Goldberg v. P. & L. EQUIPMENT COMPANY

• Decision Date: 21 January 1963
• Docket Number: No. 19648.,19648.
• Citation: 311 F.2d 88
• Parties: Arthur J. GOLDBERG, Secretary of Labor, United States Department of Labor (W. Willard Wirtz, Secretary of Labor, United States Department of Labor, Substituted as party appellant in the place and stead of Arthur J. Goldberg), Appellant, v. P. & L. EQUIPMENT COMPANY, Appellee.
• Court: U.S. Court of Appeals — Fifth Circuit

311 F.2d 88 (1962)

Arthur J. GOLDBERG, Secretary of Labor, United States Department of Labor (W. Willard Wirtz, Secretary of Labor, United States Department of Labor, Substituted as party appellant in the place and stead of Arthur J. Goldberg), Appellant, v. P. & L. EQUIPMENT COMPANY, Appellee.

No. 19648.

United States Court of Appeals Fifth Circuit.

December 11, 1962.

Rehearing Denied January 21, 1963.

Earl Street, Regional Atty., Dept. of Labor, Dallas, Tex., Jacob I. Karro, Acting Asst. Sol., Dept. of Labor, Beate Block, Sr., Atty., Dept. of Labor, Washington, D. C., Charles Donahue, Solicitor of Labor, Sigmund R. Balka, Attorney, United States Department of Labor, Washington, D. C., for appellant.

James E. Crowther, Houston, Tex., Butler, Binion, Rice & Cook, Houston, Tex., of counsel, for appellee.

Before HUTCHESON, WISDOM and GEWIN, Circuit Judges.

JOSEPH C. HUTCHESON, Jr., Circuit Judge.

This appeal is from a judgment denying the Secretary's claim that Taylor, the employee in question, was engaged in commerce and in the production of goods for commerce within the meaning of the Fair Labor Standards Act and was, therefore, within the Act's coverage.

Unlike the cases dealt with by the writer in Addison v. Commercial National Bank in Shreveport, 5 Cir., 165 F.2d 937, where the gloss upon the statutory law made by the decisions was so intricate and difficult to follow that the cases were often more misleading than helpful, this case is a very simple one. We think it clear that the appellant has the right of it on the facts and the law, that the district judge erred in denying relief, and that his judgment must be reversed.

The case was tried on a stipulation of facts expressly adopted by the district judge as his findings of fact. The decision turns, therefore, on the legal effect of those facts rather than on resolving conflicts in them, and the judge's findings of fact are not, as findings, entitled to any particular weight. On the facts stipulated and found, we hold that the position of the Secretary is right and the judgment must be reversed and remanded for further and not inconsistent proceedings.

Reversed and remanded.

GEWIN, Circuit Judge (dissenting).

I respectfully dissent. The sole question before the Court is coverage under the Fair Labor Standards Act, 29 U.S.C. A. § 201. The employee involved was hired as a night watchman by the defendant, a construction firm laying a stretch of city street in Houston, Texas. The employee was not paid the minimum wage required to be paid to employees engaged "in the production of goods for commerce". The street being constructed required an underpass beneath the tracks of a railroad. The street was used for the passage of mail trucks and it was used occasionally by trucks serving several industries and a railroad teamtrack in the area. The new street under construction has not been designated as a part of the highway system of the United States or of the State of Texas, but it does lead into a United States highway. The construction was new.

In my opinion, the lower court was correct in concluding that the work of this employee on a city street in Houston, Texas, constituted only an isolated and local...