Court Opinion

ID: 9419363
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-02 22:49:07.099892+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:22:17.709780
License: Public Domain

Mr. Justice Murphy,
dissenting:
I think that petitioner is covered by the Fair Labor Standards Act.
In using the phrase “engaged in commerce” Congress meant to extend the benefits of the Act to employees “throughout the farthest reaches of the channels of interstate commerce.” Walling v. Jacksonville Paper Co., 317 U. S. 564, 567. We recently construed the phrase to include employees whose activities are so closely related to interstate commerce “as to be in practice and in legal contemplation a part of it.” Overstreet v. North Shore Corp., 318 U. S. 125, 129, 130, 132. This practical test was derived from cases such as Pedersen v. Delaware, L. & W. R. Co., 229 U. S. 146, 151, and Philadelphia, B. & W. R. Co. v. Smith, 250 U. S. 101, construing similar language in the Federal Employers’ Liability Act.1 The activities of petitioner in cooking for a traveling maintenance crew of an interstate railroad are sufficient to satisfy this test. It was so held in the Smith case, 250 U. S. 101, the facts of which are virtually identical with the instant case except for the immaterial difference that petitioner here was employed by an independent contractor rather than by the railroad itself.2 The reasoning of the Smith case is persuasive and should control this one.
*499The opinion of the Court, .however, rejects the concept of coverage used in the Smith case for the narrower test of whether an employee is engaged “in interstate transportation or in work so closely related to it as to be practically a part of it,” used in another line of cases under the Federal Employers' Liability Act.3 I think this is wrong for several reasons.
The Fair Labor Standards Act extends to employees “engaged in commerce,” not merely to those engaged in transportation.4 As the Bolle case itself points out: “Commerce covers the whole field of which transportation is only a part.” 284 U. S. at 78. Hence, whatever basis there may have been for restricting the coverage of the Federal Employers' Liability Act to employees actually engaged in transportation because of the fact that the Act applied only to those working for employers engaged in interstate transportation by rail,5 can have no possible application or bearing on the interpretation of the Fair Labor Standards Act. The coverage of this Act is much more extensive. It is not limited to employees of interstate carriers but extends generally to employees engaged in all kinds of commerce, including transportation. Nothing in the Act suggests that it has a narrower application to employees whose work “in commerce” is transportation or work connected therewith, than it has to employees who are engaged in commerce but whose work has nothing to do with transportation. Such a construction is untenable because it would discriminate without reason between different types of employees, all *500of whom fall within the same general statutory classification of “engaged in commerce.”
The necessary effect of rejecting the Smith case for the restrictive concept of “in commerce” which was used in the Shanks,6 Bolle7 Commission,8 and Bezue 9 cases is to introduce into the administration of the Fair Labor Standards Act that concededly undesirable confusion which characterized the application of the Federal Employers’ Liability Act and prompted the 1939 amendment (53 Stat. 1404) which in effect repudiated the narrow test of the Shanks line of cases. The reality of this confusion is readily demonstrable. We have held that a rate clerk employed by an interstate motor carrier10 and a seller of tickets on a toll bridge over which interstate traffic moves11 are both “engaged in commerce” within the meaning of the Fair Labor Standards Act. Yet, in the view of the majority of the Court, when the employees’ activities are in the field of transportation, the Act apparently will not cover12 those who work in an interstate carrier’s repair shop on facilities to supply power for machinery used in repairing instrumentalities of transportation,13 or who heat cars and depots used by interstate passengers,14 or who store fuel for the use of interstate vehicles,15 or who work on such vehicles when with*501drawn for the moment from commerce for repairs.16 The anomaly of this is clear — there is no sound reason for extending the benefits of the Act to a rate clerk employed in the office of an interstate motor carrier and denying them to the janitor who keeps the office clean and warm, or the employee who works in the carrier’s shop on machinery used to repair interstate vehicles, or on the vehicles themselves.
If the applicable provision were “engaged in the production of goods for commerce” instead of “engaged in commerce,” our decisions make it clear that employees such as the janitor and the shop tender and probably petitioner would be within the Act. Cf. Kirschbcmm Co. v. Walling, 316 U. S. 517; Warren-Bradshaw Co. v. Hall, 317 U. S. 88.17 The phrase “engaged in commerce” should be as broadly construed. In the words of one of the Act’s sponsors, the phrase extends to “employees who are a necessary part of carrying on” a business operating in interstate commerce.18 Petitioner’s work was evidently considered necessary to the operation of the railroad, else it would have made no provision for boarding its maintenance crews. We have cast the relevant tests for determining the scope of the two phrases of coverage in substantially similar language. In Kirschbaum Co. v. Walling, work which “had such a close and immediate tie with the process of production for commerce” as to be “an essential part *502of it” was held to be “necessary to the production of goods for commerce.” 316 U. S. at 525-26. Correspondingly, in Overstreet v. North Shore Corp., we held that the phrase “engaged in commerce” includes work which “is so intimately related to interstate commerce ‘as to be in practice and in legal contemplation a part of it.’ ” 318 U. S. at 130. The purpose of the “production of goods for commerce” phrase was obviously not to cut down the scope of “engaged in commerce,” but to broaden the Act’s application by reaching conditions in the production of goods for commerce which Congress considered injurious to interstate commerce. See United States v. Darby, 312 U. S. 100. The effect of the Court’s decision today, however, is to recognize that federal power over commerce has been sweepingly exercised when an employee’s work is in the production of goods for commerce, but to limit it, when the employee’s activities are in transportation or connected therewith, to the narrow and legislatively repudiated view of the Shanks, Bolle, Commission and Bezue cases. Such an unbalanced application of the statute is contrary to its purpose of affording coverage broadly “throughout the farthest reaches of the channels of interstate commerce” to employees “engaged in commerce.”
The judgment should be reversed.
Mr. Justice Black, Mr. Justice Douglas and Mr, Justice Rutledge join in this dissent.

 Act of April 22, 1908, 35 Stat. 65, as it was before the amendment of 1939, 53 Stat. 1404. 45 U. S. C. § 51 et seq.

 The application of the Fair Labor Standards Act, of course, depends upon the character of the employees’ activities, not the nature of the employer’s business. Overstreet v. North Shore Corp., 318 U. S. 125, 132, and cases cited.

 Shanks v. Delaware, L. & W. R. Co., 239 U. S. 556, 558; Chicago & North Western Ry. Co. v. Bolle, 284 U. S. 74; Chicago & Eastern Illinois R. Co. v. Commission, 284 U. S. 296; New York, N. H. & H. R. Co. v. Bezue, 284 U. S. 415.

 The Act defines “commerce” as: “trade, commerce, transportation, transmission, or communication among the several States or from any State to any place outside thereof.” 52 Stat. 1060, 29 U. S. C. § 203.

 See Chicago & North Western Ry. Co. v. Bolle, 284 U. S. 74, 78.

 239 U. S. 556.

 284 U. S. 74.

 284 U. S. 296.

 284 U. S. 415.

 Overnight Motor Co. v. Missel, 316 U. S. 572.

 Overstreet v. North Shore Corp., 318 U. S. 125.

 This is discussed wholly apart from the question of the applicability of § 7 because of the exemption contained in § 13 (b) (1) of the Act. See Southland Gasoline Co. v. Bayley, ante, p. 44.

 Cf. Shanks v. Delaware, L. & W. R. Co., 239 U. S. 556.

 Cf. Chicago & North Western Ry. Co. v. Bolle, 284 U. S. 74.

 Cf. Chicago & Eastern Illinois R. Co. v. Commission, 284 U. S. 296.

 Cf. New York, N. H. & H. R. Co. v. Bezue, 284 U. S. 415.

 Employees cooking for workers engaged in the production of goods for commerce have been held to be similarly engaged and covered by the Act. Consolidated Timber Co. v. Womack, 132 F. 2d 101; Hanson v. Lagerstrom, 133 F. 2d 120.

 Speaking for the Senate conferees on the Conference Report, Senator Borah said: .. if the business is such as to occupy the channels of interstate commerce, any of the employees who are a necessary part of carrying on that business are within the terms of this bill, and, in my opinion, are under the Constitution of the United States.” 83 Cong. Rec. 9170.