Tobin v. Alma Mills, 6279.

• Decision Date: 05 November 1951
• Docket Number: No. 6279.,6279.
• Parties: TOBIN, Secretary of Labor, v. ALMA MILLS.
• Court: U.S. Court of Appeals — Fourth Circuit

192 F.2d 133 (1951)

TOBIN, Secretary of Labor, v. ALMA MILLS.

No. 6279.

United States Court of Appeals Fourth Circuit.

Argued October 2, 1951.

Decided November 5, 1951.

Bessie Margolin, Asst. Sol., U. S. Dept. of Labor, Washington, D. C. (William S. Tyson, Sol., William A. Lowe and Leonard Appel, Attys., Washington, D. C., and Beverley R. Worrell, Regional Atty., U. S. Dept. of Labor, Birmingham, Ala., on the brief), for appellant and cross-appellee.

Zach McGhee, Columbia, S. C. (J. Claude Fort, Gaffney, S. C., on the brief), for appellee and cross-appellant.

Before PARKER, Chief Judge, and SOPER and DOBIE, Circuit Judges.

PARKER, Chief Judge.

This is an appeal in a suit instituted under the Fair Labor Standards Act, 29 U.S.C.A. § 201 et seq., by the Administrator of the Wage and Hour Division of the Department of Labor against Alma Mills, a cotton textile manufacturing corporation of Gaffney, South Carolina. A consent decree enjoining violations of the Act was entered in the year 1940. Nine years later, the defendant applied to the court to dissolve the injunction on the ground that the company had complied with its provisions over a long period, and that there was no longer any need to keep it in force. We were told at the bar of the court that the reason for the application was that the owners of the stock of the company wished to sell it and that the fact that the company was subject to the injunction was interfering with the sale. When the administrator was notified of the motion he asked for and was granted time to make an investigation of the company's operations. A thorough investigation was made under his direction and it revealed nothing tending to indicate a violation over the entire period except that, in the period 1946-1949, about half of the employees in the company's spinning department were accustomed to come to work in advance of the time when their hours of work began and engage in certain clean up activities which they were supposed to do on their regular eight hour shift. Of the 432 employees of the Alma Mills only 30 or 35 were working in the Spinning department and only about half of these were shown to have done this work out of regular hours. It was contended by the company that the work should have been done during the regular hours and could have been done then, that the company intended that it should be done then and that it has been done during regular hours since the attention of the company has been called to the matter. The trial judge found that the employees did this work out of regular hours for their own purposes, without the company's knowledge or consent and against its orders. His findings on the subject, which are amply supported by the evidence, are as follows:

"The employee witnesses testified that during their employment from September, 1946, and until sometime in April, 1949, they came to work prior to the time for the shift on which they were to work began, and would perform certain cleanup activities, duties which they were supposed to do on their regular eight-hour shift. This work was done contrary to instructions which had been given them and without the knowledge or consent of the defendant. The witnesses testified that they had performed these activities prior to the start of their shift in order that the remaining duties which they were to perform during their regular shift would not be as hard; they did not expect any compensation for this pre-shift work.

* * * * * *

"The judgments permanently enjoining the defendants Alma Mills, Musgrove Mills and Vogue Mills from violating the provisions of the Fair Labor Standards Act were entered on August 23, 1940. All of these defendants are owned, managed, operated and dominated by substantially common officers, who are members of the same family. It is not contended that Musgrove Mills and Vogue Mills violated any of the provisions of the restraining orders. The testimony shows that the defendant Alma Mills has made bona fide efforts to comply with the provisions of the judgment against it, and that such defendant did not intentionally or willfully violate the provisions of the same. The violations were caused by the employees of the defendant Alma Mills acting for their own benefit and against the instructions and orders of such defendant."

On these findings, the District Judge adjudged the company in contempt because the work had been done on its premises out of hours without compensation and held that to purge itself it must pay overtime wages for the work thus done together with a compensatory fine to reimburse the Department of Labor for expenses incurred in making the investigation and presenting the case to the court, limiting the award of wages, however, to the two year limitation period prescribed by the Portal-to-Portal Act, 29 U.S.C.A. §§ 251-262. He dissolved the injunction on the ground that it was no longer equitable that it have prospective operation. Both parties have appealed from the judgment. The company contends that there was error in adjudging it in contempt. The Secretary of Labor, who has been substituted for the Administrator of the Wage and Hour Division, contends that there was error in limiting the award of wages to the...