Court Opinion

ID: 9458496
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-04 20:53:33.817484+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:35:47.221314
License: Public Domain

MERRILL, Circuit Judge
(dissenting) :
At issue is the power of the Secretary, by regulation, to define those fresh fruit and vegetable industries qualifying under either 29 U.S.C. § 207(c) or § 207(d) as not including “operations performed in connection with fresh fruits and vegetables which have been frozen * * * or otherwise changed so that they are no longer perishable or in their raw or natural state.”
By this definition employees engaged in operations upon frozen foods are in an “industry” distinct from those engaged in operations upon fresh fruits or vegetables.1 Thus an industry line may bisect a single factory.
The majority holds that the Secretary has no power so to define industry. I disagree. The characterization of industry in § 3(h) of the Act indicates the latitude given the Secretary.
“ ‘Industry’ means a trade, business, industry or branch thereof, or group of industries in which individuals are gainfully employed” (emphasis added).
Mitchell v. Oregon Frozen Foods Co., 254 F.2d 116 (9th Cir.1958), affirming 145 F.Supp. 157 (D.Ore.1956), on which the majority relies, does not deal with our problem. There the District Court was called upon to define “first processing,” since no agency was authorized to do so. Subsequently the Act was amended to authorize the Secretary to make definitions such as this which, at the time of the decision, the courts had been called upon to make.2
Nor do I find in legislative history as cited by the majority the congressional rejection of limitations that the majority sees. Congress’ refusal to adopt the 24-hour limit may very well have been due to reluctance to get involved in any administrative details or definitions, since it was passing to the Secretary the responsibility for making such determinations.3
*251The Secretary’s definitions of industry boundaries are presumptively correct. Mitchell v. Budd, 350 U.S. 473, 480, 76 S.Ct. 527, 100 L.Ed. 565 (1956); Craig v. Far West Engineering Co., 265 F.2d 251, 257 (9th Cir.1959). They will be stricken by a reviewing court only if the statute has not been applied “in a just and reasoned manner” (Gray v. Powell, 314 U.S. 402, 411, 62 S.Ct. 326, 332, 86 L.Ed. 301 (1911) or in the event that the regulations are “capricious” or rest on an “impermissible- standard.” Mitchell v. Budd, supra.
To me the definition here makes excellent sense and is completely in accord with the spirit of the Act and its intents and purposes. The Secretary, in defining industry, has simply borne in mind what it is that creates seasonal pressures and has limited the overtime exceptions to the branches of an industry that are subjected to those pressures. In this case the only seasonal pressure upon the packaging of frozen vegetables is that caused by the fact that some packaging must be done promptly after freezing, since the frozen foods bins cannot accommodate the whole harvest. This packaging the Secretary has accommodated by including within the industry definitions such packaging as is done within 24 hours of freezing. What is excluded from the definitions is the packaging from the bins — work that can be done at leisure once the seasonal pressures are lifted. I see no reason at all why work in this branch of the industry should be exempted from overtime simply because another branch of the industry is subjected to seasonal pressures.
The majority notes that the exemption claimed by appellant is only claimed during the harvest season. This may be true as of now. The majority ruling, however, frees appellant (to the extent of 20 weeks) to work its employees overtime throughout the year, on the packaging of frozen foods should it desire to do so.

. The fresh fruit and vegetable industry, however, also embraces oimrations performed upon commodities which have been frozen within the last twenty-four hours. Such a “reasonable break” between freezing and processing does not defeat the exemption. Opinion Letter # 697, October 20, 1967.

. Besides deputizing the expert agency, Congress expressed significant new policies in the 1966 Amendments, which expressions were not before the court in Oregon Frozen Foods, supra. Congress intended:
“fT]o give notice that the days of overtime exemptions for employees in the agricultural processing industry are rapidly drawing to a close, because advances in technology are making the continúation of such exemption unjustifiable.” Conference Report, No. 2004, 89th Cong., 2d Sess., 19 (1966). 2 L.S. Code Cong. & Ad.News (1966), p. 3049.

. Of more pertinence is the legislative history manifesting a congressional disapproval of broad extensions of the exemptions here involved:
“[T]he exemption [provided by the new § 7 (d) ] is strictly limited by the requirement that it apply only when the agricultural or horticultural commodities being processed are perishable and in their raw or natural state * * *. Perishable refers to commodities subject to deterioration or spoilage under ordinary circumstance's unless some affirmative action is taken within a short time to preserve them from spoilage or decay. *251It should also be noted that the commodity must be in its raw or natural state; that is, in the form in which it is customarily harvested. When an intervening operation such as freezing changes this condition in significant respects, the commodity is no longer in its raw or natural state.” Senate Rep. No. 1487, 89>th Cong., 2d Sess., 15-16 (1966). 2 U.S.Code Cong. & Ad.News (1966), p. 3017. See also, House Rep. No. 1366, 89th Cong., 2d Sess., 21 (1966) (emphasis added).