Court Opinion

ID: 9443369
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-03 19:18:41.170975+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:15:44.647198
License: Public Domain

MURRAH, Circuit Judge
(dissenting).
I would affirm the judgment of the trial court. As I interpret the majority opinion, it is based upon the premise that the scope of the Wage and Hour Act is co-extensive with the constitutional power of Congress under the commerce clause to construct multiple-purpose dams and reservoirs on nonnavigable tributaries of navigable streams. State of Oklahoma ex rel. Phillips v. Guy F. Atkinson Co., 313 U.S. 508, 61 S.Ct. 1050, 85 L.Ed. 1487, is cited in support of the Congressional power to authorize and appropriate for the construction of the dam and reservoir as a part of a comprehensive system of flood control, electric power and navigation — a power now undoubted. From there, the majority proceeds to reason that because Con*338gress is constitutionally empowered to construct such projects, the Wage and Hour Act ipso facto covers all those employees engaged in such activities.
But coverage under the Wage and Hour Act is not coextensive with the constitutional power of Congress over interstate commerce. Since the inception of the Act, the courts have recognized that Congress did not intend to extend it to all employees who might be engaged in some activity affecting interstate commerce. Kirschbaum Co. v. Walling, 316 U.S. 517, 523, 62 S.Ct. 1116, 86 L.Ed. 1638; Rucker v. First Nat’l Bank of Miami, 10 Cir., 138 F.2d 699, 702; E. C. Schroeder Co. v. Clifton, 10 Cir., 153 F.2d 385, 388. Cf. Polish Alliance v. Labor Board, 322 U.S. 643, 64 S.Ct. 1196, 88 L.Ed. 1509; N.L.R.B. v. Tri-State Casualty Ins. Co., 10 Cir., 188 F.2d 50. On the contrary, Congress delineated the coverage to include only employees engaged in commerce or in the production of goods for commerce. According a liberal construction to these phrases, the courts included employees whose activities,- while not in the actual stream of commerce, were so close and intimately connected therewith as to be for all practical purposes a part of commerce. See Kirschbaum Co. v. Walling, supra; Walling v. Jacksonville Paper Co., 317 U.S. 564, 63 S.Ct. 332, 87 L.Ed. 460; Rucker v. First Nat’l Bank of Miami, supra; E. C. Schroeder Co. v. Clifton, supra.
Thus, the courts interpreted the words of coverage to include employees of a local fertilizer company engaged in selling all of its fertilizer to local farmers for use on land where products were grown to be sold for processing of sugar which was sent out of the state. McComb v. Super-A Fertilizer Works, 1 Cir., 165 F.2d 824. And, employees of a rock quarrjf engaged in mining of stone to be used in the construction of a dike in the same state, the purpose of which was to prevent the flooding of an oil field where oil was produced for interstate commerce, were held covered in E. C. Schroeder Co. v. Clifton, supra. And, employees of a window-cleaning company, whose activities were wholly within the state, but some of whose customers were engaged in interstate commerce or the production of goods for commerce were covered in Mar-tino v. Michigan Window Cleaning Co., 327 U.S. 173, 66 S.Ct. 379, 90 L.Ed. 603.
But, such broad interpretation of the words of coverage led Congress to expressly repudiate them, and to redefine coverage of employees as those directly engaged in commerce “or in any closely related processes or occupation directly essential to the production thereof in any state.” See Amendment of October 26, 1949, Chap. 763, Sec. 3, 63 Stat. 911. And see Statement of House Conferees, Report No. 1453, 81st Congress, pp. 14-15. I would heed the Congressional admonishment not to judicially legislate beyond its expressed intent.
I cannot agree that the work of clearing this reservoir of timber is no more than an improvement of an existing project for the control of floods and the betterment of navigation as in Walling v. Patton-Tulley Transp. Co., 6 Cir., 134 F.2d 945, and Ritch v. Puget Sound Bridge & Dredging Co., 9 Cir., 156 F.2d 334. The employer’s contract in our case called for a clearing of a portion of the reservoir site, including (a) the removal of trees and structures; (b) removal of underbrush, debris and fences; (c) disposal of cleared material; (d) treatment of cut willow stumps with arboricide, to prevent sprouting; and (e) construction of brush rows for fish hatchery purposes. This work was performed on a project which was not in the stream of commerce, but as an auxiliary aid to it, and it was also intended to provide purely local recreational facilities. Particularly, the evidence shows that the construction of the brush rows was for the purpose of propagating fish. There was evidence that the clearing of the underbrush, debris and fences was to prevent floatable material from obstructing the free flow of the water over the dam. But the record does not indicate that the activities in which these employees were engaged were more than remotely connected with interstate commerce or the handling of goods for interstate commerce. The record does not support the conclusion that they were engaged in an occupation “closely *339related or directly essential to the production of goods.” On the contrary, the trial court found and concluded from the evidence that the work of the employees was “primarily related to recreational activitiés in the area and the propagation and protection of fish and game, and will have very little if any effect upon interstate commerce.” That finding is supported by the record, it is not clearly erroneous, and I cannot agree to set it aside.