Source: https://supreme.justia.com/cases/federal/us/322/607/
Timestamp: 2019-04-19 18:19:39+00:00

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Justia › US Law › US Case Law › US Supreme Court › Volume 322 › Addison v. Holly Hill Fruit Products, Inc.
1. Section 13(a)(10) of the Fair Labor Standards Act exempts from the minimum wage and overtime requirements of the Act persons employed, "within the area of production (as defined by the Administrator)" in canning agricultural commodities for market. The Administrator's definition of "area of production" brought within the exemption employees of canneries which obtained "all" of their farm products from within ten miles and had not more than seven employees.
(1) Judicial construction of "all" in the Administrator's definition as meaning "substantially all" was not permissible. P. 322 U. S. 610.
(2) The Administrator's discrimination between canneries having seven or less employees and those having more was unauthorized, and invalid. Pp. 322 U. S. 611, 322 U. S. 618.
Administrator's discrimination based on number of employees was invalid and that the cannery in question was exempt under the remainder of the Administrator's definition, the cause on review here is remanded to the District Court with directions to retain jurisdiction until the Administrator, by making with reasonable promptness a valid definition, acts within the authority granted him by Congress. P. 322 U. S. 619.
Certiorari, 320 U.S. 725, to review the reversal of a judgment for the complainants in a suit to recover minimum wages, overtime compensation, and liquidated damages under the Fair Labor Standards Act.
by holding that a portion of the definition of "area of production" made by the Administrator of the Wage and Hour Division was invalid, and that the remaining portion afforded exemption. 136 F.2d 323. We brought the case here, 320 U.S. 725, to settle a much litigated question of importance in the administration of the Fair Labor Standards Act.
Holly Hill, a citrus fruit cannery employing some two hundred workers, is located in Davenport, Florida, a town with a population of about 650 people. During the two seasons in controversy -- November 14, 1938, to May 26, 1939, and November 16, 1939 to March 30, 1940 -- the Administrator promulgated three regulations based on the scope he gave to his authority under § 13(a)(10) to define "area of production." The validity of aspects of these regulations is the crucial issue.
"if the agricultural or horticultural commodities are obtained by the establishment where he is employed from farms in the immediate locality and the number of employees in such establishment does not exceed seven."
"in an establishment which is located in the open country or in a rural community and which obtains all of its products from farms in its immediate locality."
"'open country' or 'rural community' shall not include any city or town of 2,500 or greater population according to the 15th United States Census, 1930, and 'immediate locality' shall not include any distance of more than ten miles."
fruits and vegetables, was in substance incorporated into the regulations effective June 17, 1939, but, in addition, it was provided that an individual might also be within the "area of production"
"if he performs those [canning] operations on materials all of which come from farms in the general vicinity of the establishment where he is employed and the number of employees engaged in those operations in that establishment does not exceed seven."
29 Code Fed.Reg. (Supp. 1939) § 536.2(a)(d), p. 2240.
Before coming to the main question -- that of the validity of adding a limitation on the allowable number of employees in one canning establishment within the exempted geographic bounds -- we shall dispose of the applicability of the Administrator's other exempting definitions to Holly Hill's employees.
satisfy this condition of the administrator's definitions. There can be no doubt that this conclusion is justified by a literal reading of the regulations, and the court below, in holding that the Administrator's requirement that all the goods come from within ten miles must be construed to mean "substantially all," entered the Administrator's domain. What was said in another connection is relevant here.
"Looked at by itself, without regard to the necessity behind, it the line or point seems arbitrary. It might as well, or nearly as well, be a little more to one side or the other. But when it is seen that a line or point there must be, and that there is no mathematical or logical way of fixing it precisely, the decision of the [Administrator] must be accepted unless we can say that it is very wide of any reasonable mark."
We come, then, to the validity of the October 20, 1938, regulation and that of the alternative in the June 17, 1939, regulation which provide in substance that an individual is employed within the "area of production" if an establishment obtains the commodities from the "immediate locality" (1938) or all the materials come from the "general vicinity" (1939), and, in addition, the number of employees in the establishment "does not exceed seven." In short, when Congress exempted "any individual employed within the area of production (as defined by the Administrator)" (§ 13(a)(10)), did it authorize the Administrator not only to designate territorial bounds for purposes of exemption, but also to except establishments from such exemption according to the number of workers employed.
territory in relation to the complicated economic factors that operate between agricultural labor conditions and the labor market of enterprises concerned with agricultural commodities and more or less near their production. The phrase is the most apt designation of a zone within which economic influences may be deemed to operate and outside of which they lose their force. In view, however, of the variety of agricultural conditions and industries throughout the country, the bounds of these areas could not be defined by Congress itself. Neither was it deemed wise to leave such economic determination to the contingencies and inevitable diversities of litigation. And so Congress left the boundarymaking to the experienced and informed judgment of the Administrator. Thereby, Congress gave the Administrator appropriate discretion to assess all the factors relevant to the subject matter -- that is, the fixing of minimum wages and maximum hours.
In delimiting the area, the Administrator may properly weigh and synthesize all such factors. So long as he does that and no more, judgment belongs to him, and not to the courts. For Congress has cast upon him the authority and the duty to define the "area of production" of agricultural commodities with reference to which exemption in subsidiary employments may operate. But if Congress intended to allow the Administrator to discriminate between smaller and bigger establishments within the zone of agricultural production, Congress wholly failed to express its purpose. Where Congress wanted to make exemption depend on size, as it did in two or three instances not here relevant, it did so by appropriate language. [Footnote 7] Congress referred to quantity when it desired to legislate on the basis of quantity.
gave the Administrator ample power, in defining the area, to take due account of the appropriate economic factors in drawing the geographic lines. In any event, Congress did not leave it to the Administrator to decide whether, within geographic bounds defined by him, the Act further permits discrimination between establishment and establishment based upon the number of employees. The determination of the extent of authority given to a delegated agency by Congress is not left for the decision of him in whom authority is vested.
National Labor Relations Act. Congress did otherwise. It dealt with exemptions in detail and with particularity, enumerating not less than eleven exempted classes based on different industries, on different occupations within the same industry (the classification in some instances to be defined by the Administrator, in some made by Congress itself, in others subject to definition by other legislation), on size, and on areas. In short, the Administrator was not left at large. A new national policy was here formulated with exceptions, catalogued with particularity and not left within the broad dispensing power of the Administrator. Exemptions made in such detail preclude their enlargement by implication.
We should, of course, be faithful to the meaning of a statute. But, after all, Congress expresses its meaning by words. If legislative policy is couched in vague language, easily susceptible of one meaning as well as another in the common speech of men, we should not stifle a policy by a pedantic or grudging process of construction. To let general words draw nourishment from their purpose is one thing. To draw on some unexpressed spirit outside the bounds of the normal meaning of words is quite another. For we are here not dealing with the broad terms of the Constitution "as a continuing instrument of government," but with part of a legislative code "subject to continuous revision with the changing course of events." United States v. Classic, 313 U. S. 299, 313 U. S. 316.
is what has Congress commanded when it has given no clue to its intentions except familiar English words, and no hint by the draftsmen of the words that they meant to use them in any but an ordinary sense. The idea which is now sought to be read into the grant by Congress to the Administrator to define "the area of production" beyond the plain geographic implications of that phrase is not so complicated, nor is English speech so poor, that words were not easily available to express the idea, or at least to suggest it. After all, legislation, when not expressed in technical terms, is addressed to the common run of men, and is therefore to be understood according to the sense of the thing, as the ordinary man has a right to rely on ordinary words addressed to him.
The details with which the exemptions in this Act have been made preclude their enlargement by implication. While the judicial function in construing legislation is not a mechanical process from which judgment is excluded, it is nevertheless very different from the legislative function. Construction is not legislation, and must avoid "that retrospective expansion of meaning which properly deserves the stigma of judicial legislation." Kirschbaum Co. v. Walling, 316 U. S. 517, 316 U. S. 522. To blur the distinctive functions of the legislative and judicial processes is not conducive to responsible legislation.
had he known of its invalidity. It would be the sheerest guesswork to believe that elimination of an important factor in the Administrator's equation would have left his equation unaffected, even if he did not here insist upon its importance. It is not for us to write a definition. That is the Administrator's duty.
Concluding, then, that, when Congress granted exemptions for workers within the "area of production (as defined by the Administrator)," it restricted the Administrator to the drawing of geographic lines, even though he may take into account all relevant economic factors in the choice of areas open to him, the regulations which made discriminations within the area defined by applying the exemption only to plants with less than seven employees are ultra vires. But that leaves the difficult problem of the proper disposition of the case. It is our view that the case should be remanded to the district court with instructions to hold it until the Administrator, by making a valid determination of the area with all deliberate speed, acts within the authority given him by Congress.
are exempt from the operation of the Act is obviously to fly in the face of Congressional purpose. The Act exempts some, but not all, of the employees engaged in these industries, and it is not for us now to say that all are exempt. So to hold would postpone the operation of the Act in the enumerated instances for at least six years beyond the date fixed by Congress. Equally offending to the purposes of Congress, and therefore to fairness in this situation, is the suggestion that, if the exemption falls, all employees engaged in the designated industries are covered by the Act.
The accommodation that we are making assumes what we must assume -- that the Administrator will retrospectively act as conscientiously within the bounds of the power given him by Congress as he would have done initially had he limited himself to his authority. To be sure, this will be a retrospective judgment, and law should avoid retroactivity as much as possible. But other possible dispositions likewise involve retroactivity, with the added mischief of producing a result contrary to the statutory design.
". . . in construing a statute setting up an administrative agency and providing for judicial review of its action, court and agency are not to be regarded as wholly independent and unrelated instrumentalities of justice, each acting in the performance of its prescribed statutory duty without regard to the appropriate function of the other in securing the plainly indicated objects of the statute. Court and agency are the means adopted to attain the prescribed end, and, so far as their duties are defined by the words of the statute, those words should be construed so as to attain the end through coordinated action. Neither body should repeat in this day the mistake made by the courts of law when equity was struggling for recognition as an ameliorating system of justice; neither can rightly be regarded by the other as an alien intruder, to be tolerated if must be, but never to be encouraged or aided by the other in the attainment of the common aim."
307 U.S. at 307 U. S. 191.
proceeding." The petition for rehearing claimed that our decision involved retroactivity. 309 U.S. 694. So it did. But, as against retroactivity, we balanced the considerations that made retroactivity seem the lesser evil.
In short, the judicial process is not without the resources of flexibility in shaping its remedies, though courts from time to time fail to avail themselves of them. The interplay between law and equity in the evolution of more just results than the hardened common law afforded has properly been drawn upon in working out accommodating relationships between the judiciary and administrative agencies. And certainly, in specific cases, such as those already referred to and in this, it is consonant with judicial administration and fairness not to be balked by the undesirability of retroactive action any more than courts have found it difficult to sanction legislative ratification of acts originally unlawful, United States v. Heinszen & Co., 206 U. S. 370; Chuoco Tiaco v. Forbes, 228 U. S. 549; Graham and Foster v. Goodcell, 282 U. S. 409; Hirabayashi v. United States, 320 U. S. 81, 320 U. S. 91, or retroactively to give prior legislation new scope. Paramino Lumber Co. v. Marshall, 309 U. S. 370. And, in habeas corpus proceedings, even though a petitioner was unlawfully in custody, this Court has allowed continued retention of custody until a valid order could be made. Mabler v. Eby, 264 U. S. 32; Tod v. Waldman, 266 U. S. 113.
would not be telling the Administrator how to exercise his discretion, but would merely require him to exercise it. It is a remedy against inaction.
Holly Hill also contended that, if it is not entirely exempt from paying the overtime rates here awarded, it is entitled to the advantage of the partial seasonal exemptions afforded by §§ 7(b)(3) and 7(c). The district court ruled adversely to Holly Hill on these claims, but the Circuit Court of Appeals did not reach them. It will be time enough to reach them if they survive the disposition now made of this case.
Accordingly, the case is remanded to the district court to proceed in conformity with this opinion.
The fact that Davenport is within four miles of Haines City, with a population greater than 2500, led the district court to conclude that Holly Hill was not located in the "open country" or a "rural community." This appears to be a plain solecism. 29 Code Fed.Reg. (Supp. 1939) § 536.2(e), pp. 2239-40, and § 536.2(d), p. 2240.
It is conceded that a specific ruling on the population criterion is unnecessary.
Holly Hill here attacked the finding of the district court that all of the fruit did not come from within ten miles, but we see no reason to disturb it.
"SEC. 13(a) The provisions of sections 6 and 7 shall not apply with respect to (1) any employee employed in a bona fide executive, administrative, professional, or local retailing capacity, or in the capacity of outside salesman (as such terms are defined and delimited by regulations of the Administrator); or (2) any employee engaged in any retail or service establishment the greater part of whose selling or servicing is in intrastate commerce; or (3) any employee employed as a seaman; or (4) any employee of a carrier by air subject to the provisions of title II of the Railway Labor Act; or (5) any employee employed in the catching, taking, harvesting, cultivating, or farming of any kind of fish, shellfish, crustacea, sponges, seaweeds, or other aquatic forms of animal and vegetable life, including the going to and returning from work and including employment in the loading, unloading, or packing of such products for shipment or in propagating, processing, marketing, freezing, canning, curing, storing, or distributing the above products or byproducts thereof; or (6) any employee employed in agriculture; or (7) any employee to the extent that such employee is exempted by regulations or orders of the Administrator issued under section 14; or (8) any employee employed in connection with the publication of any weekly or semiweekly newspaper with a circulation of less than three thousand the major part of which circulation is within the county where printed and published; or (9) any employee of a street, suburban, or interurban electric railway, or local trolley or motor bus carrier not included in other exemptions contained in this section; or (10) to any individual employed within the area of production (as defined by the Administrator), engaged in handling, packing, storing, ginning, compressing, pasteurizing, drying, preparing in their raw or natural state, or canning of agricultural or horticultural commodities for market, or in making cheese or butter or other dairy products; or (11) any switchboard operator employed in a public telephone exchange which has less than five hundred stations."
52 Stat. 1067, as amended, 53 Stat. 1266.
"The term 'person employed in agriculture,' as used in this act, insofar as it shall refer to fresh fruits and vegetables, shall include persons employed within the area of production engaged in preparing, packing, or storing such fresh fruits or vegetables in their raw or natural state."
"individuals employed within the area of production, engaged in the handling, packing, storing, ginning, compressing, pasteurizing, drying, or canning of farm products and in making cheese and butter."
83 Cong.Rec. 7401, 7407. At the conference on the disagreeing votes of the two Houses, the "area of production" provision was given the form in which it was finally enacted, and there the parenthetical phrase "as defined by the Administrator" was inserted after "area of production." 83 Cong.Rec. 9249.
"a bona fide executive, administrative, professional, or local retailing capacity, or in the capacity of outside salesman (as such terms are defined and delimited by regulations of the Administrator)."
For this class, the Administrator is given the authority to define and delimit the "terms" used. But, in the same section, subdivision 10 grants authority to define not the term "area," but to define the "area."
See §§ 13(a)(2)(8)(11) dealing respectively with retail or service establishments, weekly or semi-weekly newspapers and public telephone exchanges.
"Speaking frankly, I think that is something that would have to be worked out. There are some packing houses in the Iowa that this amendment would apply to, perhaps, but may I say that, all over this country, it has been recognized that there should be a labor differential between the large city and the little town."
Certainly Mr. Biermann did not give the remotest intimation that "area of production" was meant to convey any idea other than that which area usually conveys.
I agree with the opinion of this court and with the opinion of the Circuit Court of Appeals that the Administrator was without power (if "area of production" is to have any sensible meaning) to exclude from the area and from the operation of the exemption workers in a processing plant clearly within the area on the ground that a certain number of employees worked in the plant. If Congress, when it said that the area of production should be defined by the Administrator, meant that that official should have a roving commission to create exemptions from the Act, the entire provision must fall as an unconstitutional attempt to delegate legislative power. We should never, however, construe an Act in a sense which would render it unconstitutional if a different and permissible construction will save it.
delimitation of the area served, Congress, by the phrase "as defined by the Administrator," meant to permit him to draw lines in delimitation of areas appropriately to correspond to the facts. I construe the word "define," in this context, to mean "ascertain the facts and announce the result of such ascertainment." The opinions of the court below elaborate this view.
I think the Administrator's order may well be allowed to stand with the illegal and unauthorized feature of it deleted. This is what the Circuit Court of Appeals decided, and I believe it was right. Other features of the order were not, and are not, attacked, and if, for the future, the Administrator desires, in other aspects, to amend his order, there is nothing to prevent. This would lead to affirmance of the judgment of the Circuit Court of Appeals, and, if I could make my vote effective to that end, I should vote for affirmance. The other members of the court, however, are for reversal, but are divided on the question whether the judgment of the District Court should be affirmed or the case held in that court pending amendment of the order by the Administrator. Entertaining the views which I do, I cannot vote to affirm the judgment of the District Court, but that will be the effect of my action if I vote simply to reverse the judgment of the Circuit Court of Appeals. While I think none of the authorities cited in the opinion of MR. JUSTICE FRANKFURTER justify the procedure there outlined, I am constrained to vote in accordance with his opinion.
District Court to be there held pending the promulgation of an amended order, or a new order, to be taken as approving in advance the views expressed as to the extent of the Administrator's discretion.
MR. JUSTICE RUTLEDGE, with whom MR. JUSTICE BLACK, and MR. JUSTICE MURPHY concur, dissenting.
In my opinion, the Administrator has defined "area of production" in a valid manner, and therefore the employee petitioners should prevail. But if, as the majority hold, his definition is not valid, then the exemption is not operative and, for that reason, the petitioners likewise should prevail. I dissent, therefore, from the Court's conclusion that the definition is void. I dissent equally from the wholly novel disposition it makes of the cause on that hypothesis in remanding it to await the Administrator's retroactive redetermination of the parties' rights.
definitions, varying in other details, framed after extensive hearings; [Footnote 2/4] and now earnestly insists it, or an equivalent limitation on size of the plant, must be included unless any definition he may make is to work havoc with some major policy of the Act, either by exempting large numbers of industrial employees [Footnote 2/5] or by creating disturbances of competitive situations, both for farmers and for canners and packers, [Footnote 2/6] which the statute expressly sought to avoid.
"handling, packing, storing, ginning, compressing, pasteurizing, drying, preparing in their raw or natural state, or canning of agricultural or horticultural commodities for market, or in making cheese or butter or other dairy products."
Section 13(a)(10). All these operations follow immediately upon harvest and removal from the field or milking. All can be done on the farm, and frequently are done there, but may be done elsewhere, often in factories. All consist in the first stages of preparation for market.
But whether the specified operations will be done on the farm, as part of the farm work or away from it, and in either small neighborhood establishments or in larger industrial plants will depend upon a variety of factors as great as that which comprehends the whole vast process of starting the nation's crops, over 300, [Footnote 2/7] on their respective marketing courses. The initial steps in marketing such widely different products as cotton and apples, tobacco and milk, potatoes and citrus fruits, legume crops, wheat, corn and other grains, on the one hand, and tomatoes, strawberries, truck garden products, etc., on the other, are within the delegation.
The mere enumeration of these instances indicates some of the variables involved. Others add to the difficulty. Highly perishable crops, as fruits and vegetables, require immediate action in these stages of handling. Cotton, grains, root crops, etc., less perishable, may wait longer on the farm, some for months, before these processes become necessary. Some crops are highly concentrated for production in a few regions, such as citrus fruits in Florida, Southern Texas, and Southern California, but are marketed on a nationwide scale. Others have regional areas of production, like cotton in the South, celery in Michigan, tobacco in the border states and a few northern regions, yet depend on the national market. Still others have regions of greater or less concentration, but are grown all over the nation, like wheat and other grains, apples, potatoes, etc.
are produced. Such a view would exempt all employees engaged in the operations specified in Section 13(a)(10).
The same objections forbid regarding the "area of production" as the region from which the particular plant purchases its raw material. The only substantial difference would be to make the Administrator's factfinding task a more impossible one. A definition would be required for every plant engaging in any of the specified operations for each of the more than 300 agricultural and horticultural commodities produced annually in the United States. Congress hardly could have intended to load upon the Administrator a task of these infinite proportions. Nor did it intend the the employer to define its own exemption, or to make that exemption automatic. Congress intended the Administrator to define the area of production. It did not at the same time intend to overwhelm him with making myriads of particular and highly variable definitions for each operating unit, or to make him merely a runner of courses and distances, whether large or small. It, rather, intended him to make practical, workable, and therefore generic and stable, definitions.
provisions of the statute or in the legislative history, unless the delegation is to fall for want of standards.
"the existence, in industries . . . of labor conditions detrimental to the maintenance of the minimum standard of living necessary for health, efficiency, and general wellbeing of workers. . . . [Footnote 2/9]"
"to correct and, as rapidly as practicable, to eliminate, the conditions above referred to in such industries without substantially curtailing employment or earning power."
policy between coverage and noncoverage. The line not only is pertinent to each of the statute's provisions, but, where the contrary is not clearly and unambiguously stated, it is controlling. There can be no assumption that Congress intended employees in one group to be transferred to or treated as being in the other where no such clear mandate can be found.
In determining what Congress intended by the delegation, it is crucial to keep in mind that, whatever decision the Administrator may make and by whatever criteria, the effect of his action must be to put some employees on one side of this line and others on the opposite side. That consequence he cannot escape. And, because he cannot avoid it, the line is pertinent and material to his choice, as it is to all others he must make in performing his duties. It is the statute's lodestar. The distinction between farming and industry is the essence of his determination. An "area of production" determined without reference to this distinction would contradict, not enforce, the statute's basic policy. And this appears not solely from the policy itself and the effects of failure to take it into account, but from a consideration of other determinations the Act confides to the Administrator and of the manner in which it requires him to make them.
work fixed by collective bargaining or by voluntary minimum wage plans. Section 8(b), (c), (d). The statute's primary design was to bring industrial workers under its protections and to eliminate as rapidly as possible the substandard conditions of such labor. But this was to be done with an eye also to two other matters: one, that, by too rapid advance, employment be not curtailed, and, two, that competitive conditions in the affected industries be not unduly disturbed or competitive advantages created. Cf. Section 2.
These purposes were inescapably pertinent to the problems of exemption arising under Section 13(a)(10). They were likewise pertinent to other exemptions, cf. Section 7(c) and compare Section 7(b), and to still other delegations the statute confided to the Administrator. That Congress did not burden the books with "an itemized catalogue" [Footnote 2/11] of standards in each instance of delegation gives no basis for believing that what permeated all else found these parts insulated. The Administrator clearly had power, and more, the duty, to take account of these factors.
small ones should be relieved from coverage. [Footnote 2/15] Senator Reynolds went further, and proposed several amendments to relieve all small plants from the Act's provisions, not merely those engaged in the limited operations specified in the bills or Section 13(a)(10). These were defeated. [Footnote 2/16] And there was vigorous demand, from the sponsor of the bill in the Senate and others, [Footnote 2/17] for restricting the scope of the amending exemptions to small plants. These differences were not settled on the floor of either house. But when the bills came to conference, they were resolved by changing the flat exemptions into discretionary ones to be defined by the Administrator.
the debates upon it to add light, the previous discussions are wholly inconclusive, except in one respect. This was to show that there was great variety and complexity of opinion, and that this revolved around the question of size. That question continued unresolved up to conference, and was resolved there not by decision either way, but by reference to the Administrator. It must be taken, therefore, that the purpose was to give him discretion to make the necessary choices between the conflicting viewpoints as the facts of particular situations would give occasion for doing. And, it would seem, the preponderance of sentiment in favor of exempting small plants, but not large ones, except in occasional instances where this would be necessary to protect the small farmer, well could be taken as his guiding light. The legislative history, therefore, insofar as it sheds light at all, clearly is not inconsistent with what the Administrator has done, but, on the contrary, supports it.
"in relation to the complicated economic factors that operate between agricultural labor conditions and the labor market of enterprises concerned with agricultural commodities and more or less near their production."
(Emphasis added.) The Administrator is given "appropriate discretion to assess all the factors relevant to the subject matter," which is essentially one of "economic determination" too complex for litigation to solve. He "may properly weigh and synthesize all such factors."
lines, even though he may take into account all relevant economic factors. . . ." The "zone within which economic influences may be deemed to operate and outside of which they lose their force" cannot be defined directly and purposively to draw the line between the zone of farming and the zone of industry. This must be done only indirectly, in an awkward, roundabout way.
So much of authority and power to defeat the statute's intended operation cannot be given to mere verbalism, more especially to one word, torn in context, function, and purpose from the remainder of the Act. "Area," it is true, means area. But "area of production" means more.
"The notion that, because the words of a statute are plain, its meaning is also plain is merely pernicious oversimplification. It is a wooden English doctrine of rather recent vintage . . . to which lip service has on occasion been given here, but which, since the days of Marshall, this Court has rejected, especially in practice. . . . A statute, like other living organisms, derives significance and sustenance from its environment, from which it cannot be severed without being mutilated. [Footnote 2/19]"
And so does a section in a statute. "Area of production," as used in Section 13(a)(10), means an exemption, limited to persons performing the specified operations within a producing region, but selected from all so situated by an exercise of the Administrator's judgment in accordance with the statute's prime objects and chief limitations, among which necessarily is the size of the plant. If that is so, I see no good reason for forbidding the Administrator to say so.
It follows the Administrator has not improperly exercised his function, the definitions are valid, and respondent's employees were not exempt from the statute's provisions.
But if the definitions were invalid, as the Court holds, I could not agree to the extremely novel disposition it makes of the case. We are dealing with an exemption, not with the statute's primary coverage. Concededly the respondent employer was liable to petitioners for the minimum wages, overtime pay, and statutory penalties under Section 16(b), if they were not exempt under Section 13(a)(10) or some other exemption. Ordinarily, exemptions are not favored. Coverage, not exemption, is preferred. If the exemption is dubious, it is not given effect. If ambiguous, it is resolved strictly in favor of the statute's application. Spokane & I.E. R. Co. v. United States, 241 U. S. 344; Piedmont & N. R. Co. v. Interstate Commerce Commission, 286 U. S. 299, 286 U. S. 311-312; McDonald v. Thompson, 305 U. S. 263. In this case, if the exemption does not apply, the petitioners are within the statute and respondent is liable on their claims.
escape without exercise of inventive genius beyond the right of either court to apply and which, as applied here, makes the cure worse than the disease.
Respondent's invention, and likewise the Court of Appeals', was to strike the limitation on the number of employees and apply the remainder of the definition. This but emasculates it. Hence, all here but one are agreed such liberty cannot be taken with the Administrator's function. This Court's invention, however, does it equal or greater violence -- first, as I think in emasculating it; second, and lacking even more in justification, in requiring it to be exercised with backward reaching effect.
If the Court had sought its escape in finding that there were no standards to control the Administrator's discretion or that he had applied the wrong standards, one might understand its refusal to sustain the definition. But that too would mean that petitioners would recover. The Court does neither. There is no claim, except a semblance of suggestion in a separate opinion, that the statute supplies no standards, and therefore gives the Administrator "a roving commission to create exemptions." Nor is there one that the wrong standards were used. The invention is called forth only to correct a mode of statement.
mistakenly includes in a regulation a factor later held to make it invalid. No reason stated makes this case a special one. And there is none. It cannot be taken that these parties are to be singled out for unique treatment merely in order to avoid the normal legal consequences of invalidating administrative action. Hence, every interest affected by such action now must take two risks in place of one: first, the normal, inescapable risk that the governing regulation may be held invalid; second, in that event, the novel one that some future regulation, a wholly unknown quantity, will relate back over an indefinite time to create entirely new or different and unexpected rights and liabilities.
Of course, there must be room for creative analogies in the law to give the desired escape from mechanical concepts and permit shaping its remedies. But we are as often told that Congress should perform the creative act in Congress' field. This should be most true where what we are called upon to recreate is Congress' own handiwork. If Congress intended the Administrator to act retroactively, Congress wholly failed to express this purpose.
Moreover, it is not remedies, but rights, which are thus refashioned. And not equity, but law, remolds them. Who knows, before the redefinition, what persons may be included in its coverage? Or whether it may not have to be made again? The same persons cannot be included. Otherwise there would be no point to this decision. If the Administrator can rephrase the same coverage in wholly geographic terms, apart from delay, the only result will be to have criticized his language. If he cannot do this, some persons, and no one can tell in advance how many, will be deprived altogether of rights, others given them who had none. So with liabilities.
may be of uncertainty, or hardship, of injustice in deprivation of rights, in windfalls of right to others, in laying on new and wholly unexpected liabilities and in relieving from anticipated ones if retroactive administrative refashioning becomes the general practice. The alternative, either to sustain or to hold void the regulation, and fix the rights accordingly, is not only the accepted and established one. It is the only one by which men can know the risks they assume at the time they become subject to them.
Retroactivity is not favored in law. For this there are sound reasons, in some cases constitutional ones. Cf. Forbes Pioneer Boat Line v. Board of Commissioners, 258 U. S. 338; Ochoa v. Hernandez y Morales, 230 U. S. 139. There are few occasions when retroactivity does not work more unfairly than fairly. Congress, the state legislatures, and the courts apply the principle sparingly, even where they may. Cf. Graham and Foster v. Goodcell, 282 U. S. 409; United States v. Heinszen, 206 U. S. 370. Seldom if ever, therefore, may administrative or executive authority to apply it be inferred from legislation not expressly giving it. Compare Arizona Grocery Co. v. Atchison, T. & S.F. R. Co., 284 U. S. 370; Helvering v. R. J. Reynolds Tobacco Co., 306 U. S. 110. But, in any event, whatever corrective needs may prompt and vindicate a grant of such authority in other circumstances are not present in this application. Yet, if this decision is to mark the beginning of a general pattern, such authority now bids fair to become a common characteristic of administrative action.
is to be added, the addition should be made by the body whence administrative power is derived, not by this Court's imaginative resourcefulness.
MR. JUSTICE DOUGLAS join in that part of this dissent which would hold that the Administrator has defined "area of production" in a valid manner.
Promulgated October 20, 1938, effective four days later. 3 Fed.Reg. 2536.
See Hearings on Proposed Amendment of Section 536.2 (area of production) of Regulations issued under the Fair Labor Standards Act of 1938, Wage and Hour Division, Department of Labor Ref. Nos. 54; 73; 162a; 162b; 162c.
Tests proposed and considered included: the mapping of producing territories; a flat mileage/population definition; a "first concentration point" criterion; a standard which would include only establishments which handled and prepared for the account of the farmer commodities to which he retained title. All these and others were rejected by successive administrators, after being urged and opposed by industry representatives, as presenting insuperable obstacles to carrying out the statute's major policies.
Compare the definition promulgated October 20, 1938, 3 Fed.Reg. 2536, with the amendments of April 20, 1939, 4 Fed.Reg. 1655; June 17, 1939, 4 Fed.Reg. 2436; October 1, 1940, 5 Fed.Reg. 2647, and April 1, 1941, 6 Fed.Reg. 1476.
Cf. Department of Labor Release R. 226, March 18, 1939; G.-60, July 24, 1940.
A flat mileage definition was in force during part of the time material in this case, but was abandoned after its effects, by way of creating serious unfair discrimination between competing establishments and narrowing grocers' outlets, became evident. Cf. Department of Labor Release G-60, July 24, 1940.
Cf. Farm and Ranch Schedules, U.S. Census of Agriculture, 16th Census of the United States, 1940.
As the legislative history shows, cf. text infra at notes 13-16, there was fairly general agreement that some part of the work specified in Section 13(a)(10) should be exempt, whether or not it was done on the farm. But, beyond this, a great variety of opinion existed both as to how far the exemption should go and as to the economic basis for it. Among the latter were views that the exemption should be made because the farmer bore the cost of the work, cf. 81 Cong.Rec. 7656, 7877, 7880, or because many farmers in fact performed it on their farms and as part of their operations, cf. Section 3(f), 52 Stat. 1060; 81 Cong.Rec. 7657-7659; or because others who had to resort to independent contractors to have it done would be discriminated against unless the work were exempt; cf. 81 Cong.Rec. 7656, 7658-7660, 7876. Some legislators were concerned to have the exemption apply whether the work were done in large or small plants, others to limit it to small ones only, and still others to secure it completely for particular crops. Numerous amendments were tendered, but, for the most part, defeated. It was not until the Conference Committee's report was framed that the problem was solved by referring it to definition by the Administrator. But even proponents of the amendments which were adopted recognized that the problem was one which "the board . . . would have to decide," 81 Cong.Rec. 7878, "something that would have to be worked out," 83 Cong.Rec. 7401.
Section 2(a). These conditions Congress found burden commerce, lead to labor disputes obstructing it, interfere with fair and orderly marketing, and spread themselves by causing the channels of commerce to be used for marketing among the several states the goods produced under them. Ibid.
ndustry' means a trade, business, industry . . . in which individuals are gainfully employed." Section 3(h).
"'Agriculture' includes farming in all its branches . . . and any practices (including any forestry or lumbering operations) performed by a farmer or on a farm as an incident to or in conjunction with such farming operations, including preparation for market, delivery to storage or to market or to carriers for transportation to market."
Section 3(f). Section 5 provides for industry committees and their functioning, to which the Administrator submits data and from which he receives recommendations and reports which he must approve before making them effective in the form of minimum wage rates and industry classifications. Cf. Section 8.
National Broadcasting Co. v. United States, 319 U. S. 190, 319 U. S. 219.
Respondent however, consistently with its "factfinder" or "surveyor" theory of the Administrator's function, says the purpose was not to distinguish, within the specified activities, between farmers and industrial workers; it was, rather, to go a step further and exempt the latter as well, provided only they were within an area of production as respondent conceives it. That the Administrator may exempt some, or perhaps many, who are in fact industrial workers because they are doing these activities under factory conditions and methods may be conceded. That he must exempt all of them, or some larger number than his judgment, formed after considering the facts, the statute's policies, and the effects of what he may do finds proper cannot be accepted. Respondent claims an exemption fixed by the Act. The statute has given it one only when, in the Administrator's judgment, not arbitrarily formed, it meets the conditions which he finds will execute the legislative policy.
The Senate's first suggestion of "area of production" came from Senator Copeland, 81 Cong.Rec. 7656, although Senator Schwellenbach became the chief proponent of the concept there. Senator Black, sponsor of the bill, was concerned with the scope of "area," and sought a more accurate term for limiting its effect so as not to exempt workers in large plants, cf. 81 Cong.Rec. 7656-7660, 7876-7878, and others expressed opinions that large operators should not be exempted. For portions of the discussion on the Senate floor, see also 81 Cong.Rec. 7648-7673, 7876-7888, 7927-7929, 7947-7949.
In the House of Representatives, the sponsor of the bill was Representative Norton. Chief proponent of the amendment involving "area of production" was Representative Bierman. Cf. 83 Cong.Rec. 7325, 7326, 7401-7408.
"I gave considerable thought to that. I do not believe it is possible, and that is something which the board, which has been accused of receiving too much power, would have to decide. It would have to provide a definition of 'immediate production area.'"
See the discussion cited in notes 8, 13 and 14.
Cf. 81 Cong.Rec. 7948. Respondent argues from this that the intent of Congress was shown not to authorize the Administrator, by the later conference amendment, to distinguish among plants within the "area of production" on the basis of size. The argument, however, ignores the fact that the amendments proposed by Senator Reynolds were drawn and intended to exempt from the statute's operation all plants having fewer than the number of employees (the amendments varied from five to ten in this respect), not merely plants engaged in the particular marginal operations specified in the various forms the Schwellenbach Amendment took during the debate. The conclusion to be drawn from the rejection of the Reynolds Amendments is not that the Senate intended to exempt all plants, large and small, covered by the Schwellenbach Amendment or by the form taken by Section 13(a)(10) in conference, but rather that the Senate was unwilling to except even all plants having as few as five employees from the statute's coverage.
Cf. notes 13 and 14, supra, and the cited discussions.
Cf. notes 1-6, supra, and text.
United States v. Monia, 317 U. S. 424, dissenting opinion at 317 U. S. 431-432.
The Administrator is not a party to this suit, but has appeared and participated here as amicus curiae.
In view of its disposition of the case, the Court of Appeals did not consider respondent's defenses under Sections 7(b) and 7(c) of the Act, on both of which the District Court held for petitioners.

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