Court Opinion

ID: 9477663
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-05 06:28:21.113549+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:45:59.097169
License: Public Domain

MURNAGHAN, Circuit Judge,
concurring:
As the case was first presented to us, it appeared that a principle of some breadth might have to be laid down. Such a result would be unfortunate, because it would go too far to hold an employer free of any duty to treat the hours between midnight and 6:30 a.m. as “working time” when the employee was charged with some measure of responsibility or put under some restriction by the employer during that period. A general rule of that type favoring the employer could hold the potential for abuse, because the employer is usually in a stronger bargaining position than an individual employee in setting terms and conditions of employment.
However, Judge Chapman has largely allayed my concerns by carefully confining his decision in a manner comporting with the finest traditions of Anglo-American jurisprudence and deciding only “under the facts of this case.” As he points out, the question is preeminently one of fact to be decided on the basis of whether the employee was engaged to wait or the employee was waiting to be engaged. See Skidmore v. Swift & Co., 323 U.S. 134, 65 S.Ct. 161, 89 L.Ed. 124 (1944). The facts before us in the instant case sufficed to insulate the trial court’s decision from attack, and I concur, therefore, that it should be affirmed.