Source: https://m.openjurist.org/317/us/564
Timestamp: 2019-06-20 02:16:08
Document Index: 778066517

Matched Legal Cases: ['§ 13', '§ 6', '§ 7', '§ 13', '§ 13', '§ 13', '§ 13']

317 U.S. 564 - Walling v. Jacksonville Paper Co
317 US 564 Walling v. Jacksonville Paper Co
WALLING, Administrator of the Wage and Hour Division, United States Department of Labor,
JACKSONVILLE PAPER CO.
The Administrator contends in the first place that under the decision below any pause at the warehouse is sufficient to deprive the remainder of the journey of its interstate status. In that connection it is pointed out that prior to this litigation respondent's trucks would pick up at the terminals of the interstate carriers goods destined to specific customers, return to the warehouse for checking and proceed immediately to the customer's place of business without unloading. That practice was changed. The goods were unloaded from the trucks, brought into the warehouse, checked, reloaded, and sent on to the customer during the same day or as early as convenient. The opinion of the Circuit Court of Appeals is susceptible of the interpretation that such a pause at the warehouses is sufficient to make the Act inapplicable to the subsequent movement of the goods to their intended destination. We believe, however, that the adoption of that view would result in too narrow a construction of the Act. It is clear that the purpose of the Act was to extend federal control in this field throughout the farthest reaches of the channels of interstate commerce.1 There is no indication (apart from the exemptions contained in § 13) that, once the goods entered the channels of interstate commerce, Congress stopped short of control over the entire movement of them until their interstate journey was ended. No ritual of placing goods in a warehouse can be allowed to defeat that purpose. The entry of the goods into the warehouse interrupts but does not necessarily terminate their interstate journey. A temporary pause in their transit does not mean that they are no longer 'in commerce' within the meaning of the Act. As in the case of an agency (cf. De Loach v. Crowley's Inc., 5 Cir., 128 F.2d 378) if the halt in the movement of the goods is a convenient intermediate step in the process of getting them to their final destinations, they remain 'in commerce' until they reach those points. Then there is a practical continuity of movement of the goods until they reach the customers for whom they are intended. That is sufficient. Any other test would allow formalities to conceal the continuous nature of the interstate transit which constitutes commerce.
In this connection we cannot be unmindful that Congress in enacting this statute plainly indicated its purpose to leave local business to the protection of the states. S.Rep.No. 884, 75th Cong., 1st Sess., p. 5; 83 Cong.Rec., 75th Cong., 3d Sess., Pt. 8, p. 9169. Moreover as we stated in Kirschbaum Co. v. Walling, supra, 316 U.S. 522, 523, 62 S.Ct. 1119, 1120, 86 L.Ed. 1638, Congress did not exercise in this Act the full scope of the commerce power. We may assume the validity of the argument that since wholesalers doing a local business are in competition with wholesalers doing an interstate business, the latter would be prejudiced if their competitors were not required to comply with the same labor standards. That consideration, however, would be pertinent only if the Act extended to businesses or transactions 'affecting commerce'. But as we noted in the Kirschbaum case the Act did not go so far. It is urged, however, that a different result obtains in case of wholesalers. The argument is based on the fact that the Act excepts from § 6 and § 7 'any employee employed in a * * * local retailing capacity' (§ 13(a)(1) and 'any employee engaged in any retail or service establishment the greater part of whose selling or servicing is in intrastate commerce'. § 13(a)(2). Since retailers are excluded by reason of these express provisions, it is thought that the inclusion of wholesalers should be implied. There is, however, no indication in the legislative history that but for the exemption of retailers it was thought that all movement of goods from manufacturers to wholesalers and on to retailers would be 'in commerce' within the meaning of the Act, where the wholesalers and retailers were in the same state. It is quite clear that the exemption in § 13(a)(2) was added to eliminate those retailers located near the state lines and making some interstate sales. 83 Cong.Rec., 75th Cong., 3d Sess., Pt. 7, pp. 7281—7282, 7436—7438.2 And the exemption for retailers contained in § 13(a)(1) was to allay the fears of those who felt that a retailer purchasing goods from without the state might otherwise be included. Id. Hence we cannot conclude that all phases of a wholesale business selling intrastate are covered by the Act solely because it makes its purchases interstate. The use of the words 'in commerce' entails an analysis of the various types of transactions and the particular course of business along the lines we have indicated.