Court Opinion

ID: 9447220
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-03 22:29:18.617919+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:30:57.010986
License: Public Domain

WOODBURY, Chief Judge
(concurring) .
The courts should always be alert to ferret out and ever ready to strike down evasive schemes designed to circumvent the Fair Labor Standards Act. But there is a wide and well recognized difference between evasion and avoidance, and although the Cooperative here may have been organized to avoid the Act, if it is a bona fide organization, as we all agree, and not a sham as in Fleming v. Palmer, it seems to me that in economic reality it is an organization engaged in the business of marketing such of the products of its producer-members as they may see fit to submit to it for sale. As a sales agency for its producer-members it may have employees, but however broadly the term may be defined, I do not see how it can be said to be an “employer” with respect to its producer-members. I vote to affirm.