Court Opinion

ID: 9452133
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-04 17:31:15.875783+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:33:05.056619
License: Public Domain

JOHNSON, District Judge
(dissenting) :
As to that part of the majority opinion affirming the District Court in its finding and conclusion that certain of the employees of the B. B. Saxon Company, Inc., were not “engaged in commerce or in the production of goods for commerce” within the meaning of the Fair Labor Standards Act, I dissent.
Craig Air Force Base operates as an integrated whole and as such is a part of the network of bases operated by the United States Air Force. All of the work performed by the appellee, B. B. Saxon Company, Inc., was similarly performed as a part of the integrated project. It was performed under one contract, supervised and administered by Craig Air Force Base personnel as a single entity. Appellee’s contract called for keeping the planes fueled, the runways and streets in repair, the buildings in a fit condition for habitation, and the Air Force personnel who were stationed at Craig suitably housed. These functions were essential to the base’s operation as an integrated unit of the United States Air Force network of bases.
Undoubtedly, Craig Air Force Base, as an installation, was and is a unit of interstate commerce. Mitchell v. Lublin et al., 358 U.S. 207, 79 S.Ct. 260, 3 L.Ed.2d 243 (1959); Mitchell v. Empire Gas Engineering Co., 256 F.2d 781 (5th Cir. 1958); Mitchell v. Blanchard, 272 F.2d 574 (5th Cir. 1959); Mitchell v. Ballenger Paving Co., 299 F.2d 297 (5th Cir. 1962).
It is equally well settled that any work which is so directly and vitally related to the functioning of such an instrumentality as to be, “in practical effect, a part of it, rather than isolated local activity,” is “in commerce” within the meaning of the Fair Labor Standards Act. Mitchell v. Lublin, supra; Mitchell v. C. W. Vollmer & Company, 349 U.S. 427, 75 S.Ct. 860, 99 L.Ed. 1196 (1955); Archer v. Brown & Root, Inc., 241 F.2d 663 (5th Cir.), cert. denied 355 U.S. 825, 78 S.Ct. 33, 2 L.Ed.2d 39 (1957). To proceed, as the majority does, to fragmentize the operation of Craig Air Force Base and to view its various facilities as isolated, distinct entities, and to conclude, therefore, that employees of the appellee were not in some instances engaged “in commerce,” but, to the contrary performed work “purely local in nature,” is completely unrealistic. Rather, employees who provide janitorial service in the base office buildings and other structures on the base, including the gymnasium, commissary and post office, employees who operate the sewage facilities, employees who are engaged in* the control of insects and rodents in and around the buildings on the base so as to make them habitable *464and fit for their intended purposes, employees who operate the base housing administration office and who are charged with the responsibility of allocating housing and collecting rents, and the employees who are engaged in keeping the time and payroll records for the other classes of Saxon’s employees, are to me clearly performing duties and functions necessary for the efficient operation and maintenance of Craig Air Force Base; to break the operation of the base down into the various categories as the majority does defeats the purpose of the Fair Labor Standards Act. See Mitchell v. Lublin et al., supra; General Electric Company v. Porter, 208 F.2d 805 (9th Cir.), cert. denied 347 U.S. 951, 74 S.Ct. 676, 98 L.Ed. 1097 (1954); Goldberg v. Five Boro Construction Corporation, 291 F.2d 371 (1st Cir.), cert denied 368 U.S. 900, 82 S.Ct. 179, 7 L.Ed.2d 95 (1961). I therefore dissent.