their reading draws 

support from the noscitur a sociis canon, which "dictates that 

words grouped in a list should be given related meaning." Dole 

v. United Steelworkers of Am., 494 U.S. 26, 36 (1990) (citation 

omitted). In particular, the drivers contend that distribution 

is a different sort of activity than the others, nearly all of 

which entail transforming perishable products to less perishable 

forms -- "canning," "processing," "preserving," "freezing," 

"drying," and "storing." However, the list of activities also 

includes "marketing," which Oakhurst argues undercuts the 

drivers' noscitur a sociis argument. And even if "marketing" 

does not mean promoting goods or services, as in the case of 

advertising, and means only "to deal in a market," see Webster's 

Third New International Dictionary of the English Language 1383 

(2002); see also id. (providing additional definitions, 

including "to go to market to buy or sell" and "to expose for 

sale in a market"), it is a word that would have at least some 

potential commonalities with the disputed word, "distribution." 

For that reason, this canon adds little insight beyond that 

offered by the parallel usage convention. 

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We are reluctant to conclude from the text alone that the 

legislature clearly chose to deploy the nonstandard grammatical 

device of asyndeton. But we are also reluctant to overlook the 

seemingly anomalous violation of the parallel usage canon that 

Oakhurst's reading of the text produces. And so -- there being 

no comma in place to break the tie -- the text turns out to be 

no clearer on close inspection than it first appeared. As a 

result, we turn to the parties' arguments about the exemption's 

purpose and the legislative history. See Berube v. Rust Eng'g, 

668 A.2d 875, 877 (Me. 1995) ("Our purpose in construing a 

statute is to give effect to the legislative intent as indicated 

by the statute's plain language, and we examine other indicia of 

legislative intent, such as its legislative history, only when 

the plain language is ambiguous."). 

A. 

Oakhurst contends that the evident purpose of the 

exemption strongly favors its reading. The whole point of the 

exemption, Oakhurst asserts (albeit without reference to any 

directly supportive text or legislative history), is to protect 

against the distorting effects that the overtime law otherwise 

might have on employer decisions about how best to ensure 

perishable foods will not spoil. See O'Connor v. Oakhurst 

Dairy, No. 2:14-CV-192-NT, 2016 WL 1179252, at *5 (D. Me. Jan. 

26, 2016) (Magistrate Judge's conclusion that "the purpose of 

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the exemption for employees engaged in the production and 

distribution of perishable foods can only be to achieve the most 

efficient possible production and delivery given the nature of 

the product"). And, Oakhurst argues, the risk of spoilage posed 

by the distribution of perishable food is no less serious than 

is the risk of spoilage posed by the other activities regarding 

the handling of such foods to which the exemption clearly does 

apply. 

Oakhurst then goes on to argue that legislative 

history supports this supposition about what the legislature 

must have intended in crafting the exemption. Oakhurst points 

out that the overtime law, which was enacted in 1965, piggybacks 

on the definition of "employee" set forth in the wage and hour 

law, which had been enacted four years earlier. Oakhurst then 

notes that this pre-existing definition of "employee" contained 

a carve-out that excluded workers involved in the handling of 

"aquatic forms of animal and vegetable life" but that in all 

other respects looks a lot like what became Exemption F. In 

particular, that carve-out applied to workers "employ[ed] in 

loading, unloading or packing . . . for shipment or in 

propagating, processing (other than canning), marketing, 

freezing, curing, storing or distributing" various "aquatic 

forms of animal and vegetable life." P.L. 1961, ch. 277, § 

3(F).

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Oakhurst thus argues that Exemption F clearly was 

intended to expand upon the existing carve-out by adding 

activities (such as "canning") and goods (namely, meats, 

vegetables, and "perishable foods" more generally). And, for 

that reason, Oakhurst contends that it makes no sense to read 

Exemption F, as the delivers drivers do, to have deleted an 

activity -- "distributing" -- that the carve-out had included. 

B. 

We are not so sure. Any analysis of Exemption F that 

depends upon an assertion about its clear purpose is necessarily 

somewhat speculative. Nothing in the overtime law's text or 

legislative history purports to define a clear purpose for the 

exemption. 

Moreover, even if we were to share in Oakhurst's 

speculation that the legislature included the exemption solely 

to protect against the possible spoilage of perishable foods 

rather than for some distinct reason related, perhaps, to the 

particular dynamics of certain labor markets, we still could not 

say that it would be arbitrary for the legislature to exempt 

"packing" but not "distributing" perishable goods. The reason 

to include "packing" in the exemption is easy enough to conjure. 

If perishable goods are not packed in a timely fashion, it 

stands to reason that they may well spoil. Thus, one can 

imagine the reason to ensure that the overtime law creates no 

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incentives for employers to delay the packing of such goods. 

The same logic, however, does not so easily apply to explain the 

need to exempt the activity of distributing those same goods. 

Drivers delivering perishable food must often inevitably spend 

long periods of time on the road to get the goods to their 

destination. It is thus not at all clear that a legal 

requirement for employers to pay overtime would affect whether 

drivers would get the goods to their destination before they 

spoiled. No matter what delivery drivers are paid for the 

journey, the trip cannot be made to be shorter than it is. 

Of course, this speculation about the effect that a 

legal requirement to pay overtime may or may not have on 

increasing the risk of food spoilage is just that. But such 

speculation does make us cautious about relying on what is only 

a presumed legislative purpose to generate a firm conclusion 

about what the legislature must have intended in drafting the 

exemption. 

Moreover, insofar as the legislative history does shed 

light on that purpose, it hardly supports Oakhurst's account in 

any clear way. Significantly, Exemption F does not simply copy 

the language from the carve-out in the 1961 definition of 

"employee" that bears on whether "distribution" is an exempt 

activity. Instead, the legislature made some seemingly 

significant changes to the language of that carve-out -- changes 

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that Oakhurst overlooks. 

The relevant language in the 1961 definition of 

"employee" reads: "employment in the . . . packing of such 

products for shipment" and "in . . . distributing" the products. 

By using two prepositions, "for" and "in," the text of that 

carve-out clearly separated the activities of packing products 

for shipment and of distributing those products, with the 

consequence that each activity was plainly excluded from the 

definition of "employee." Exemption F, however, deletes the 

second preposition, "in," and thereby strips the new language of 

the clarity of the old with respect to whether the activity of 

"distribution" is a stand-alone exempt activity or not. And 

Exemption F also changes the word "distributing" to the word 

"distribution," and thereby makes the activity of "distribution" 

parallel in usage to "shipment," which, of course, modifies the 

exempt activity of packing and does not name an exempt activity 

on its own. 

If Oakhurst's understanding of the legislative history 

were right, then there would have been no reason for the 

legislature to have made these revisions. After all, these 

revisions change the old language in ways that only serve to sow 

doubt as to whether the activity of "distributing" that plainly 

had been excluded from the definition of "employee" was intended 

to name a standalone, exempt activity in Exemption F. 

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Moreover, the legislature actually revised the 1961 

definition of "employee" just months after enacting the overtime 

law and thus Exemption F. And the legislature made that 

revision in a manner that runs contrary to Oakhurst's account. 

For while the 1961 version of the definition of "employee" 

excluded workers engaged in "packing . . . for shipment" and "in 

. . . distributing" "aquatic animal and vegetable life" 

products, see Me. Laws 1961, c. 277, § 3(F), the revised version 

removed the reference to "distributing" altogether, see Me. Laws 

1965, c. 410, § 663(3)(G). The result was thus to draw the very 

distinction between those workers who were engaged in packing 

products and those workers who were engaged in distributing them 

that Oakhurst contends we should presume the legislature could 

not possibly have intended to make in crafting Exemption F. 

Of course, Exemption F, unlike this revised version of 

the carve-out from the definition of "employee," refers not just 

to "packing," or even just to "packing for shipment." It refers 

to "packing for shipment or distribution." But if Exemption F 

is indeed modeled on the 1961 definition of "employee" -- as 

Oakhurst contends -- then we would expect Exemption F at least 

to use the gerund form of the word "distribution" in referring 

to that activity. That is the form that the legislature used in 

the exemption from the earlier definition of "employee" and that 

the legislature has used to refer to all the other exempt 

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activities in Exemption F. 

C. 

To be clear, none of this evidence is decisive either 

way. It does highlight, however, the hazards of simply assuming 

-- on the basis of no more than supposition about what would 

make sense -- that the legislature could not have intended to 

craft Exemption F as the drivers contend that the legislature 

crafted it. Thus, we do not find either the purpose or the 

legislative history fully clarifying. And so we are back to 

where we began. 

V. 

We are not, however, without a means of moving 

forward. The default rule of construction under Maine law for 

ambiguous provisions in the state's wage and hour laws is that 

they "should be liberally construed to further the beneficent 

purposes for which they are enacted." Dir. of Bureau of Labor 

Standards v. Cormier, 527 A.2d 1297, 1300 (Me. 1987). The 

opening of the subchapter of Maine law containing the overtime 

statute and exemption at issue here declares a clear legislative 

purpose: "It is the declared public policy of the State of Maine 

that workers employed in any occupation should receive wages 

sufficient to provide adequate maintenance and to protect their 

health, and to be fairly commensurate with the value of the 

services rendered." 26 M.R.S.A. § 661. Thus, in accord with 

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Cormier, we must interpret the ambiguity in Exemption F in light 

of the remedial purpose of Maine's overtime statute. And, when 

we do, the ambiguity clearly favors the drivers' narrower 

reading of the exemption. 

Oakhurst counters that this default rule of 

construction does not apply when the question concerns whether a 

wage and hour law means to create an exemption at all. Rather, 

Oakhurst argues, the rule applies only when the issue concerns 

the scope of an exemption that does exist. See, e.g., Marsuq v. 

Cadete Enters., 807 F.3d 431, 438 (1st Cir. 2015) ("The burden 

is on the employer to prove an exemption from the FLSA's 

requirements, and the remedial nature of the statute requires 

that [its] exemptions be narrowly construed against the 

employers seeking to assert them." (alteration in original) 

(citation omitted)); Connelly v. Franklin Mem. Hosp., 1993 Me. 

Super. LEXIS 243, *3 (Me. Super. Ct. Oct. 1, 1993) ("[An] 

exemption from overtime pay requirements is construed narrowly, 

with employers claiming exemption having the burden of proof 

that employees fit plainly and unmistakably within the 

exemption."). Thus, Oakhurst contends that the rule has no 

application here, as the dispute centers on whether 

"distribution" is exempted, and not what constitutes 

"distribution." 

But we see no basis for so confining the application 

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of this maxim of Maine law. Cormier did not by terms set forth 

that limit on the potential application of the rule that it 

announced. And, in fact, Cormier itself applied the maxim to 

resolve an ambiguity that did not concern the scope of an 

exemption at all. Cormier instead applied it to determine 

whether, for purposes of Maine overtime law, the word "employer" 

should be construed to treat closely related entities operating 

under common ownership as a single "employer" under 26 M.R.S.A. 

§ 664(3). 527 A.2d at 1298. 

Oakhurst also argues that this default rule of 

construction applies only when courts apply law to facts and so 

does not apply to purely legal question about whether 

"distribution" describes an exempt activity or is an exempt 

activity that is at issue here. But, in construing "employer," 

Cormier was not simply making -- as Oakhurst would have it -- a 

factual judgment as to "whether economic reality and the 

totality of the factual circumstances supports a finding that 

multiple companies could be treated as one employer." Rather, 

Cormier first resolved a purely legal dispute over the meaning 

of "employer," and it did so with reference to this rule of 

construction. 

Specifically, the defendants in that case were 

challenging a ruling that various corporate entities and 

partnership controlled by a single family -- collectively known 

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as Funtown USA -- constituted a single "employer." 527 A.2d at 

1297-99. That designation mattered because it meant that 

overtime would have to be paid to any employee who worked forty 

hours a week for Funtown USA as a whole, even if the employee 

did not work that many hours for any one of Funtown USA's 

various entities. The defendants contended "that the 'joint 

employer' concept is foreign to Maine law, and is not set forth 

or described in any state statute" and thus that "once it is 

established that the entities are legally distinct and not 

shams, the inquiry should end." 527 A.2d at 1299. 

The Superior Court in Cormier ruled, however, that the 

term "employer" in the overtime law did encompass the jointemployer concept. Id. And the Maine Law Court agreed, holding 

that the Superior Court's "balancing of the several factors that 

resulted in its ultimate conclusion was a logical, coherent and 

legally sufficient mode of analysis." Id. at 1300. And it was 

in the course of embracing that legal conclusion regarding the 

proper resolution of the ambiguous term "employer" that Cormier 

deployed the canon: "Remedial statutes should be liberally 

construed to further the beneficent purposes for which they are 

enacted." Id. 

To be sure, once Cormier answered the legal question 

about the meaning of "employer" under § 664(3), Cormier did go 

on to apply law to fact. In particular, Cormier analyzed 

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whether the particular legal entities at issue in the case were 

in fact properly characterized as constituting a "joint 

employer" given their ties to one another. Id. at 1301–02. But 

there is no indication that, in concluding that the various 

entities that comprised "Funtown USA" were in fact a joint 

employer, id. at 1297-98, Cormier held that that the rule of 

liberal construction may be deployed only to resolve questions 

pertaining to the application of law to fact. 

Because Cormier does not state the rule of liberal 

construction as if it is one that may be used to resolve only 

some ambiguities in Maine's wage and hour laws, and because 

Cormier itself applies the rule to resolve a purely legal 

question, we see no basis for concluding that we are free to 

ignore this rule of construction in resolving the ambiguity that 

we confront. Thus, notwithstanding the opacity of the text and 

legislative history, we do not believe certification of a 

question regarding the proper resolution of the ambiguity in 

Exemption F would be the appropriate course. See Maurice v. 

State Farm Mut. Auto. Ins. Co., 235 F.3d 7, 10 (1st Cir. 2000) 

("Our practice . . . has been to refrain from certification of 

state-law issues when we can discern without difficulty the 

course that the state's highest court likely would follow."). 

Rather, in accord with Cormier, we adopt the delivery drivers' 

reading of the ambiguous phrase in Exemption F, as that reading 

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furthers the broad remedial purpose of the overtime law, which 

is to provide overtime pay protection to employees. 

Given that the delivery drivers contend that they 

engage in neither packing for shipment nor packing for 

distribution, the District Court erred in granting Oakhurst 

summary judgment as to the meaning of Exemption F. If the 

drivers engage only in distribution and not in any of the standalone activities that Exemption F covers -- a contention about 

which the Magistrate Judge recognized possible ambiguity -- the 

drivers fall outside of Exemption F's scope and thus within the 

protection of the Maine overtime law. 

VI. 

Accordingly, the District Court’s grant of partial 

summary judgment to Oakhurst is reversed. 

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