Court Opinion

ID: 9449211
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-04 00:01:16.821959+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:31:45.706600
License: Public Domain

ON PETITION FOR REHEARING
PER CURIAM.
The Secretary of Labor on motion for rehearing vigorously contends, as did Judge RIVES in his dissenting opinion, that the facts of this case fail to demonstrate that the activities in question here were sporadic, infrequent, isolated and purely local in scope and thus not within the coverage of the Act.
In substantiation of this position, our attention has been called to the answers of appellee roofing company to certain requests for admissions and interrogatories. These were not a part of the printed record and have not heretofore been called to our attention, nor were they called to the attention of the District Court where the case was tried in a broadsword manner.* Indeed, they were not offered in evidence. The Secretary depended on a stipulation, expressed in general terms with no statement anywhere even of the dollar volume of business done by appellee, to prevail. Appellee relied on his own testimony which, in the view of the majority of this court and the District Court, having in mind that the burden of proof was on the Secretary, was sufficiently particularized to indicate activity of a local nature. However, it is apparent from the record that the stipulation regarding work on buildings used in interstate and foreign commerce, and for the production of goods for such commerce was in large measure based on these answers.
The admissions relate to a partial list of appellee’s sales invoices for the period October 6, 1958 to October 6, 1960. This list demonstrates with some specificity frequent and recurring services during the two year period with regard to several of the twenty two interstate firms with whom appellee did thirty percent of whatever his business was during the period in suit, October 6, 1958 to September 21, 1961. The following table based on a comparison of the invoices with the names of these interstate firms make this clear:

Firm Number of Invoices

Florida Machine & Foundry 47
Boone Terminal Warehouses 16
Flowers Baking Co. 14
N & L Auto Parts Co. 10
Fla. Feed Mills 9'
Jacksonville Ginter Box Co. 9
Daylight Grocery Co. 8'
Tire Mart National Fleet Service 8 Jacksonville Box Co. 7
Monticello Drug Co. 6
Railway Express 4
Wilson-Toomer Fertilizer Co. 4
Heichhold Chemicals, Inc. 2
Central Truck Lines 2
Wright’s Supply Co. 2
Commodore Point Terminal 1
K & G Box Co. 1
The E. B. Malone Co. 1
Ilershey Sugar Co. 1
B. F. Goodrich Tire Co. 1
C. I. Capps Foundry 1
Duval Barrel and Bottle Company 0
The dates of the invoices as they relate to each firm indicate the frequency of service, and, of course, the amount of each goes to the question of the employee activity on the particular job.
*352The answer, in response to an interrogatory, shows that the only records available as to employee hours worked for these firms had to do with Boone Terminal Warehouse for six separate weekly periods. Seventeen of the twenty four employees of appellee rendered services on the property of this firm during ■one or more of these weeks. For a case involving the consideration of evidence ■of this kind, although having to do with a different type employee activity, see Roland Electric Co. v. Walling, 1946, 326 U.S. 657, 66 S.Ct. 413, 90 L.Ed. 383.
 The law is, as both the majority and dissenting opinions point out, that coverage depends on the activities of the employees and not upon the nature, interstate or local, of the business of the employer. And as the Secretary points out in his rehearing brief, any injunction issued would apply to only those employees covered and' then only during those workweeks when so engaged, citing Tobin v. Alstate Construction Co., 3 Cir., 1952, 195 F.2d 577, affirmed sub nom. Alstate Construction Company v. Durkin, 345 U.S. 13, 73 S.Ct. 565, 97 L.Ed. 745.
A litigant ordinarily does not get ■a second chance to try his case where he foregoes putting in evidence, but there is a sharp conflict on the court as to the inferences to be drawn from the sparse ■evidence introduced on the first trial. And, in light of the importance of the question presented, we think the ends of justice would be better served by vacating our opinion in this matter so that the case may be remanded to the District Court for a new trial. There it is to be reconsidered and determined on the basis ■of all available, relevant, admissible evidence which either party may care to ■offer in an effort to finally sustain his position.
The motion for rehearing is granted. ■Our judgment heretofore rendered is vacated and set aside. The judgment appealed from is reversed, and the case is remanded for further proceedings not inconsistent herewith.
Reversed and remanded.