AH Belo Corporation v. Street, 301

Citation36 F. Supp. 907
Decision Date04 February 1941
Docket Number308.,No. 301,301
PartiesA. H. BELO CORPORATION v. STREET, Regional Director of Wage and Hour Law, et al. FLEMING, Administrator, Wage and Hour Division, v. A. H. BELO CORPORATION.
CourtUnited States District Courts. 5th Circuit. United States District Courts. 5th Circuit. Northern District of Texas

Locke, Locke, Dyer & Purnell, of Dallas, Tex., for Belo Corporation.

George B. Searls, Atty., Wage and Hour Division, United States Department of Labor, of Washington, D. C., and Llewellyn B. Duke, Regional Atty., Wage and Hour Division, United States Department of Labor, of Dallas, Tex., for defendant Street and Administrator Fleming.

ATWELL, District Judge.

On July 26, 1940, Belo Corporation filed a suit against Street, Truly, Finklea and Buckner, wherein a declaratory judgment was sought and suggested that defendant Street claimed to be a representative of employees. The court, after having heard the pleadings and the views of the parties with reference to that suit, concluded that the defendant Street could act both as an official of the wage and hour department, and individually, and retained the suit against the motion to dismiss, which was based upon the fact that the Administrator was not a party, on the ground that Mr. Street could become the representative plaintiff for dissatisfied employees or complaining coemployees, or of employees. A. H. Belo Corporation v. Street, D.C., 35 F.Supp. 430. That authority is now challenged by the government by the mere statement that Street has no authority to sue, either as an official or as a private citizen. The challenge is merely offered, there is nothing offered to support it. The law says that he or anyone else can appear as a private citizen, as a representative of the employee.

After that suit was filed, and retained by the court upon a hearing, the Administrator filed suit No. 308, against the Belo Corporation, seeking an injunction against that corporation continuing its manner of paying and complying with the Wage-Hour Act, 29 U.S.C.A. § 201 et seq. Suggestions were made with reference to consolidation of the two causes and to a dismissal of one of them, and the idea that the declaratory judgment was not necessary, since a suit against the identical point had been filed. The court thought that since it was of the view that Mr. Street could appear in his capacity as a private citizen to represent the employees, that the suggestion to try together should be favorably acted upon, but that there would continue to be two suits. That program has been followed, and testimony was first offered with reference to the claim of the department, that there was a complaining employee. The testimony shows indisputably, and it has not been disputed, that the Department so claimed, but declined to disclose the name of such employee. A rather unusual procedure, but that is the procedure that the Department chose to follow. It either had such complaint or it did not have, if it had such a complaint, it should be disclosed to the court. If it had such a complaint, it had a right to appear for that complainant, or any others, so we are met at the threshold of the appeal for equity by the failure of the government to disclose in good faith the ground of its activity, if it was necessary for it to have a ground other than the law itself, which the government is charged with enforcing.

Upon that particular feature, the court finds that there was no justification for that claim by Street or by the Department. That if there had been any such complaint, that it was the duty to disclose it to the citizen so that it could be remedied. We do not fix traps for people, and the chancellor cannot approve a course of that sort.

The second suit offers considerable difficulty. Fine counsel here have exposed their views with reference to this Act. I have not had the benefit, if there is such benefit, of the discussions in the committee by the Congress when this Act was under consideration, but I cannot conceive of a law which, because it is a law, becomes universal in its application, that would unsettle amicability between employer and employees by...

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12 cases
  • Missel v. Overnight Motor Transp. Co.
    • United States
    • U.S. Court of Appeals — Fourth Circuit
    • January 5, 1942
    ...Section. See Fleming v. A. H. Belo Corp., 5 Cir., 1941, 121 F.2d 207, certiorari granted, 62 S.Ct. 137, 86 L.Ed. ___; A. H. Belo Corp. v. Street, D.C., 36 F.Supp. 907; Reeves v. Howard County Refining Co., D.C., 33 F. Supp. 90; Bumpus v. Continental Baking Co., No. 211, W.D.Tenn., April 29,......
  • Bumpus v. Continental Baking Co.
    • United States
    • U.S. Court of Appeals — Sixth Circuit
    • December 10, 1941
    ...the petition, relying upon the principles announced in Reeves v. Howard County Refining Co., D.C., 33 F.Supp. 90, and A. H. Belo Corp. v. Street, D.C., 36 F.Supp. 907, and denied recovery upon the ground that appellant's compensation equaled or exceeded the requirements of the Act. The Belo......
  • OIL WORKERS INTER. UNION, ETC. v. Texoma Nat. Gas Co., 10971.
    • United States
    • U.S. Court of Appeals — Fifth Circuit
    • January 3, 1945
    ...Co., 5 Cir., 107 F.2d 767; Gaskill v. Thomson, 8 Cir., 119 F.2d 105; A. H. Belo Corp. v. Street, D.C., 35 F.Supp. 430; Id., D.C., 36 F. Supp. 907, affirmed Walling v. A. H. Belo Corp., 316 U.S. 624, 62 S.Ct. 1223, 86 L. Ed. 1716; Lehigh Coal & Nav. Co. v. Central R. of New Jersey, D.C., 33 ......
  • Fleming v. AH Belo Corporation
    • United States
    • U.S. Court of Appeals — Fifth Circuit
    • June 27, 1941
    ... ... C. C., as to its jurisdiction under the Motor Carrier Act, 49 U.S.C.A. § 301 et seq., both before and after the enactment of the Wage and Hour Act. It was not, as here, the purely legal opinion of the administrator's counsel ... ...
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