FW Maurer & Sons v. Andrews
| Decision Date | 07 December 1939 |
| Docket Number | No. 477.,477. |
| Citation | 30 F. Supp. 637 |
| Parties | F. W. MAURER & SONS CO. v. ANDREWS, Administrator of Wage and Hour Division, United States Department of Labor, et al. |
| Court | U.S. District Court — Western District of Pennsylvania |
Byron, Longbottom, Pape & O'Brien and Cornelius C. O'Brien, all of Philadelphia, Pa., for plaintiff.
George A. McNulty, Gen. Counsel, and Irving J. Levy, Asst. Gen. Counsel, both of Washington, D. C., John M. Gallagher, Regional Atty., David S. Polier, Atty. and Thomas J. Curtin, Asst. U. S. Atty., all of Philadelphia, Pa., for defendant.
The petitioner is a manufacturer of shade-tassels, fringes, and other narrow fabrics. In this petition for a declaratory judgment, it is asking the Court to declare its legal rights and relations under the Fair Labor Standards Act of 1938, 29 U. S.C.A. §§ 201-209, with regard to its engagement of industrial home workers. The petition (paragraph 8) describes the system as follows:
The petitioner states that it discontinued this practice last April, but it is to be assumed from the petition that it desires to revive it. Quite naturally, it wants to know from this Court, whether, if the wages and hours of its industrial home workers should be substandard, Secs. 6 and 7 of the Act, 29 U.S.C.A. §§ 206, 207, it will be liable to the penalties of Sec. 16 of the Act, 29 U.S.C.A. § 216, which consist of fine, imprisonment and reparation to the workers.
It cannot be said that the petitioner is seeking advice upon a purely hypothetical situation. The petitioner has a real problem, and a response by the Court would undoubtedly be of immediate benefit to it in a concrete way.
Granting all this, however, the Declaratory Judgment Act, Jud.Code § 274d, 28 U.S.C.A. § 400, under which the Court must proceed, does not afford relief merely because an applicant has a genuine need for legal advice. The first five words of the Act contain a limitation and an embodiment of policy to which the convenience of an individual must be subordinated. The Court is given jurisdiction only "in cases of actual controversy," and the facts as disclosed by this petition show that there is no actual controversy here.
The sum of what the petition shows in this regard is that on April 3, 1939,...
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...or more specific notifications of coverage from the Wage and Hour Administration.10 As the court put it in F. W. Maurer & Sons Co. v. Andrews, 30 F.Supp. 637, 638 (E.D.Pa. 1939), the courts cannot give relief merely because the "petitioner has a real problem" and "a genuine need for legal N......
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