Court Opinion

ID: 9639953
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-22 16:52:56.52215+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:10:23.531449
License: Public Domain

SIBLEY, Circuit Judge.
I concur in the philosophy and the conclusions of Judge HUTCHESON’S opinion. T wish only to emphasize that the wage agreements before us are actual, deliberate contracts intelligently made, and not mere bookkeeping or a scheme to evade the Fair Labor Standards Act. They are made mainly with the editors and reporters and those who assist them in producing a daily newspaper. The employees in the mechanical departments have union agreements not here involved. The time that editors and newsgatherers must work is necessarily very variable and unpredictable. When things are quiet, a few hours a day may suffice. In times of news activity a twelve hour day may be required. It is practically difficult to make a fair working agreement based on hours worked. The. agreements here in question are similar in form and recite the requirements of the law as to minimum wages, maximum hours and overtime pay, and conclude thus: “In order to conform our employment arrangements to the scheme of the Act your basic rate of pay will be 75 cents per hour10 for the maximum number of hours each week as specified by the Act, and that for time over the maximum number of hours specified you will receive for each hour of work not less than one and one-half time such basic rate above mentioned, with a guaranty on our part that you shall receive weekly for regular time and such overtime as the necessities of the business may demand a stun not less than $45.00.” The proposal was accepted in writing by each such employee. The contract follows exactly what the Act requires, except for the guaranty of a minimum weekly total. That guaranty is for the protection and benefit of the employee, the needs for whose living are constant whether his weekly work is or not. It enables him to know that he will have at least the guaranteed sum to live on no matter how slack his work may prove. This helps to maintain a decent standard of living which is the main purpose of the Act. It is not forbidden by the Act. When the guaranty is made ill good faith in the exercise of the right of free contract, it does not spoil the other terms of the contract and result in unintended liabilities that are inconsistent with the contract.
I am authorized to say that Judges FOSTER and HUTCHESON concur in this additional statement.

 In every case the amount is above the minimum.