Opinion ID: 4114125
Heading Depth: 3
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: “Any Salesman, Partsman, or Mechanic”

Text: In 1966, Congress repealed the exemption for all employees of an automobile dealership and replaced it with a limited exemption for only three specific vocations: salesmen, partsmen, and mechanics. Then, as today, many different types of employees—including service advisors— worked at automobile dealerships. The Occupational Outlook Handbook listed many common vocations. Among those categories of workers that one might have expected to find at automobile dealerships in 1966, three job titles—emphasized NAVARRO V. ENCINO MOTORCARS 11 below—clearly align with the three job titles exempted by Congress: • Automobile body repairmen • Automobile mechanics • Automobile painters • Automobile parts countermen • Automobile salesmen • Automobile service advisors • Automobile upholsterers • Bookkeeping workers • Cashiers • Janitors • Purchasing agents • Shipping and receiving clerks OOH at XIII–XVIII (Table of Contents). Hence, looking only at the statutory exemption’s list of job titles, service advisors were excluded. Congress’ choice to exempt three—not four—job titles suggests that service advisors are not exempt. If, as Defendant posits, Congress intended to exempt service advisors, it could have included 12 NAVARRO V. ENCINO MOTORCARS “service advisors” in the statutory list. In sum, the most natural reading of the exemption is that Congress exempted only three commonly understood job titles—automobile salesmen, partsmen, and mechanics—and Congress therefore excluded service advisors. It is possible to read the exemption’s list of job titles more broadly, to encompass all persons whose functional roles meet the dictionary definitions of the terms “salesman,” “partsman,” or “mechanic.”4 A service advisor can be considered to sell services. Accordingly, if we read the exemption’s list of job titles broadly, a service advisor qualifies, in a generic sense, as a “salesman.”5 But even assuming that Congress intended a broad interpretation of the term “salesman,” not every “salesman” 4 We give the term “any” no significance. The term “any” “do[es] not broaden the ordinary meaning” of the word it modifies. BP Am. Prod. Co. v. Burton, 549 U.S. 84, 93 (2006). That principle applies with special force here. Both before and after the 1966 amendments to the FLSA, each of the 33 exemptions in § 213(a) and § 213(b) began with the term “any.” See 29 U.S.C. § 213(a)(1)–(22) (1965) (beginning with “any”); id. § 213(b)(1)–(11) (1965) (same); id. § 213(a)(1)–(14) (1967) (same); id. § 213(b)(1)–(19) (1967) (same). The word “any” was plainly a drafting convention, not an expression of congressional intent that we interpret a particular exemption expansively. 5 See Random House Dictionary of the English Language (“Random House”) 1262 (1966) (defining “salesman” as “a man who sells goods, services, etc.”); Webster’s Third New International Dictionary (“Webster’s Third”) 2003 (1965) (“one employed to sell goods or services either within a given territory or in a store”); 9 Oxford English Dictionary (“OED”) 50 (1933) (“A man whose business it is to sell goods or conduct sales”); see also American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language (“American Heritage”) 1144 (1st ed. 1969) (“A man employed to sell merchandise in a store or in a designated territory”). NAVARRO V. ENCINO MOTORCARS 13 is exempt; the statute covers only those who are “primarily engaged in selling or servicing automobiles.” 29 U.S.C. § 213(b)(10)(A). We therefore consider next whether service advisors primarily engage in selling or servicing cars.