Court Opinion

ID: 9458073
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-04 20:42:19.367796+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:35:37.788195
License: Public Domain

ON PETITION FOR REHEARING
PER CURIAM:
1. We adhere to the construction of Section 255 of the Fair Labor Standards Act embodied in the panel opinion of November 29, 1971. Even under the criminal provision of the Act, section 216(a), a “wilful” act has been interpreted to mean no more than one “deliberate, voluntary and intentional as distinguished from one committed through inadvertence, accidentally, or by ordinary negligence”. Nabob Oil Co. v. United States, 10 Cir. 1951, 190 F.2d 478, 480. Out of caution, however, we note that our interpretation of the word “wilful” as used in Section 255 was not intended to apply to Section 216(a). Our decision is limited to the particular facts of this case and to the question before us: civil liability under the Fair Labor Standards Act.
2. In a supplemental petition for rehearing, the appellants state that “[n] either this court nor the district court specifically addressed itself to the separate and distinct defense of Jiffy Farms, Jiffy Poultry, and Trainor; namely
on the 18th day of August, 1966, defendant Jiffy Farms and defendant Jiffy Poultry entered into a collective bargaining agreement with Teamsters, Chauffeurs, Warehousemen and Helpers Local Union No. 991 (Teamsters), certified by the National Labor Relations Board ... as the exclusive collective bargaining agent of the employees referred to in paragraph five of the complaint; said collective bargaining agreement contains a “final and binding” grievance and arbitration procedure; and, that pri- or to the filing of this action, it was finally determined through such grievance procedure that the employes referred to in paragraph five of the complaint were exempt from Section 7 of the Act, 29 U.S.C.A. 207, by virtue of Section 13(b) (1) of the Act, 29 U.S.C.A. 213(b) (1).
The appellants argue that their employees should be bound by their decision to process their claims for overtime wages through the grievance machinery of the collective bargaining agreement. In support of their contention that this issue is an important one, the appellants cite Iowa Beef Packers, Inc. v. Thompson, 405 U.S. 228, 92 S.Ct. 859, 31 L.Ed. 2d 165 (1972) where, after oral argument, the Supreme Court dismissed as improvidently granted a writ of certio-rari to consider “whether . . . employees may sue in court to recover overtime allegedly withheld in violation of the Fair Labor Standards Act, if their grievance of alleged statutory violation is also subject to resolution under grievance and arbitration provisions of a col*1143lective bargaining agreement”. Certio-rari was dismissed because “the grievance and arbitration provisions . . . of the collective bargaining agreement involved in this ease . . . apply only to grievances ‘pertaining to a violation of the Agreement.’ ”
It is not at all clear from the record in the present case whether it was “finally determined” through the contractual grievance procedure that the appellants’ employees were exempt from the overtime provisions of the FLSA. Nor is it clear just which, if any, of the appellees were parties to the grievance. We do not address these uncertainties because we are convinced that appellants’ argument is without merit, even assuming that all the aggrieved employees fully, and unsuccessfully pursued grievance procedures in an effort to secure vindication of their statutory right to overtime pay. We need not reach the question for which certiorari was originally granted in Iowa Beef Packers, supra.
The collective bargaining agreement between the Teamsters and the appellants defines a grievance as a “complaint by an employee or the Union concerning the interpretation or application of this agreement”. Article V, Section 1. The overtime dispute is covered by this relatively restrictive language because the collective bargaining agreement further provides that its overtime provisions “shall not apply to any employee with respect to whom the Interstate Commerce Commission has power to establish qualifications and maximum hours of service pursuant to the provisions of Section 304 of Title 49 United States Code”.
On its face, this contractual provision appears to cast us directly upon the problem of the Iowa Beef Packers case, supra. We should certainly face a serious question of the need for arbitration if union and management had agreed by contract to state management’s obligation to pay overtime in terms of management’s statutory obligation under the Fair Labor Standards Act. There could be some confidence in the legitimacy of arbitration under such circumstances, for union and management would each actively pursue differing views of the uncertain requirements imposed by the contract. The union would be required to make a good faith effort on behalf of the aggrieved employees, and management would, of course, be guided by its own interests.
The record in the present case, however, plainly reveals that the disputed provision in the Jiffy June collective agreement was not a provision to which management and union attached differing interpretations. As Jiffy June openly states in its brief at page 31, “The motor carrier exemption was suggested by the Teamsters. Through collective bargaining the truck drivers and loaders •obtained a raise; the Teamsters, as the truck drivers’ representative, recognized an overtime exemption”. In truth, then, Article XII, Section 3 of the agreement, though ostensibly ambiguous and susceptible of interpretation through the grievance machinery, embodied an unequivocal understanding between Teamsters and Jiffy June’s management. The understanding was that truck drivers and loaders were not to be paid overtime.
“Settling” the employees’ grievances through the contractual grievance machinery was, under the circumstances of this case, a hopeless charade. Its mind made up and its credibility committed, the union could not possibly provide the aggrieved employees with the fair and vigorous representation to which they were entitled in attempting to vindicate their statutory claim for overtime wages. If employees not fairly represented may sue in federal court to enforce contractual rights, it follows a fortiori that employees not fairly represented may sue, without regard to grievance procedures, to enforce the detailed rights given them by Congress when it enacted the Fair Labor Standards Act. See Vaca v. Sipes, 1967, 386 U.S. 171, 87 S.Ct. 903, 17 L.Ed.2d 842.
The petition for rehearing is denied.