92 Le 1502 Bay Ridge Operating Co v. Aaron Huron Stevedoring Corporation v. Blue

Decision Date11 October 1948
Docket Number367,Nos. 366,s. 366
Parties92 LE d. 1502 BAY RIDGE OPERATING CO., Inc. v. AARON et al. HURON STEVEDORING CORPORATION v. BLUE et al. Rehearing Denied
CourtU.S. Supreme Court

[Syllabus from pages 446-448 intentionally omitted] Messrs. Peyton Ford and Marvin C. Taylor, both of Washington, D.C., for petitioners.

Mr. Monroe Goldwater, of New York City, for respondents.

Mr. Justice REED delivered the opinion of the Court.

These cases present another aspect of the perplexing problem of what constitutes the regular rate of pay which the Fair Labor Standards Act requires to be used in computing the proper payment for work in excess of forty hours. The applicable provisions read as follows:

'Sec. 7. (a) No employer shall, except as otherwise provided in this section, employ any of his employees who is engaged in commerce or in the production of goods for commerce—

(3) for a workweek longer than forty hours after the expiration of the second year from such date, unless such employee receives compensation for his employment in excess of the hours above specified at a rate not less than one and one-half times the regular rate at which he is employed.'1

The problem posed is the method of computing the regular rate of pay for longshoremen who work in foreign and interstate commerce varying and irregular hours throughout the workweek under a collective bargaining agreement for handling cargo which provides contract straight time hourly rates for work done within a prescribed 44-hour time schedule and contract overtime rates for all work done outside the straight time hours.2

These two suits were brought as class actions on behalf of all longshoremen employed by two stevedoring companies, Bay Ridge Operating Co., and Huron Stevedoring Corp., to recover unpaid statutory excess compensation3 in accordance with § 16(b) of the Fair Labor Standards Act.4 By stipulation the claims of ten specific longshoremen in each case were severed and the two suits were consolidated for trial, leaving the claims of the other plaintiffs pending on the docket. The claims of the plaintiffs here are for the period October 1, 1943, to September 30, 1945.

The terms of employment for the respondents, longshoremen working in the Port of New York, were fixed for the period in question by the collective bargaining agreement between the International Longshoremens Association and the New York Shipping Association together with certain steamship and stevedore companies. It was applicable to the two petitioners. The agreement established a 'basic working day' of eight hours and a 'basic working week,' that is, workweek, of forty-four hours; hourly rates for different types of cargo were specified for work between 8 a.m. and 12 noon and between 1 p.m. and 5 p.m. during five working days of the week, Monday through Friday, and from 8 a.m. to 12 noon on Saturday, and a different schedule of rates for work during all other hours in the workweek. The first schedule was called 'straight time' rates, and the second schedule was entitled 'overtime' rates. This opinion designates these rates as contract straight time and contract overtime. For four types of cargo the overtime rates were exactly one and a half times the straight time rates; for four other types the overtime rates were slightly less than one and a half times the straight time rates. The contract straight time rates ranged from $1.25 to $2.50 an hour. The contract overtime rates were paid for all work on Sundays and legal holidays. The contract provided for no differential for work in excess of forty hours in a week.5 Respondents claim that their regular rate of pay under the contract for any workweek within the meaning of s 7(a), is the average hourly rate computed by dividing the total number of hours worked in any workweek for any single employer into the total compensation received from that employer during that week; and that in those workweeks in which they worked more than forty hours for any one employer they were entitled by § 7(a) to statutory excess compensation for all such excess hours computed on the basis of that rate. The petitioners claim that the straight time rates are the regular rates, and that they have, therefore, with minor exceptions not presented by this review, complied with the requirements of § 7(a). That is, no rates except straight time rates are to be taken into consideration in computing the regular rate. The petitioners contend that the contract overtime rates were intended to cover any earned statutory excess compensation and did cover it because they were substantially in an amount of one and one-half times the straight time rates. The District Court held that the contract straight time rates were the regular rates but the Circuit Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit held otherwise. 6

Throughout all these proceedings the petitioners have been represented by the Department of Justice, since the United States under its cost-plus contracts with the petitioners is the real party in interest. Substantially all stevedoring during the war years was performed for the account of the United States. The Solicitor General notes that prior to the decision in the Circuit Court of Appeals, 118 suits had been instituted on behalf of longshoremen, and since that time approximately 100 new complaints have been filed. Contracts of the same general type are said to have been in effect in all our maritime areas. Witnesses testifying before the Wages and Hours Subcommittee of the House Committee on Education and Labor stated that liability of the Government under such suits would be large.7 The Wage and Hour Administrator has not filed a brief in the proceedings, but the Solicitor General has advised us that the Administrator of the Wage and Hour Division of the Department of Labor 'believes that proper consideration was given by the court below to his interpretation of Section 7 of the Fair Labor Standards Act and that the decision below is correct.' The Administrator and the Solicitor of the Department of Labor testified at length before the House committee as to their views on the issues presented by these cases.8 Amicus briefs have been filed by the International Longshoremens Association, the National Association of Manufacturers, and the Waterfront Employers Association of the Pacific Coast, all urging that the decision below be reversed.

In order to fix the legal issues in their factual setting, we summarize the findings of fact made by the District Court which were accepted by the Circuit Court of Appeals and are not challenged here. Most of these findings referred to in this opinion will be found in the Appendix at 162 F.2d 670. Employment in the longshore industry has always been casual in nature. The amount of work available depends on the number of ships in port and their length of stay and is consequently highly variable and unpredictable, from day to day, week to week, and season to season. Longshoremen are hired for a specific job at the 'shape,'9 which is normally held three times a day at each pier where work is available. The hiring stevedore selects the men he desires from the longshoremen who are present at the 'shape'; in some instances a group of longshoremen are hired together as a gang. The work may last only for a few hours or for as long as a week. Although some work is carried on at all hours, the stevedoring companies, since operations are then carried on at less cost, attempt to do as much work as possible during the straight time hours.

The court further found that the rate for night work and holiday work had been higher than the rate for day work since at least as far back as 1887, and that since 1916, when the first agreement was made with the International Longshoremens Association, the differential had been approximately 50%. Joseph B. Ryan, President of the Association, testified that the differential was designed to shorten the total number of hours worked and to confine the work as far as possible within the scheduled forty-four hours. Despite the differential, many longshoremen were unwilling to work at night. Although some longshore work was required at all hours, except Saturday night, the District Court found that the differential had been responsible for the high degree of concentration of longshore work to the contract straight time hours.

The government introduced elaborate statistical studies to show the distribution of work as between the contract straight time and contract overtime hours. From 1932 to 1937, 80% of the total hours worked were within the contract straight time hours and only 2 1/2% of the total manhours were performed by men working between 5 p.m. and 8 a.m. (exclusive of Sundays and holidays) who had worked no straight time hours earlier that day. During the war, the proportion of work in contract overtime hours was considerably higher because of the greater volume of cargo had led; 55% of the total hours fell within the contract straight time hours, and the ratio of work in contract overtime hours by men who had not previously worked in the contract straight time hours was correspondingly higher. The respondents' employment was highly irregular; in many weeks the respondents did not work at all, and in weeks in which they did work their hours of employment varied over a wide range. The trial court concluded that the 'basic working day' and 'basic working week,' 10 meaning by these phrases the contract straight time hours, were not the periods 'normally, regularly, or usually' worked by the respondents. Finding 45.

In giving judgment for the petitioners, the trial court placed emphasis on the fact that the rates in question were arrived at through bona fide collective bargaining, and were more favorable to the longshoremen than the statutory mandate required. That is, that rates as high as contract straight time rates plus statutory excess compensation...

To continue reading

Request your trial
224 cases
  • Smith v. United Parcel Service, Inc.
    • United States
    • U.S. District Court — Southern District of West Virginia
    • 5. Juli 1995
    ...U.S. 728, 741, n. 18, 101 S.Ct. 1437, 1445, n. 18, 67 L.Ed.2d 641 (1981) (no exemption issue); Bay Ridge Operating Co. v. Aaron, 334 U.S. 446, 463, 68 S.Ct. 1186, 1196, 92 L.Ed. 1502 (1948) (no exemption issue); 149 Madison Ave. Corp. v. Asselta, 331 U.S. 199, 204, 67 S.Ct. 1178, 1181, 91 L......
  • Nash v. City of Santa Monica
    • United States
    • California Supreme Court
    • 25. Oktober 1984
    ...I concur in the judgment. MOSK, Justice, dissenting. I dissent. As Justice Frankfurter wrote in Bay Ridge Co. v. Aaron (1948) 334 U.S. 446, 484, 68 S.Ct. 1186, 1206, 92 L.Ed. 1502, "On the question you ask depends the answer you In this case if the question is whether a municipality may exe......
  • Ferra v. Loews Hollywood Hotel, LLC
    • United States
    • California Supreme Court
    • 15. Juli 2021
    ...is unsurprising against the backdrop of similar interchangeable usage in case law. (See Bay Ridge Operating Co. v. Aaron (1948) 334 U.S. 446, 448–449, 68 S.Ct. 1186, 92 L.Ed. 1502 [using "regular rate of pay" to mean "regular rate" under the FLSA]; Hardwood , supra , 325 U.S. at p. 424, 65 ......
  • McGrath v. City of Somerville
    • United States
    • U.S. District Court — District of Massachusetts
    • 30. September 2019
    ...under the governing employment contract." O'Brien , 350 F.3d at 294 (citing 29 C.F.R. § 778.108 ; Bay Ridge Operating Co. v. Aaron , 334 U.S. 446, 462-63, 68 S.Ct. 1186, 92 L.Ed. 1502 (1948) ). Accordingly, the CBA's exclusion of the seven wage augments from the regular-rate calculations ma......
  • Request a trial to view additional results
1 firm's commentaries
1 books & journal articles
  • Physician-assisted suicide: the problems presented by the compelling, heartwrenching case.
    • United States
    • Journal of Criminal Law and Criminology Vol. 88 No. 3, March 1998
    • 22. März 1998
    ...I am afraid, what appear to be agonizingly subtle and complex problems turn out to be just that.(**) (1) Bay Ridge Operating Co. v. Aaron, 334 U.S. 446, 484 (1948) (Frankfurter, J., dissenting). See also Henry J. Friendly, Mr. Justice Frankfurter, in Benchmarks 318-19 (2) Washington v. Gluc......

VLEX uses login cookies to provide you with a better browsing experience. If you click on 'Accept' or continue browsing this site we consider that you accept our cookie policy. ACCEPT