Court Opinion

ID: 8804752
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2022-11-26 14:44:53.264865+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:04:03.215651
License: Public Domain

SANBORN, Circuit Judge
(dissenting). The statute forbids any common carrier to permit an employé to be or remain on duty “for a longer period than 16 consecutive hours” and provides that when he has been on duty continuously for 16 hours he shall not be permitted to go on duty again until he has had “at least 10 consecutive hours off duty,” and when he has been on duty “16 hours in the aggregate” he shall not be permitted to continue or go on duty without having at least 8 consecutive hours off duty. The italics are mine, and are used to challenge attention to the fact that it is a continuous service, without break or intermission, for a long period of consecutive hours, against which the portion of the law here invoked is especially leveled, and to the fact that the term “consecutive hours” is used three times in the section, once to describe the term of continuous service permitted, 16 consecutive hours, and twice to describe terms off duty, at least “10 consecutive hours” in one case, and “at least 8 consecutive hours” in the other.
The record in this case discloses the fact that each of the employés whose service is the occasion of this action was absolutely released from duty by the employer for a definite period of at least 2 consecutive hours during a term of service which, if this intermission is counted as a part of it, did not amount to quite 18 hours, and that each employé was made fully aware of the fact of his freedom from service before this intermission therein commenced. Moreover, these releases were at terminals of the trips of the employés, or at terminals of the runs of their trains where the employés could obtain the accommodations of railroad stations, restaurants, and houses, and could be and were relieved of the mental tension as well as the manual labor of their service, and could be and were free from all care of their engines, or anything connected with the property of their employer. The law does not require the employer to compel its employés to sleep, or to rest, or to play, or to work during the intermission when they are off duty. It requires simply that they shall be relieved from continuous service *66during consecutive hours. A service of 8 hours, an intermission of 2 hours in which the employé is relieved of all duty and is free from service, followed immediately by a service of 8 consecutive hours, cannot be a service of 16 consecutive hours. If it is, then under the following provision of the statute an employé who, after serving for 16 consecutive hours, has 5 hours off duty, then 2 hours on duty, followed immediately by 5 hours off duty, has at least 10 consecutive hours off duty, and one who, after serving 16 hours in the aggregate in 24 hours, has 4 hours off duty, then 2 hours on duty, immediately followed by 4 hours off duty, has at least 8 consecutive hours off duty. This does not seem to me to be a permissible construction of the statute. The words “consecutive” and “continuously” in this statute seem to me to be not only significant, but controlling. It is common knowledge that continuous service for 16 consecutive hours exhausts, wearies, and weakens men, and tends to render them inattentive to duty, or incapable of discharging their duties, far more than an aggregate service of 16 hours in two periods of 5 hours and 11 hours each, with an intermission between them of 2 hours off duty — 2 hours of absolute relief from the strain, care, tension, and' labor of their duties. And it was against this exhaustion of continuous service for more than 16 consecutive hours that this statute was leveled. This is made plain by the express provision in the section under consideration that 10 consecutive hours off duty are required where the employé has been on duty for 16 consecutive hours, while only 8 consecutive hours off duty are required when he has been on duty 16 hours in the aggregate, but not 16 consecutive hours, in any 24-hour period. Judge Pollock in United States v. Atchison, Topeka & Santa Fé Ry. Co. (D. C.) 232 Fed. 196, 197, well remarked:
“Having in mind the purpose of Congress in the enactment of the law, that purpose is better subserved by permitting an operator to work 9 hours out of 10, with one hour absolutely his own, except in cases of emergency, that he might take his meals, relax, and have recreation, than would be the case where he is permitted to work 9 * * * consecutive hours.”
And in United States v. Atchison, Topeka & Santa Fé Ry. Co., 220 U. S. 37, 44, 31 Sup. Ct. 362, 55 L. Ed. 361, where a telegraph operator was employed from half past 6 o’clock in the morning until 12, and again from 3 p. m. to half past 6, or 9 hours in all, with an intermission of 3 hours, the Supreme Court declared that:
“A man employed for 6 hours and then, after an interval, for 3, in the same 24 hours is not employed for a longer period than 9 consecutive hours.”
Because each of the employés whose service was the occasion of this action was' fully released from duty, and from all care, tension, and labor for his employer, and knew that fact before the commencement of the intermission, for a definite period of more than 2 consecutive hours during the time, which was less than 18 hours, that it is claimed that he was on duty, because the company was not required under the law to make him sleep or rest or recreate, nor was the company required to do more than to relieve him from duty, so that he could have an opportunity to rest his mind and his body, and relax from the strain *67and tension of continuous thought and action for his employer, because the main purpose of the provision of this law under which this action is brought was not to forbid, but to permit, service for 16 hours in the aggregate within 24 hours, where, as in this case, there is an intermission of a substantial length of time, such as 2 hours between the hours of actual service constituting that aggregate, because that provision of the law is leveled at continuous service for more than 16 consecutive hours, and its object is to relieve the weariness and exhaustion resulting from continuous mental strain and physical labor without intermission for relaxation, because employes on duty 6 hours, then off duty 2 hours, and then on duty 10 hours, are not on duty 16 consecutive hours, and because while the employés in this case were on duty, if tho intermission be counted, a little more than 16 hours in the aggregate, I am unable to bring my mind to assent to the view that these men, who rendered less than 16 hours of actual discharge of duty, broken in each case by an interval or intermission of more than 2 consecutive hours, during which they were free from all duty, were on duty more than 16 consecutive hours, I am unable to resist the conclusion that the company was not liable for a violation of this law.