Source: https://www.legalcrystal.com/case/98323/farmers-reservoir-irrigation-co-vs-mccomb
Timestamp: 2018-02-23 03:03:33
Document Index: 581054255

Matched Legal Cases: ['§ 3', '§ 13', '§ 3', '§ 3', '§ 3', '§ 3', '§ 13', '§ 3', '§ 3', '§ 3', '§ 3', '§ 15', '§ 3', '§ 15', '§ 13']

Farmers Reservoir and Irrigation Co Vs Mccomb - Citation 98323 - Court Judgment | LegalCrystal
Farmers Reservoir and Irrigation Co. Vs. Mccomb - Court Judgment
LegalCrystal Citation legalcrystal.com/98323
Case Number 337 U.S. 755
Appellant Farmers Reservoir and Irrigation Co.
Respondent Mccomb
farmers reservoir & irrigation co. v. mccomb - 337 u.s. 755 (1949) u.s. supreme court farmers reservoir & irrigation co. v. mccomb, 337 u.s. 755 (1949) farmers reservoir & irrigation co. v. mccomb argued december 16, 1948 decided june 27, 1949 * 337 u.s. 755 certiorari to the united states court of appeals for the tenth circuit syllabus the sole activity of a mutual irrigation company owned entirely by farmers is the collection, storage, and distribution of water for irrigation purposes, wholly within colorado. the water is supplied by the company to farmers at headgates on the company's canals, whence it is taken into the farmers' own laterals and used by them in the production of agricultural products to be shipped.....
Farmers Reservoir & Irrigation Co. v. McComb - 337 U.S. 755 (1949)
U.S. Supreme Court Farmers Reservoir & Irrigation Co. v. McComb, 337 U.S. 755 (1949)
Decided June 27, 1949 *
Held: the company's field employees (ditch riders, lake tenders, and maintenance men) and its bookkeeper are within the coverage of the Fair Labor Standards Act, as employed in an "occupation necessary to the production" of goods for interstate commerce, within the meaning of § 3(j), and are not exempt under § 13(a) as "employed in agriculture." Pp. 337 U. S. 756 -770.
1. The fact that a particular activity is necessary to agricultural production does not require the conclusion that it is agricultural production. P. 337 U. S. 759 .
2. The test of whether a particular type of activity is agricultural is whether the activity is carried on as part of the agricultural function or is separately organized as an independent productive activity. P. 337 U. S. 761 .
3. The irrigation company is not engaged in "agriculture," within the meaning of § 3(f) of the Act, since it owns no farms, raises no crops, and is not engaged in cultivating or tilling the soil or in growing any agricultural commodity. Pp. 337 U. S. 762 -764.
4. In § 3(f) of the Act, which defines "agriculture," the word "production" is not used in the special expanded meaning in which it is used in § 3(j) of the Act. Pp. 337 U. S. 764 -766.
5. The activities of the employees in question are not exempt under § 3(f) as practices "performed by a farmer or on a farm." Pp. 337 U. S. 766 -768.
6. Assuming that the agricultural exemption includes the work of persons who do no farming, but are employed by farmers, the employees here in question are nonetheless not exempt, since they are employed not by farmers, but by the company, and the fact that the company is owned by farmers, and is nonprofit, is immaterial. Pp. 337 U. S. 768 -769.
A suit by the Administrator to restrain alleged violations of the Fair Labor Standards Act by a mutual irrigation company was dismissed by the District Court, which held the employees in question exempt as employed in agriculture. The Court of Appeals reversed, except as to a bookkeeper, whose case it regarded as moot. 167 F.2d 911. This Court granted cross-petitions for certiorari. 335 U.S. 809. Modified and affirmed, p. 337 U. S. 770 .
The principal question to be decided in this case is whether the employees of a mutual ditch company are exempt from the provisions of the Fair Labor Standards Act [ Footnote 1 ] as persons employed in agriculture. The company is the Farmers Reservoir & Irrigation Company, a Colorado corporation having an authorized capital stock of $1,050,000 and an authorized bonded indebtedness of
was reversed, as to the field employees, by the Court of Appeals for the Tenth Circuit, [ Footnote 2 ] one judge dissenting, and, in No. 128, we granted the company's petition for certiorari on the exemption issue. The Court of Appeals did not pass on the bookkeeper's status. It regarded his case as moot because his salary was said by the company, in its brief, to have been raised to $210 per month while the appeal was pending. The court regarded this as sufficient to establish his exemption as an administrative employee under § 13(a)(1) of the Act, and therefore limited its consideration and its reversal of the District Court to the field employees. In No.196, we granted the Administrator's cross-petition with respect to the bookkeeper.
The argument rests on a misconstruction of § 3(j) of the Fair Labor Standards Act [ Footnote 3 ] -- the section which the courts below relied on in concluding that the field employees of the company are engaged in the production of goods for commerce. Section 3(j) provides that,
"for purposes of this Act, an employee shall be deemed to have been engaged in the production of goods if such employee was employed . . . in any process or occupation necessary to the production thereof. [ Footnote 4 ]"
From the beginning, this Court has refused either to read this provision out of the Act by limiting the coverage of the Act to those actually engaged in production or, on the other hand, to expand it so as to include every process or occupation affecting production for commerce. We have held that, if an occupation, not itself production for commerce, has "a close and immediate tie" with the process of production, it comes within the provisions of § 3(j). [ Footnote 5 ] Applying this standard, the Court of Appeals quite properly held that the field employees here are engaged in an occupation necessary, in the statutory sense, for the production of agricultural commodities shipped in commerce. [ Footnote 6 ]
and identity, or, differently phrased, between production in the normal sense and production in the special sense defined in § 3(j), disposes of the company's contention. The question here is whether the occupation of the field employees of the ditch company can itself be termed agriculture. The answer to that question is not predetermined by the fact that the occupation is within the scope of the Act because it has a necessary connection, in commerce, with agricultural production. [ Footnote 7 ]
the way in which that activity is organized in a particular society. The determination cannot be made in the abstract. In less advanced societies, the agricultural function includes many types of activity which, in others, are not agricultural. The fashioning of tools, the provision of fertilizer, the processing of the product, to mention only a few examples, are functions which, in some societies, are performed on the farm by farmers as part of their normal agricultural routine. Economic progress, however, is characterized by a progressive division of labor and separation of function. Tools are made by a tool manufacturer, who specializes in that kind of work and supplies them to the farmer. The compost heap is replaced by factory produced fertilizers. Power is derived from electricity and gasoline, rather than supplied by the farmer's mules. Wheat is ground at the mill. In this way, functions which are necessary to the total economic process of supplying an agricultural product become, in the process of economic development and specialization, separate and independent productive functions operated in conjunction with the agricultural function, but no longer a part of it. Thus, the question as to whether a particular type of activity is agricultural is not determined by the necessity of the activity to agriculture, nor by the physical similarity of the activity to that done by farmers in other situations. The question is whether the activity in the particular case is carried on as part of the agricultural function or is separately organized as an independent productive activity. The farmhand who cares for the farmer's mules or prepares his fertilizer is engaged in agriculture. But the maintenance man in a power plant [ Footnote 8 ] and the packer in a fertilizer factory [ Footnote 9 ] are not employed in agriculture, even
Dealing with these two branches of the definition in order, it is clear first that the occupation in which the company's employees are engaged is not farming. The company owns no farms, and raises no crops. Irrigation, strictly defined -- that is the actual watering of the soil -- may no doubt be called farming. And the work of the farmers in seeing to it that the water released from the company's ditches is properly distributed to the growing plants undoubtedly is included in farming as being part of the process of cultivating and tilling the soil. But the significant fact in this case is that this work is not done by the company's employees. There is a clear and definite division of function. The ditch company carries the water in its own canals to the lands of the farmers. When a farmer desires water so that he can irrigate his fields, he notifies the company. Its employees then operate the headgates, which are located on the company's canals and which the farmers are forbidden to operate, [ Footnote 10 ] so that the appropriate quantity of water can pass out of the company's canals and off the company's land into the farmer's irrigation ditches. The responsibility of the company's employees ceases when they so release the water. The water is supplied to the farmer at the headgates, and he takes it over there and uses it, in his own laterals, as he sees fit, to irrigate his crops.
If Congress intended to convey that meaning by using the word production in the definition of agriculture, we should, of course, give the definition its intended scope. But we do not "make a fortress out of the dictionary." [ Footnote 11 ] And we have therefore consistently refused to pervert the process of interpretation by mechanically applying definitions in unintended contexts. Lawson v. Suwanee Fruit & S.S. Co., 336 U. S. 198 ; Atlantic Cleaners & Dyers v. United States, 286 U. S. 427 . In the present case, the legislative history confirms what a natural reading of the language of the agricultural exemption would indicate -- the word "production" was not there used in the artificial and special sense in which it was defined in § 3(j). Certainly, if it were meant in that sense, it would make surplusage of the remainder of the carefully wrought definition. And it would hardly have been innocuously placed among such specific terms as "cultivation," "tillage," "growing," and "harvesting."
But we need not speculate on the congressional meaning. The history of the use of the word production is crystal clear. It was added to the definition of agriculture in order to take care of a special situation -- the production of turpentine and gum rosins by a process involving the tapping of living trees. There had been indications that such activity would not be considered agriculture, since turpentine is neither cultivated nor grown. [ Footnote 12 ] And a special amendment, § 15(g), had been added to the Agricultural Marketing Act specifying that commodities so produced were to be considered agricultural commodities for the purposes of that Act. [ Footnote 13 ] To insure the inclusion of the process within the agricultural exemption of the Fair Labor Standards Act, the word production was added to § 3(f) in conjunction with the words "including commodities defined as agricultural commodities in § 15(g) of the Agricultural Marketing Act as amended." [ Footnote 14 ]
The work of the company's employees is not, then, farming. But, coming to the second branch of the definition of agriculture, it is equally clear that it does constitute a practice performed as an incident to or in conjunction with farming. If the Act exempted all such practices, the company would be exempt. But the exemption is limited. Such practices are exempt only if they are performed by a farmer or on a farm. [ Footnote 15 ]
This language was carefully considered by Congress. As originally introduced, the exemption covered such practices only if performed by a farmer. On the floor of the Senate, it was objected that this would exclude the threshing of wheat or other functions necessary to the farmer if those functions were not performed by the farmer and his hands, but by separate companies organized for and devoted solely to that particular job. [ Footnote 16 ] To take care of that situation, the words "or on a farm" were added to the definition. Thus, the wheat threshing companies, even though they were separate enterprises, were included in the exemption because their work was incidental to farming and was done on the farm. [ Footnote 17 ] In the face of this careful use of language, we are required to limit the exemption as Congress intended it should be limited -- to practices performed by a farmer or on a farm. In the present case, it is clear that the work of the company's employees is done neither on a farm or by farmers.
Even if it were conceded that the exemption includes the work of persons who do no farming, but are employed by farmers, it still does include the company's employees, because they are not, in fact, so employed. There is a difference between the hiring of mutual servants by a group of employers and the creation by them of a separate business organization, with its own officers, property, and bonded indebtedness, which, in turn, hires working men. Those working men are in no real sense employees of the shareholders of the organization. They are hired by the organization, fired by the organization, controlled and directed by the organization, and paid by it. The fact that the organization is a corporate one adds to the picture, but is not controlling. The controlling fact is that the company has been set up by the farmers as an independent entity to operate an integrated, unitary water supply system. The function of supplying water has thus been divorced by the farmers from the farming operation, and set up as a separate and self-contained activity in which the farmers are forbidden, by the company's bylaws, to interfere. [ Footnote 18 ] Those employed in that activity are employed by the company, not by the farmers who own the company. The fact that the company is not operated for profit is immaterial.
It is nonetheless the employer. Of course, if Congress had intended the absence of profit to be material, and had provided that the employees of agricultural cooperatives should be exempted because their work is done for the benefit of the farmers who own the cooperatives, we should honor that provision. But the legislative history of the existing definition clearly shows that no such result was intended. [ Footnote 19 ]
We conclude, therefore, that the Court of Appeals correctly determined that the field employees of the company are not exempt from the provisions of the Fair Labor Standards Act as persons employed in agriculture. [ Footnote 20 ] There remains for consideration the bookkeeper's case. The Court of Appeals limited its reversal of the District Court to the field employees because it regarded the bookkeeper as exempt, in any event, as an administrative employee. We need not decide whether it erred in so doing, since the company in this Court disclaims -- as it did in the District Court -- any reliance on the administrative exemption. And our discussion with regard to the field employees makes it clear that the Court of
Appeals decision is, in the absence of any claim of administrative exemption, equally applicable to the bookkeeper. It has been stipulated that his work is a necessary part of the operation of the company's water supply system. The fact that it is clerical, rather than manual, is immaterial. Borden Co. v. Borella, 325 U. S. 679 . It follows that his case is on all fours with that of the field workers, and that he is engaged, as they are, in the production of goods for commerce, and is not exempt as employed in agriculture. The judgment of the Court of Appeals reversing the District Court and remanding the case to it should therefore be treated as applicable to both types of employee.
Kirschbaum Co. v. Walling, 316 U. S. 517 , 316 U. S. 525 ; Armour & Co. v. Wantock, 323 U. S. 126 ; Roland Electric Co. v. Walling, 326 U. S. 657 , 326 U. S. 663 .
The fallacy of the notion that an exemption carries with it all occupations whose nexus with interstate commerce is the exempted occupation is demonstrated by authority as well as by logic. In Boutell v. Walling, 327 U. S. 463 , for example, the question was whether men who were employed by a service company to service trucks carrying goods in interstate commerce were exempt under § 13(b)(1) as the employees of an interstate carrier subject to regulation by the Interstate Commerce Commission. Their only connection with commerce was their work on the trucks of the interstate carrier. The Court divided as to whether the employees were themselves employed by the carrier within the meaning of the Motor Carrier Act, and therefore exempt. But there was no suggestion in either of the opinions in the case that, if not employed by the carrier, they were nevertheless exempt because their only connection with interstate commerce was through an enterprise which was itself exempt.
L. Hand, J., in Cabell v. Markham, 148 F.2d 737, 739, aff'd, Markham v. Cabell, 326 U. S. 404 .