Opinion ID: 326076
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: the agricultural exemption.

Text: 8 Neither the trial court nor the appellee in its brief undertakes to answer the contention of the appellant that, regardless of whether Skipper would be an exempt employee because of his work related to dairying activity, his admitted delivery and handling of completed processed products from other manufacturers, such as cream cheese, bottled fruit juices, dips and the like, prevented his employer from claiming the exemption based upon his dairying activities. As stated, it is without dispute that this company bought completely processed articles which Skipper daily placed on his truck and delivered to the stores on his route as a regular part of his duties for Superior Dairies. 9 The simplest answer to Superior's claimed exemption here was that given by this Court in Hodgson v. Wittenburg, 464 F.2d 1219 (5th Cir. 1972): 10 The answer to that lies partly in the rule that an employee's performance of both exempt and non-exempt activities during the same work week defeats any exemption that would otherwise apply. 11 This Court also said in Brennan v. Six Flags Over Georgia Ltd., 474 F.2d 18 (5th Cir. 1973): 12 Nor does it make any difference that the employee is doing mixed work. In any week that any particular employee does some non-exempt work he is covered fully, not pro rata. 13 Citing Hodgson, supra, and Mitchell v. Hunt, 263 F.2d 913 (5th Cir. 1959). 14 Moreover, we conclude that the agricultural exemption does not apply to the activities performed by Skipper relative to his delivery and disposition of the dairy products. It is hardly necessary to invoke the principle that an exemption from this ameliorating statute is to be strictly limited, Phillips v. Walling, 324 U.S. 490, 65 S.Ct. 807, 89 L.Ed. 1095, to conclude that under the precise language of the Act no exemption applies to one who plays no part in the actual production of the agricultural product unless such part as is being played takes place on a farm. The language of the section is as follows: 15 29 U.S.C. § 203-Definitions. 16 As used in this chapter- ...(f) '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 (including commodities defined as agricultural commodities in section 1141j(g) of Title 12), the raising of livestock, bees, fur-bearing animals, or poultry, and any practices (including any forestry or lumbering operations) performed by a farmer or on a farm as an incident to or in conjunction with such farming operations, and including preparation for market, delivery to storage or to market or to carriers for transportation to market. (Emphasis added.) 17 The officers of this defendant do not themselves consider that they are in the business of dairying. They recognize that they are in the business of a packaging and processing plant of dairy products. The activities that take place with respect to raw milk purchased from producers, place them in the same situation as the rancher and stock man in Hodgson v. Wittenburg, supra, who sought to exempt his employees who operated his feed lot and corrals before selling the cattle that were shipped in by others for the purpose of sale. 18 As discussed in this Court's opinions in Wirtz v. Osceola Farms Co., 372 F.2d 584 (5th Cir. 1967) and as reiterated in Brennan v. Sugar Cane Growers Cooperative of Florida, 486 F.2d 1006 (5th Cir. 1973) the defendants here must prevail, if at all, on the provisions of § 13(b)(12) of the Act 1 as construed in connection with § 3(f) of the Act, Title 29 U.S.C. § 203(f) which is quoted above. In other words, Skipper is an exempt employee only if he is employed in agriculture as contemplated by § 3(f), the definition section dealing with agriculture. In both Osceola and Sugar Cane, this Court stated that this statutory definition of agriculture as construed by the Supreme Court embraces both a primary and secondary concept of agriculture: 19 As can be readily seen this definition 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 as so illustrated. It includes any practices, whether or not themselves farming practices, which are performed either by a farmer or on a farm, incidently (sic) to or in conjunction with 'such' farming operations. Farmers Reservoir & Irrigation Co. v. McComb, 1948, 337 U.S. 755, 762-763, 69 S.Ct. 1274, 1278, 93 L.Ed. 1672, 1680. 20 It is clear that if Skipper was employed in agriculture, it would be only under the secondary meaning of the section. To ask whether Skipper, in picking up from Superior Dairies, a company that buys its raw milk from the original farmers, and located nowhere near a farm, and delivering products to the stores on his route was performing acts either by a farmer or on a farm is, it seems to us, to answer the question. The outer limits of activities that might be said to qualify under this secondary meaning would, it seems to us, be those involved in the Sugar Cane case, supra. There the Sugar Cane company had its mill complex in the middle of an area occupied by sugar farms or plantations. The company furnished employees who actually harvested the sugar cane, being transported to and from their work daily. The question was whether the cooks and attendants working at the barracks and appurtenant facilities used by the workers were exempt. This Court held that under the circumstances there existing this was work which was done on a farm for purposes of the agricultural exemption. The court there said: 21 It could not be physically possible for Sugar Cane to place its labor camps right in the middle of the cane fields. Sugar Cane does not claim an agricultural exemption for workers whose efforts are confined to a processing mill at some remote location. These employees, rather, perform their work at a location in close proximity to the fields worked by the laborers for whom they cook and clean. The court then stated: 22 We hold, consequently, that because of the unique facts of this case, the question of whether the work of the camp cooks and attendants was done 'on a farm' should be resolved against the Secretary. A labor camp housing 375 men is 'on a farm' in the only sense it can be if it is in fact adjacent to and near the farmland being harvested. 23 We conclude therefore that the agricultural exemption did not cover the activities of Superior Dairies and thus Skipper was not employed in agriculture within the contemplation of § 13(b)(12) of the Act. 24