Opinion ID: 656580
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: The FLSA's Agricultural Exemption

Text: 14 The Secretary argues that the district court erred in holding that loading trailers and tanks at Tiller Helicopter headquarters for spraying operations, traveling to and from work sites, and flushing the tanks on the trailers upon return to Tiller Helicopter headquarters was exempt work within the meaning of the FLSA because the court's holding effectively eliminates the statutory requirement that agriculturally exempt work be performed by a farmer or on a farm. 29 U.S.C. § 203(f). Appellees argue that these necessary and incidental agricultural support activities fall within the agricultural exemption to the FLSA because both Mr. Tiller and Tiller Helicopter are farmers performing work on a farm. An understanding of the parties' arguments and our resolution of them requires an appreciation of the legislative history of the agricultural exemption and its evolution through case law and regulations. 15 In 1938 Congress enacted the FLSA as a means of regulating minimum wages, maximum working hours, and child labor in industries that affected interstate commerce. 29 U.S.C. § 202; 81 Cong.Rec. 7648 (1937). As originally enacted the FLSA exempted agricultural workers from both its minimum wage and maximum hour provisions. 29 U.S.C. § 213(a)(6) (1938). Although with few exceptions the exemption of agricultural workers from the Act's minimum wage protection ended with the 1966 amendments to the Act, agricultural workers are still exempted from the FLSA's maximum hour, or overtime, provisions. 29 U.S.C. § 213(b)(12) states: 16 (b) The provisions of section 207 [maximum hours] of this title shall not apply with respect to-- 17 . . . . . 18 (12) any employee employed in agriculture or in connection with the operation or maintenance of ditches, canals, reservoirs, or waterways, not owned or operated for profit, or operated on a sharecrop basis, and which are used exclusively for supply and storing of water for agricultural purposes. 19 The dispute here is whether the Tiller Helicopter employees were employed in agriculture with regard to those activities found to be exempt by the district court. 20
21 The sponsor of the bill that was ultimately enacted as the FLSA, Senator Black of Alabama, clearly and unambiguously described the broad reach intended by the FLSA's agricultural exemption. 22 The bill specifically and unequivocally excludes certain industries and certain types of business from its scope and effect. It specifically excludes workers in agriculture of all kinds and of all types. There is contained in the measure, perhaps, the most comprehensive definition of agriculture which has been included in any one legislative proposal. 23 We have placed together in the bill definitions of agricultural work which have been fixed from time to time in other legislative enactments, and in addition to that we have drawn liberally from Mr. Webster's definition of agriculture. 24 81 Cong.Rec. 7648 (1937). As originally introduced the FLSA defined agriculture as ... any practices ordinarily performed by a farmer as an incident to such farming operations. 81 Cong.Rec. 7653 (1937). During the ensuing Congressional debates some senators became concerned that this language was not broad enough to exempt independent contractors hired by farmers to perform agricultural services such as wheat threshing. 3 In order to insure that independent contractors who performed agricultural tasks on farms, but who were not technically farmers, were covered by the exemption, Congress adopted an amended definition of agriculture that has remained unchanged since the FLSA was enacted. 4 25 'Agriculture' includes farming in all its branches and among other things includes the cultivation and tillage of the soil, dairying, the production, cultivation, growing, and harvesting of any agricultural or horticultural commodities ..., the raising of livestock ... and any practices ... 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. 29 U.S.C. § 203(f). (emphasis added) 26 The Supreme Court first addressed the scope of the agricultural exemption in Farmers Reservoir & Irrigation Co. v. McComb, 337 U.S. 755, 760-763, 69 S.Ct. 1274, 1277-1278, 93 L.Ed. 1672 (1949). The Court stated that the determinative issue in analyzing the scope of the exemption was not whether the work is necessary to agricultural production ... [but whether it] can itself be termed agriculture. Id. at 759-760, 69 S.Ct. at 1277. The Court concluded that the exemption recognized two types of agricultural activity: primary and secondary. 27 Whether a particular type of activity is agricultural depends, in large measure, upon the way in which that activity is organized in a particular society ... 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 ... As can be readily seen, this definition [of agriculture] has two distinct branches. First, there is the primary meaning. Agriculture includes farming in all its branches. Certain specific practices such as cultivation and tillage of the soil, dairying, etc., are listed as being included in this primary meaning. Second, there is the broader meaning. Agriculture is defined to include things other than farming ... whether or not themselves farming practices, which are performed either by a farmer or on a farm, incidently to or in conjunction with such farming operations. 28 337 U.S. at 760-763, 69 S.Ct. at 1277-1278. For the broader, secondary agricultural activity to fall within the scope of the exemption, the Court stated that the activity had to meet two criteria: (1) it had to be performed either by a farmer or on a farm and (2) it had to be incidental to or in conjunction with farming operations. Id. at 766 and n. 15, 69 S.Ct. at 1280 and n. 15. 29 In Farmers Reservoir the Court held that work of employees of a water supply company cooperatively owned by a group of farmers was not exempt as secondary agricultural work even though the work was incidental to agriculture because it was not performed either by farmers or on a farm. 337 U.S. at 767, 69 S.Ct. at 1281. The Court reasoned that the employees' work was not performed by farmers, although the company that employed them was wholly owned by farmers, because the company had been established as an independent entity to supply water to farmers--an activity that the court characterized as self-contained and separated from the farmers' farming activities. The Court also reasoned that the employees' work was not exempt as work performed on a farm because the employees worked only on waterways owned by the company and never worked on the farms to which the company supplied water. 5 337 U.S. at 767-768, 69 S.Ct. at 1281. 30 Six years later in Maneja v. Waialua Agricultural Co., 349 U.S. 254, 75 S.Ct. 719, 99 L.Ed. 1040 (1955), the Court again addressed the scope of the agricultural exemption. The Court held that certain employees of a corporate sugar plantation were exempt from the FLSA's wage and hour provisions while others were not exempt even though, unlike the Farmers Reservoir employees, all of the Waialua employees worked both for a farmer and on a farm. The Court held that employees who operated the farm's railroad to transport work crews, equipment, and supplies to and from the fields and sugar cane to the processing plant and those who repaired the mechanical implements used in farming were exempt because their tasks were incidental to the farm's primary agricultural activities. Employees who worked in the corporation's sugar processing plant and who maintained the worker's village were not exempt because their jobs were not incidental to the farm's primary agricultural activities. 349 U.S. at 262-263, 75 S.Ct. at 724-725. The effect of Waialua was to narrow the second prong of the test for secondary agricultural activity. For secondary agricultural activity to be exempt it had to be performed by a farmer or on a farm and it had to be incidental to the farming operations performed either by the farmer for whom it was done or on the farm where it was done. 6 31 While Farmers Reservoir and Waialua established that the agricultural exemption is not available to nonfarmers performing secondary agricultural tasks off the farm, or to farm employees performing secondary agricultural tasks on a farm that are not incidental to the farm's own farming operations, neither case addressed the applicability of the exemption to independent contractors who perform primary agricultural tasks on the farms of client farmers and secondary agricultural tasks incidental to their clients' farming operations off their clients' farms. Those issues were addressed by this court in Wirtz v. Osceola Farms Co., 372 F.2d 584 (5th Cir.1967). In Osceola Farms we found that the principles established in Farmers Reservoir and Waialua did not preclude us from recognizing the need for independent contractors to perform secondary agricultural tasks off the farms of their client farmers without losing their right to the agricultural exemption. Osceola Farms was an independent contractor that provided farm laborers to harvest sugar cane from the fields of client farmers. We held that Osceola Farms drivers who transported the farm laborers to and from client's farms and who transported meals from off-farm locations to the laborers to eat in the fields were exempt because their work was incidental to the primary agricultural task of harvesting performed by the Osceola Farms laborers. Id. at 589. 32
33 The parties do not dispute that the employees on whose behalf the Secretary brought this action each spend part of their time employed in primary agriculture, i.e. cultivating the soil on farms of client farmers through the application of insecticides, herbicides, and fertilizers to fields and crops. 7 The dispute arises over the time that the Tiller Helicopter employees spend at the Tiller Helicopter farm loading the tanks and trailers necessary for spraying operations and flushing the tanks and trailers in preparation for the next day's work and the time they spend on public roads traveling to and from the clients' farms. 34 Asserting that secondary agricultural tasks must be performed either by a farmer or on the farm to which they are incidental, the Secretary argues that these tasks performed by Tiller Helicopter employees are not exempt because they are not performed by farmers or on the farms of the client farmers and are not the type of off-farm tasks that can be regarded as performed on a farm because Tiller Helicopter employees spend more than a small amount of time performing these off-farm tasks. Appellees respond that the employees are covered by the agricultural exemption because Tiller is a farmer and because the employees in question perform their off-farm tasks either on Tiller's farm or on roads en route to the farms of Tiller Helicopter's clients. 35 Based on the principles established in Farmers Reservoir, Waialua, and Osceola Farms we conclude that Tiller Helicopter employees are not employed by a farmer and that the tasks they perform on Tiller's farm are not performed on a farm for purposes of the agricultural exemption but that the secondary agricultural tasks performed by these employees are nevertheless exempt from the FLSA's overtime provisions because they are incidental to the primary agricultural activities that the employees perform on the farms of Tiller Helicopter's clients. 36 1. Tiller Helicopter employees are not employed by a farmer and tasks performed on Tiller's farm are not performed on a farm for purposes of the agricultural exemption. 37 Although the parties do not dispute that Tiller himself is a farmer and that the employees at issue load and flush tanks and trailers on Tiller's farm, these employees are employed by Tiller Helicopter, an independently organized business that owns no land, raises no crops, and performs several different types of services, some of which are not agricultural in nature, for example, lawn spraying. These employees are therefore not employed by a farmer for purposes of the agricultural exemption. Farmers Reservoir, 337 U.S. at 763, 69 S.Ct. at 1278; 29 C.F.R. § 780.137. Moreover, because the secondary agricultural tasks of loading and flushing the tanks and trailers performed on Tiller's farm are performed in conjunction with agricultural activities conducted on the farms of Tiller Helicopter's clients rather than the agricultural activities conducted on Tiller's own farm, the fact that the work is performed on Tiller's farm does not mean that it is performed on a farm for purposes of the agricultural exemption. Farmers Reservoir, 337 U.S. at 766 n. 15, 69 S.Ct. 1280 n. 15, citing Bowie, 117 F.2d 11; Waialua, 349 U.S. at 262-263, 75 S.Ct. at 724-725; 29 C.F.R. § 780.141. 38 2. Secondary agricultural tasks performed by Tiller Helicopter employees are exempt because they are incidental to primary agricultural activities that the employees perform on a farm. 39 Our conclusion that the affected employees are not employed by a farmer and that much of the work at issue is not performed on a farm does not end our analysis because, as the Supreme Court explained in Farmers Reservoir, the question here is whether the occupation of the field employees of the ... company can itself be termed agriculture. 337 U.S. at 760, 69 S.Ct. at 1277. Because the Tiller Helicopter employees' tasks of applying herbicides, insecticides, and fertilizers to the fields of client farmers fall within the definition of agriculture adopted by Congress in 29 U.S.C. § 203(f), we conclude that the disputed off-farm activities are exempt because they are incidental to the primary agricultural tasks that the employees perform on clients' farms. This result is supported by the legislative history of the FLSA, our holding in Osceola Farms, and the Secretary's own regulations. 40 The legislative history of the FLSA that we have chronicled above reflects Congress's unequivocal intent to exempt independent contractors who travel from farm to farm assisting farmers in primary agricultural activities from the scope of the FLSA by including them within the agricultural exemption. Like the wheat threshers and peanut harvesters discussed in the congressional debates, Tiller Helicopter employees travel from farm to farm assisting farmers in the primary agricultural task of cultivating the soil. In his own regulations the Secretary acknowledges that 41 [t]he legislative history makes it plain that ... language was particularly included [in the FLSA] to make certain that independent contractors such as threshers of wheat, who travel around from farm to farm to assist farmers in what is recognized as a purely agricultural task ... should be included within the definition of agricultural employees. 42 29 C.F.R. § 780.128. 43 Recognizing that aerial spraying operations are analogous to wheat threshing operations, and that aerial spraying necessarily involves off-farm activities that fall within the agricultural exemption, the Secretary has exempted by regulation pilots and flagmen employed by aerial spraying contractors and decreed that off-farm work performed by such employees will not preclude them from coming within the ambit of the agricultural exemption. 44 Pilots and flagmen engaged in the aerial dusting and spraying of crops are examples of the types of employees of independent contractors who may be considered employed in practices performed on a farm. ... Even though an employee may work on several farms during a workweek, he is regarded as employed on a farm for the entire workweek if his work on each farm pertains solely to farming operations on that farm. The fact that a minor and incidental part of the work of such an employee occurs off the farm will not affect this conclusion. Thus, an employee may spend a small amount of time within the workweek in transporting necessary equipment for work to be done on farms. 45