Court Opinion

ID: 9420068
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-02 22:52:47.162956+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:22:22.172925
License: Public Domain

Mr. Justice Murphy,
with whom Mr. Justice Black and Mr. Justice Douglas concur,
dissenting.
Apart from § 13 (b) (1), it is clear that petitioner’s truck drivers and mechanics are subject to the wage and hour provisions of the Fair Labor Standards Act. They spend virtually all of their time in transportation activities which are an integral part of the production of goods for interstate commerce. Walling v. Comet Carriers, 151 F. 2d 107. The issue thus becomes one of determining whether these employees are plainly and unmistakably within the terms and spirit of the § 13 (b) (1) exemption, giving due regard to the rule that exemptions from the operation of humanitarian legislation are to be narrowly construed. Phillips Co. v. Walling, 324 U. S. 490, 493.
By a pedantically literal reading of § 13 (b) (1), it is possible to say that these employees are among those as to whom the Interstate Commerce Commission has “power” to establish qualifications and maximum hours of service. A sporadic and minute portion of their activities, approximating 3% to 4% of the total, affects the *439safety of operation of trucks in interstate commerce. The Commission’s power under § 204 (a) of the Motor Carrier Act is confined to regulation of transportation in interstate and foreign commerce; and its jurisdiction over employees’ activities is limited to those which affect the safety of operation of motor vehicles engaged in such transportation. United States v. American Trucking Assns., 310 U. S. 534. Hence the potential scope of the Commission’s “power” over petitioner’s employees is extremely narrow. Approximately 97% of their activities are beyond the jurisdiction of the Commission. Yet it is by the slender thread of this “power” that they fall within § 13 (b) (1) and hence are deprived of the benefits of the Fair Labor Standards Act.
Due respect for the legislative purpose militates against such a result. We are dealing here with a statute that is dedicated to the proposition that laboring men are to be treated as something more than chattels. And their statutory rights are not to be discarded by adherence to formalistic dogmas of interpretation. Section 13 (b) (1) is not just an exercise in grammar. It is part of the living fiber embodying the rights of those who labor for others. It must be read and interpreted in the light of reason and in the light of the aims which Congress sought to achieve.
When that is done, it becomes clear that when § 13 (b) (1) speaks of those over whom the Interstate Commerce Commission has “power” it means those who perform at least a substantial amount of activities within the Commission’s jurisdiction. Congress was not concerned with insignificant conflicts between Fair Labor Standards Act regulations and Interstate Commerce Commission regulations. Nor was it desirous of leaving unregulated nearly all of the working time of those who are engaged in the production of goods for commerce but who spend infinitesimal amounts of time directly in interstate transportation. In other words, engaging in *440an occasional and microscopic amount of activities affecting safety of operation should no more exclude employees from the Act than sporadically shipping insubstantial amounts of goods in interstate commerce should bring those engaged in such shipments within the purview of the Act. See Mabee v. White Plains Pub. Co., 327 U. S. 178, 181. That was implicitly recognized by the Court in Pyramid Motor Corp. v. Ispass, 330 U. S. 695, 708, and I had not supposed until now that that case or Levinson v. Spector Motor Co., 330 U. S. 649, justified any other result.
Interpreting § 13 (b) (1) in disregard of reality only acts as an open invitation to evade the Act and to destroy the statutory rights of those trucking concern employees who now perform no activities which affect the safety of operations. All that the employer need do to withdraw the benefits of the Act from these employees is to send them occasionally to a terminal to pick up or deliver a piece of interstate freight. They then fall into the “power” of the Interstate Commerce Commission and automatically lose their rights under the Fair Labor Standards Act. I accordingly dissent.