Court Opinion

ID: 9419571
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-02 22:50:13.441364+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:22:19.002976
License: Public Domain

Mr. Justice Murphy,
dissenting.
By reading into the Fair Labor Standards Act an exception that Congress never intended or specified, this Court has today granted the Western Union Telegraph Company a special dispensation to utilize the channels of interstate commerce while employing admittedly oppressive child labor. Such a result is reached, to borrow the words of the majority opinion, “by a series of interpretations so far-fetched and forced as to bring into question the candor of Congress as well as the integrity of the interpretative process.”
The opinion of the Court demonstrates that the legislative history of the Fair Labor Standards Act is inconclusive insofar as the failure to insert a provision directly prohibiting child labor in interstate commerce is concerned. But that factor is neither determinative nor even significant in the setting of this case. The issue is not whether the child labor provisions of § 12 (a) apply to a company solely engaged in interstate commerce or in the transporting of goods in such commerce. Rather the crucial problem is whether Western Union, in preparing messages for transmission in interstate commerce, may fairly be said to be a “producer” of “goods” which it “ships” in interstate commerce so as to come within the purview of § 12 (a). That Western Union may also be the interstate transmitter of messages is beside the point; it is enough if it is a producer of goods destined for interstate shipment. Indeed, § 15 (a) (1) expressly envisages just such a situation. It provides in part that no common carrier shall be liable under this Act “for the transporta*510tion in commerce in the regular course of its business of any goods not produced by such common carrier,” thereby recognizing that if a carrier is actually the “producer” of the “goods” it transports it may be visited with the liabilities of § 12 (a).
In approaching the problem of whether Western Union is a producer of goods shipped in interstate commerce we should not be unmindful of the humanitarian purposes which led Congress to adopt § 12 (a). Oppressive child labor in any industry is a reversion to an outmoded and degenerate code of economic and social behavior. In the words of the Chief Executive, “A self-supporting and self-respecting democracy can plead no justification for the existence of child labor. . . . All but the hopelessly reactionary will agree that to conserve our primary resources of man power, Government must have some control over . . . the evil of child labor. . . .” Message of the President to Congress, May 24, 1937, House Doc. No. 255 (75th Cong., 1st Sess.) p. 2. Congress sought in § 12 (a) to translate these sentiments from rhetoric to law. That it may not have done so to the full limits of its constitutional power is not of controlling significance here. It matters only that courts should not disregard the legislative motive in interpreting, and applying the statutory provisions that were adopted. If the existence of oppressive child labor in a particular instance falls within the obvious intent and spirit of § 12 (a), we should not be too meticulous and exacting in dealing with the statutory language. To sacrifice social gains for the sake of grammatical perfection is not in keeping with the high traditions of the interpretative process.
The language of § 12 (a), when viewed realistically and with due regard for its purpose, compels the conclusion that Western Union has been guilty of a violation of the child labor provisions. Oppressive child labor condi*511tions are admitted and the only issue concerns the application of the words “goods,” “producer” and “ships” to the activities of Western Union.
1. The opinion of the majority concedes that telegraphic messages are “subjects of commerce,” Gibbons v. Ogden, 9 Wheat. 1, 229-230, and hence are “goods” as defined in § 3 (i) of the Act.
2. The majority holds, however, that Western Union is not a “producer” of goods, even though the term “produced” is defined in § 3 (j) to include “handled, or in any manner worked on.” It further holds that the words “handled” or “worked on” refer only to incidental operations preparatory to putting goods in the stream of commerce and that they cannot relate to a “handling” or “working on” which accomplishes the interstate movement in commerce itself (which is said to characterize Western Union’s activities). Even if we assume that this distinction is correct, however, it does not preclude Western Union from being described as a “producer.” Contrary to the view expressed in the majority opinion, the Government does not ground its case in this respect on a claim that mere transportation of goods by a carrier such as Western Union constitutes a “handling” or “working on” so as to make that carrier a producer. The contention, rather, is that Western Union employees, prior to the introduction of the messages into interstate commerce, “work on” and “handle” the messages. And that contention would seem to be justified by the facts.
Before the messages actually move in commerce, Western Union employees aid in the composition of the messages, write them on blanks, mark the written messages, transform them into electric impulses and perform numerous other incidental tasks. In a very real and literal sense, therefore, they “handle” and “work on” a message before it enters the channels of interstate commerce. The unique*512ness of Western Union insofar as it acts also as the interstate carrier of these messages does not negative the fact that it actually processes and hence “produces” the messages as a preface to that interstate transit.
3. Finally, the majority does not think that the verb “ship” is applicable to the transmission either of electrical impulses or intangible messages and hence Western Union does not “ship” goods in commerce within the meaning of § 12 (a). As a matter of linguistic purism, this conclusion is not without reasonableness. But proper respect for the legislative intent and the interpretative process does not demand fastidious adherence to linguistic purism. This Court does not require that Congress spell out all types of “goods” or “subjects of commerce” that move in interstate commerce; no more should it require that Congress spell out every verb that may be in usage as to various goods or subjects of commerce. If the verb actually used by Congress may fairly be interpreted to cover the particular situation in a manner not at variance with the intent and spirit of the statute, no sound rule of law forbids such an interpretation.
As a matter of fact, it is unnecessary to strain reality in order to apply the verb “ship” to the transmission of telegraph messages. The verb is defined by competent authority to mean “to transport, or commit for transportation.” Webster’s New International Dictionary (2d Ed.). This Court itself has referred to telegraph companies as engaged in “transportation” of messages. Western Union Tel. Co. v. Texas, 105 U. S. 460, 464. Since messages are “goods” and since Western Union is the “producer” of them, there is no difficulty in saying that it “ships” or “transports” the messages in commerce when its employees send them across state lines.
Such an interpretation and application of the clear statutory words are not only realistic but are in obvious *513accord with the statutory policy of eliminating oppressive child labor in industries transporting goods and subjects of commerce across state lines. The natural ease with which these words fit the activities of Western Union adds weight to the conclusion that § 12 (a) covers just such a situation as this. There is nothing in the statute or in its legislative background to suggest that telegraph companies are exempt and the consistent administrative attitude has been that no such exemption exists. Child Labor Regulation No. 3, issued by the Chief of the Children’s Bureau, U. S. Department of Labor, May 8, 1939; Wage and Hour Field Instructions, June 4, 1942. It is indisputable that the evils of oppressive child labor allow no distinction in favor of the employment of telegraph messengers of tender years. Cf. United States v. Rosenwasser, 323 U. S. 360. Indeed, the reference to messengers in § 14 of the Act is evidence of an awareness by Congress that the Act would reach such persons. If Congress found it necessary to provide in § 14 for certain exceptions as to minimum wages for messengers, it seems clear that Congress thought that all other appropriate provisions of the Act applied to all messengers absent specific exceptions. Moreover, even § 14 makes no distinction between messengers working in and about manufacturing establishments shipping goods in commerce, who presumably still come within the provisions of § 12 (a) under the majority’s view, and those employed by telegraph companies. Under these circumstances we are not justified in delineating an exception to § 12 (a) that Congress itself did not see fit to make explicitly.
A word need be said about the Court’s fear of enforcing § 12 (a) against Western Union. Pursuant to the Congressional mandate, the trial court enjoined Western Union from transmitting or delivering for transmission in commerce “telegraph or other messages or any other *514goods” produced by it in any establishment in or about which within 30 days prior to the transmission there shall have been employed any oppressive child labor. It is said, however, that this is a sanction that we dare not permit to become effective since the suspension of telegraphic service for 30 days would be intolerable. Such a sanction is said to be well adapted to the producer, miner, manufacturer or handler but clumsy and self-defeating when applied to telegraph companies, railroads and the like. Convinced by these considerations that the Act did not contemplate its application to this situation, the Court proceeds to carve out a judicial exception to § 12 (a) for all interstate carriers.
However much we may dislike the imposition of Congressional sanctions against a particular industry or field of endeavor, the judicial function does not allow us to disregard that which Congress has plainly and constitutionally decreed and to formulate exceptions which we think, for practical reasons, Congress might have made had it thought more about the problem. To read in exceptions based upon the nature or importance of the particular industry or corporation is dangerous precedent. If the suspension of telegraphic service for 30 days is so intolerable as to justify lifting the burden of § 12 (a) from the shoulders of Western Union, can it not be argued with equal fervor that a 30-day injunction against interstate shipments by an airplane manufacturer, a munitions plant or some other industry vital to a war or peace time economy would be likewise intolerable? What valid distinction in this respect is there between interstate carriers and manufacturers or producers? Moreover, are we to examine the competitive situation or degree of importance of a particular company to determine the amount of intolerableness which a suspension of interstate transportation might engender? These and countless other legis*515lative problems present themselves when we embark upon a course of fashioning exceptions to a statute according to our own conceptions of appropriateness of the sanctions of an Act. Such a course is an open invitation to wholesale veto of valid and reasonable legislative provisions by means of judicial refusal to apply statutory enforcement measures. Adherence to the sound rule that inequities and hardships arising from statutory sanctions are for Congress rather than the courts to remedy by way of amendment to the statute is desirable and necessary in such a situation.
We are charged with the duty of interpreting and applying acts of Congress in accordance with the legislative intent. Courts are not so impotent that they cannot perform that duty and, at the same time, grant stays or other appropriate relief in the public interest should the occasion demand it. See Standard Oil Co. v. United States, 221 U. S. 1, 81; United States v. American Tobacco Co., 221 U. S. 106, 187, 188. Thus if the injunction is granted here against Western Union, we will have vindicated to that extent the public policy against oppressive child labor. If a 30-day suspension of telegraph messages would unduly harm the public interest, a stay of the mandate or of the injunction can be granted until at least 30 days have elapsed during which no oppressive child labor has been employed by Western Union. Thus by fashioning remedies through injunctions and stays we can aid in the elimination of oppressive child labor without undue hardship on the public. This can and should be done without abdicating our judicial function and assuming the role of the legislature.
Mr. Justice Black, Mr. Justice Douglas and Mr. Justice Rutledge join in this dissent.