Court Opinion

ID: 9419754
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-02 22:51:23.227568+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:22:20.449965
License: Public Domain

Me. Justice Muephy,
dissenting.
I agree that to print approximately 10,000 newspapers a day and regularly to send 45 of them, or % of 1%, out of the State is to produce goods for interstate commerce. But I cannot agree that Congress meant to include a business of that nature within the ambit of the Fair Labor Standards Act of 1938.
This Court, in Labor Board v. Fainblatt, 306 U. S. 601, 606, stated that “The amount of the commerce regulated is of special significance only to the extent that Congress may be taken to have excluded commerce of small volume from the operation of its regulatory measure by express provision or fair implication.” Concededly, Congress has not excluded commerce of small volume from the coverage of the Fair Labor Standards Act by “express provision.” But certainly the “fair implication” is one. of exclusion. On numerous occasions we have pointed out that Congress in this Act did not exercise the full scope of its commerce power, Kirschbaum Co. v. Walling, 316 U. S. 517, 522-523, and that Congress plainly indicated its purpose to leave local business to the protection of the States so far as wage and hour problems were concerned, Walling v. Jacksonville Paper Co., 317 U. S. 564, 570; Phillips Co. v. Walling, 324 U. S. 490, 497.
*186In my opinion, a company that produces 99of its products for local commerce is essentially and realistically a local business. True, % of 1% of its production is for interstate commerce, thus subjecting it to the constitutional power of Congress when and if exercised. But that fact does not make it any less a local business, which we have said Congress plainly excluded from this Act.
I would therefore affirm the judgment below in this respect.