Source: http://www.chanrobles.com/usa/us_supremecourt/332/422/case.php
Timestamp: 2017-12-12 10:27:12
Document Index: 262148007

Matched Legal Cases: ['§ 204', '§ 17', '§ 15', '§ 7', '§ 7', '§ 7', '§ 7', '§ 7', '§ 204', '§ 7', '§ 204', '§ 204', '§ 13', '§ 7', '§ 13', '§ 13']

This case requires further application of the principles stated in Levinson v. Spector Motor Service, 330 U. S. 649, and Pyramid Motor Freight Corp. v. Ispass, 330 U. S. 695. The first question is whether the Interstate Commerce Commission has the power, under § 204 of the Motor Carrier Act, 1935, [Footnote 1] to establish qualifications and maximum hours of service with respect to drivers and mechanics employed full time, as such, by a common carrier by motor vehicle when the services rendered through such employees by such carrier in interstate commerce are distributed generally throughout the year, constitute 3% to 4% of the carrier's total carrier services, and the performance of such services is shared indiscriminately among such employees and mingled with their performance of other like services for such carrier not in interstate commerce. The other question is whether, if the Commission chanroblesvirtualawlibrary
This action was brought March 26, 1942, in the United States District Court for the Eastern District of Michigan by the Administrator of the Wage and Hour Division, United States Department of Labor, under § 17 of the Fair Labor Standards Act, [Footnote 4] to enjoin the petitioner, James chanroblesvirtualawlibrary
F. Morris, from violating § 15(a)(1) and (2) of that Act [Footnote 5] through failure to pay his employees compensation for overtime in accordance with § 7 of that Act. [Footnote 6] After a trial based on the pleadings and stipulated facts, the complaint was dismissed September 26, 1945. In its unreported conclusions of law, the court stated that neither the petitioner nor his employees were engaged "in the production of goods for commerce" within the meaning of the Fair Labor Standards Act, and that, to the extent that they might be considered to be engaged "in commerce" within the meaning of that Act, the requirements of its § 7, as to compensation for overtime, did not apply to them. The Circuit Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit reversed this judgment May 29, 1946, and remanded the case for further proceedings. Walling v. Morris, 155 F.2d 832. Because of its importance in interpreting the Motor Carrier Act and the Fair Labor Standards Act and because the question first stated above had not been passed upon in our decisions in the Levinson chanroblesvirtualawlibrary
His principal business was the transportation of steel. In the regular course of his business, in 1941, he generally employed about 60 persons, 40 as truck drivers, 14 as mechanics, painters, washers, and repairmen in the garage, three as dispatchers, and three as general office workers. His equipment consisted of about 50 trucks or tractors and 60 trailers. chanroblesvirtualawlibrary
He was prepared to and did render general cartage service to the general shipping public. In 1941, he rendered such service to 47 consigning firms, but about 97% of his revenue came from the Great Lakes Steel Corporation and the Michigan Steel Corporation, both in Ecorse. His general cartage services, in 1941, were made up of three intermingled types of service, generally classifiable as follows on the basis of the revenue derived from them: (1) 35%: transportation of steel largely within steel plants. This was transported for further processing in those plants and an unsegregated portion of its was shipped ultimately in interstate commerce. (2) 61%: transportation between steel mills and industrial establishments. These shipments consisted principally of bumper stock, fender stock, and other types of steel used in connection with the manufacture of automobiles, a substantial portion of which entered interstate commerce. (3) 4%: transportation of miscellaneous freight directly in interstate commerce, either as part of continuous interstate movements or of interstate movements begun or terminated in metropolitan Detroit. [Footnote 7] chanroblesvirtualawlibrary
Ever since § 7 of the Fair Labor Standards Act took effect, October 24, 1938, petitioner's employees, with the exception of his office workers, consistently worked enough hours to entitle them to additional compensation at the rate of one and one-half times their regular wages if such Section were applicable to them. They were, however, paid on the assumption that the Section did not apply to them, and therefore, for the most part, received only their regular rate of pay for such overtime. Accordingly, if it is found that § 7 is applicable to them, there is ground for an injunction against its further violation. No issue is presented here as to the office workers, because there is no proof of overtime services' having been rendered by them or being now in prospect. No issue is presented here as to the dispatchers. The Circuit Court of Appeals held that § 7 applies to them as employees engaged in the production of goods for interstate commerce, and that they are not exempt as administrative employees. Those issues, however, are not within the limited grant of certiorari. As to the garagemen and laborers, including mechanics, painters, washers, and repairmen, together with their superintendent of maintenance, there is no issue presented here, except to the extent that such classifications include mechanics doing the class of work defined as that of "mechanics" in Ex chanroblesvirtualawlibrary
Parte No. MC-2, 28 M.C.C. 125, 132, 133, [Footnote 8] including the making of mechanical repairs directly affecting the safe operation of motor vehicles. All of the garagemen and laborers, except their superintendent of maintenance, chanroblesvirtualawlibrary
The drivers are full-time drivers of motor vehicles well within the definition of that class of work by the Commission if the work is done in interstate commerce. [Footnote 9] From October 24, 1938, to August 1, 1940, the drivers received their "straight" or regular hourly rate of pay for all overtime work. Since August 1, 1940, their overtime work has been paid for in accordance with a collective bargaining agreement in force as to union drivers, throughout metropolitan Detroit, employed either in intrastate or interstate general cartage. From August 1, chanroblesvirtualawlibrary
In the record before us, instead of 4% of the driving time of each driver being devoted each day to interstate commerce without relation to what the driver does at other times, the parties present the actual experience of the petitioner and his drivers throughout 1941. The printed record, together with an unprinted exhibit filed with the Clerk, classifies all of the 19,786 trips taken in 1941 by the 43 drivers who respectively drove motor vehicles for the petitioner during not less than eight weeks in that year. Only the "Pickup Trips" and "Boat Dock Trips" are counted as being in "interstate commerce." These involved movements of goods to or from railroad freight houses, line haul motor carrier depots, or the boat docks of the several steamship companies in Detroit. It was stipulated that the petitioner was "engaged as a common carrier for hire in the local transportation of property by motor vehicle," was "engaged in a general cartage business and . . . [was] prepared to render such services to chanroblesvirtualawlibrary
One or more such trips were taken by one or more drivers each week. The average number of drivers making one or more such trips in each week was nine drivers out of 37, or 24.4%. There were six weeks in which more than half of the drivers thus engaged directly in interstate commerce. The highest percentage of drivers making such trips in one week was 78.1%, when 25 drivers out of the 32 then on duty, did so. As to the distribution of such trips, throughout the year, among the total of 43 drivers, every driver, except two, made at least one such trip with interstate freight. Each of the two who failed to make any such trip was employed for only about one-half the year, and that was during the months when the trips in interstate commerce were the less frequent. On the other hand, one driver made 97 such trips in interstate commerce. Another made 52, and the average per driver was over 16. The greatest number of such trips made by a single driver in a single week was seven out of nine. In several other weeks, he made six such trips out of a total of chanroblesvirtualawlibrary
seven in the week. The net result is a practical situation such as may confront any common carrier engaged in a general cartage business, and who is prepared and offering to serve the normal transportation demands of the shipping public in an industrial metropolitan center. From the point of view of safety in interstate commerce, the hazards are not distinguishable from those which would be presented if each driver drove 4% of his driving time each day in interstate commerce. In both cases, there is the same essential need for the establishment of reasonable requirements with respect to qualifications and maximum hours of service of employees. If the common carrier is required, by virtue of that status, to take this interstate business, he must perform the required service in accordance with the requirements established by the Commission. The Commission has made no exception in these qualifications and maximum hours of service that would exempt the drivers of the petitioner from them as a class. The applicability of the Commission's present requirements as to specific drivers during specific weeks is not the issue before us. We hold that the Commission has the power to establish qualifications and maximum hours of service, pursuant to the provisions of § 204 of the Motor Carrier Act, for the entire classification of petitioner's drivers and "mechanics," and it is the existence of that power (rather than the precise terms of the requirements actually established by the Commission in the exercise of that power) that Congress has made the test as to whether or not § 7 of the Fair Labor Standards Act is applicable to these employees. [Footnote 13] chanroblesvirtualawlibrary
Congress has gone out of its way to make this purpose clear in cases comparable to the one before us. It has done this by making the power of the Commission, under § 204 of the Motor Carrier Act, expressly applicable to motor vehicle pickup and delivery service within terminal areas [Footnote 14] to transportation in interstate commerce chanroblesvirtualawlibrary
Congress furthermore has provided a special procedure by which, in an appropriate case, an intrastate motor carrier or any other party in interstate, may secure the general exemption of such a carrier from compliance with the Motor Carrier Act even though such carrier does perform some interstate transportation. Congress, however, expressly has authorized the Commission, and not the courts, to decide when the case is an appropriate one chanroblesvirtualawlibrary
Having determined that the Commission has the power to establish qualifications and maximum hours of service for these drivers and "mechanics" under § 204 of the Motor Carrier Act, the question recurs as to whether, in the face of the exemption stated in § 13(b)(1) of the Fair Labor Standards Act, the requirements of § 7 of that Act nevertheless apply to these employees. This issue as to the possible reconciliation of the language of these Acts so as to provide for concurrent jurisdiction was considered chanroblesvirtualawlibrary
By a pedantically literal reading of § 13(b)(1), it is possible to say that these employees are among those as to whom the Interstate Commerce Commission has "power" to establish qualifications and maximum hours of service. A sporadic and minute portion of their activities, approximating 3% to 4% of the total, affects the chanroblesvirtualawlibrary
When that is done, it becomes clear that, when § 13(b)(1) speaks of those over whom the Interstate Commerce Commission has "power" it means those who perform at least a substantial amount of activities within the Commission's jurisdiction. Congress was not concerned with insignificant conflicts between Fair Labor Standards Act regulations and Interstate Commerce Commission regulations. Nor was it desirous of leaving unregulated nearly all of the working time of those who are engaged in the production of goods for commerce but who spend infinitesimal amounts of time directly in interstate transportation. In other words, engaging in chanroblesvirtualawlibrary
But for this Court's decisions in the Levinson and Ispass cases, my views in this case would be in substantial accord with those expressed by MR. JUSTICE MURPHY. See Levinson v. Spector Motor Service, 330 U. S. 649, dissenting opinion at 330 U. S. 685; Pyramid Motor Freight Corp. v. Ispass, 330 U. S. 695. I thought the decisions in those cases foreshadowed the extreme result here, which goes so far as to exclude from the Fair Labor Standards Act's protection at least two employees who made no trips in what petitioner regards as the interstate phase of his business. While on the other hand one driver made 97 such trips, there were others who made only very occasional ones. chanroblesvirtualawlibrary