Mitchell v. EZ Way Towers, Inc.

• Decision Date: 30 July 1959
• Docket Number: No. 17551,17552.,17551
• Citation: 269 F.2d 126
• Parties: James P. MITCHELL, Secretary of Labor, United States Department of Labor, Appellant, v. E-Z WAY TOWERS, INC., et al., Appellees. James P. MITCHELL, Secretary of Labor, United States Department of Labor, Appellant, v. E-Z WAY ERECTORS, INC., et al., Appellees.
• Court: U.S. Court of Appeals — Fifth Circuit

269 F.2d 126 (1959)

James P. MITCHELL, Secretary of Labor, United States Department of Labor, Appellant, v. E-Z WAY TOWERS, INC., et al., Appellees.

James P. MITCHELL, Secretary of Labor, United States Department of Labor, Appellant, v. E-Z WAY ERECTORS, INC., et al., Appellees.

Nos. 17551, 17552.

United States Court of Appeals Fifth Circuit.

July 30, 1959.

Robert E. Nagle, Attorney, Department of Labor, Bessie Margolin, Asst. Sol., Dept. of Labor, Washington, D. C., Stuart Rothman, Solicitor, Attorney, United States Department of Labor, Washington, D. C., Beverley R. Worrell, Regional Attorney, Birmingham, Ala., for appellant.

Paul B. Johnson, Tampa, Fla., for appellees.

Before HUTCHESON, Chief Judge, and TUTTLE and BROWN, Circuit Judges.

JOHN R. BROWN, Circuit Judge.

These cases raise questions limited to the sufficiency of pleadings.

E-Z Way¹ is a Tampa, Florida organization engaged in the production, sale and installation of radio and television towers for use in transmitting and receiving broadcasts. The Secretary's complaint for injunction charged E-Z Way with failing to pay the minimum statutory wage for regular and overtime hours, failing to keep records of their employees' wages and hours, and for selling goods manufactured under such conditions in interstate commerce.² Fair Labor Standards Act §§ 7, 15(a) (1), 15(a) (2), 15(a)(5) 17, 29 U.S.C.A. § 201 et seq.

To this E-Z Way replied with a "Motion for more Definite Statement"³ requesting particulars as to the employees, weeks, and records involved, and a "Motion to Dismiss" based thereon.⁴ This Motion contained two theories: that the Complaint (1) "fails to state a claim" and that it (2) "fails to allege in reasonable detail" the violations charged.

While it appears that both motions were before the Court, it is certain that the Court granted only the Motion to Dismiss for failure to state a claim.⁵ Any doubt on that score is eradicated by the Court's action following the Secretary's formal election to stand on the Complaint rather than amend as permitted under the initial order, note 5, supra. As a consequence of this the Court entered a final order of dismissal.⁶ This was expressly "on the ground that the Complaint fails to allege in reasonable detail and in specific terms and specific acts the manner in which the defendants have violated the provisions of the Fair Labor Standards Act and thus fails to state a claim on which relief can be granted, * * *." This was, in turn, the exact language of paragraph 2 of the Motion to Dismiss, note 5, supra.

As an order of dismissal for failure to state a claim it cannot stand. Testing the complaint — as filed and on which the Secretary with propriety claimed a right to stand — it meets the standard so frequently repeated by us and now so recently reiterated in the most positive terms. "In appraising the sufficiency of the complaint we follow, of course, the accepted rule that a complaint should not be dismissed for failure to state a claim unless it appears beyond doubt that the plaintiff can prove no set of facts in support of his claim which would entitle him to relief." Conley v. Gibson, 1957, 355 U.S. 41, 45-46, 78 S.Ct. 99, 102, 2 L.Ed.2d 80.

In this light the complaint charges that (a) defendants have employees who are engaged in interstate commerce, (b) that some employees are required to work in excess of 40 hours per week without being paid statutory overtime, (c) others are paid less than the statutory minimum, and that (d) records are not kept with sufficient accuracy to reflect these facts concerning the employees. If evidence is brought forward showing (a) plus (b), (c), (d), or any one of them, the Fair Labor Standards Act would compel a finding and decree for the Secretary leaving to the Court's informed discretion the scope and nature of the precise relief to be granted. Mitchell v. Hodges Contracting Co., 5 Cir., 1956, 238 F.2d 380.

The defendants, and apparently the Trial Court, have confused the proper function of the motion to dismiss for failure to state a claim, F.R.Civ.P. 12(b), 28 U.S.C.A., and the motion for more definite statement under Rule 12 (e). The former allows of no discretion in the usual sense. The complaint is either good or not good. The motion for more definite statement, on the other hand, involves, within the applicable standards of that rule, the exercise of that sound and considered discretion committed unavoidably and properly to the Trial Judge as he presides over the continuous process of adjudication from commencement of the litigation through pleadings, pretrial discovery, trial, submission and decision.

Under 12(e) the Court must determine whether the complaint is such that "a party cannot reasonably be required to frame a responsive pleading." But the fact that a careful Judge, in the exercise of that wise discretion controlled by the prescribed principles of that rule, might so conclude does not permit him to dismiss the complaint for failure to state a claim. "It may well be that petitioner's complaint as now drawn is too vague, but that is no ground for dismissing his action. * * *." Glus v. Brooklyn Eastern District Terminal, 1959, 359 U.S. 231, 79 S.Ct. 760, 763, 3 L.Ed.2d 770, 774.

The motion to dismiss, and particularly paragraph 2, note 4, supra, substantially paraphrases like contentions made that "* * * the complaint failed to set forth specific facts to support its general allegations * * * and that * * dismissal was therefore proper," which the Court rejected in Conley v. Gibson, supra, 355 U.S. 41 at page 47, 78 S.Ct. at page 103. To this the Court replied in words which are both authoritative and apt for our case. "The decisive answer to this is that the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure do not require a claimant to set out in detail the facts upon which he bases his claim. To the contrary, all the Rules require is `a short and plain statement of the claim' that will give * * notice of what the plaintiff's claim is and the grounds upon which it rests. * * Such simplified `notice pleading' is made possible by the liberal opportunity for discovery and the other pretrial procedure established by the Rules to disclose more precisely the basis of both claim and defense and to define more narrowly the disputed facts and issues." Conley v. Gibson, 355 U.S. 41 at pages 47-48, 78 S.Ct. at page 103.

There is more than a mere procedural distinction between the motion to dismiss for failure to state a claim and the motion for more definite statement. The difference is fundamental as this case testifies. If the claim is dismissed because it is too vague or because the plaintiff is unable to supply the details, none of the machinery of discovery whose function it is to ferret out facts and delineate issues before trial can be utilized. On the other hand, with the complaint declared sufficient against a motion to dismiss, the parties, both plaintiff and defendant, are assured both the right fully to exploit the flexible rules of discovery which will disclose in advance of trial what the case is all about and, more important, the full protection of a careful District Judge in the exercise of his wise and considered discretion as the case progresses toward the climax of trial and judgment. And, except for brief periods of 10 or 20 days following the commencement of an action when leave of Court is required, discovery mechanisms of interrogatories, requests for admissions, motions to produce and oral depositions are not contingent upon the state of the pleadings or any necessity for the case to be at formal issue. F.R.Civ.P. 26-37, 28 U.S.C.A.

In addition, by its very nature, a ruling granting or denying a motion for more definite statement is interlocutory in character. It is not appealable as such and must await the final decree with the likely consequence that it will wash out in the trial. If it survives, or if under some unusual circumstances which might make the ruling dispositive and hence open for certification and acceptance as an appealable interlocutory order, 28 U.S.C.A. § 1292(b), or if an obdurate plaintiff suffers a punitive dismissal for failure to comply with an order granting a motion for more definite statement, the party complaining will have the heavy burden of demonstrating an abuse of the Trial Court's discretion.

While Judges Tuttle and Brown agree that, procedurally, questions regarding the defendant's motion for more definite statement are not now before us, they also agree with Judge Hutcheson that if we ignore them nothing of procedural substance will have been accomplished by the present appeal. We therefore deem it appropriate to express the view that the Trial Court should not have granted the order and should it hereafter do so upon remand it would be error.

Appellant joins with appellee in urging that we pass on the correctness of the Trial Court's order on the motion for more definite statement. Not only from the presentation in appellant's brief, but also by reflection on the nature of the complaint before us, we conclude that there is here a matter of real procedural substance that at some stage of the litigation must be resolved.

If an employer is thought by the Secretary of Labor to be violating the wage and hour provisions of the Fair Labor Standards Act, the most effective way in which the employee can be protected is by the obtaining of an injunction; Mitchell v. Lublin McGaughy & Assoc., 1959, 358 U.S. 207, 215, 79 S.Ct. 260, 3 L.Ed.2d 243, quoted by us in Mitchell v. Strickland Transportation Co., Inc., 5 Cir., 1959, 267 F.2d 821, or an early declaration of the question of coverage, records, compliance, etc.

Upon the filing of a suit seeking an injunction, of course, the filing of defensive pleadings is essential to the Trial Court's fair consideration of the motion for preliminary injunction. Moreover, there are doubtless many cases in which, because of its possession of the records of...