AIRLINES TRANSP v. Tobin

• Decision Date: 24 July 1952
• Docket Number: No. 6403.,6403.
• Citation: 198 F.2d 249
• Parties: AIRLINES TRANSP., Inc. v. TOBIN, Secretary of Labor.
• Court: U.S. Court of Appeals — Fourth Circuit

198 F.2d 249 (1952)

AIRLINES TRANSP., Inc. v. TOBIN, Secretary of Labor.

No. 6403.

United States Court of Appeals Fourth Circuit.

Argued June 23, 1952.

Decided July 24, 1952.

E. K. Powe and Eugene C. Brooks, Jr., Durham, N. C., for appellant.

Bessie Margolin, Asst. Sol., United States Department of Labor, Washington, D. C. (William S. Tyson, Sol., William A. Lowe and Harold S. Saxe, Attys., United States Department of Labor, Washington, D. C., and Beverley R. Worrell, Regional Atty., United States Department of Labor, Birmingham, Ala., on the brief), for appellee.

Before PARKER, Chief Judge, SOPER, Circuit Judge, and PAUL, District Judge.

SOPER, Circuit Judge.

This suit involves the question whether the employees of Airlines Transportation, Inc., are employees "engaged in commerce" within the meaning of § 6(a) of the Fair Labor Standards Act, 29 U.S.C.A. § 201 et seq.; and if so, whether they fall within the terms of § 13(a) of the Act which provides that § 6 shall not apply to any employee of an employer engaged in the business of operating taxicabs. It is conceded that Airlines Transportation is not complying with the minimum wage provisions of § 6 or the record-keeping provisions of § 11(c); and the suit is brought by the Secretary of Labor under § 17 of the Act to restrain these violations. The District Judge found the employees to be covered by the Act and issued an injunction to restrain further violations.

Airlines Transportation is a North Carolina corporation whose principal office and place of business is located at Durham, North Carolina. It has contracted with three airlines, Eastern, Capital and Piedmont, which make twenty-six interstate flights per day into and out of the Raleigh-Durham Airport to provide airline passengers with transportation by motor vehicles between points in these cities designated by the airline companies and the airport which is located approximately fifteen miles from each of these cities.

Under these contracts the employer corporation maintained seven limousines of seven-passenger capacity, and employs a number of drivers and dispatchers to operate them. It is provided in the contracts that the limousines shall be used exclusively in this service in the course of which they transport airline passengers and their baggage and in addition a certain amount of freight, newspapers, airline personnel and property, and make as many trips as are necessary to provide convenient transportation to connect with incoming and outgoing flights.

The contracts expressly provide that Airlines Transportation shall be an independent contractor in every respect, but the airline companies shall have the right to specify the time and place of arrival and departure of the vehicles, the type of vehicle used and the uniform and discipline of the drivers. The ground transportation thus provided is not covered by the airline tickets but the charge is fixed by the contracts at $1.50 per one-way trip for passenger and baggage; and the availability of the service as a convenience to the passengers is announced by the schedules and by the agents of the airline companies. Agents of the airline companies and dispatchers of Airline Transportation are located in the airport and cooperate in respect to the names and locations of passengers desiring limousine service. Airlines Transportation also furnishes special service in the transportation of passengers when flight interruptions occur. Passengers may also find transportation between the airport and Raleigh and Durham by bus line or local taxicabs, but at least 50 per cent. of the airline passengers use the limousines.

Airlines Transportation contends that under this arrangement the interstate journey of airline passengers ceases and begins at the airport and the transportation of the passengers to and for between the airport and the cities is a purely local intrastate activity within the State of North Carolina. It is pointed out that the limousine service is not absolutely necessary or indispensable to the completion of the interstate journey of the passengers and that the flow of commerce would not be interrupted if it were withdrawn since other methods are available which the passengers are free to choose if they see fit; and it is strongly urged that the business of the limousines cannot be distinguished from the interstate standpoint from that of local taxicab companies operating a regular stand at a railroad station in a city and carrying passengers to and from the station and nearby points which in United States v. Yellow Cab Co., 332 U.S. 218, 67 S.Ct. 1560, 91 L.Ed. 2010, was held not to be an interstate operation within the Sherman Act, 15 U.S.C.A. §§ 1-7.

In that case it was proved that many persons embark upon interstate journeys from their homes and offices by using taxicabs to transport them to the railroad station and conversely many persons complete their journeys from places outside the state by using taxicabs to take them from railroad stations to their homes and offices; but the court held that such transportation was too unrelated to interstate commerce to constitute a part of it within the meaning of the Sherman Act. The court said, 332 U.S. 230-231, 67 S.Ct. 1567:

"We hold, however, that such transportation is too unrelated to interstate commerce to constitute a part thereof within the meaning of the Sherman Act. These taxicabs, in transporting passengers and their luggage to and from Chicago railroad stations, admittedly cross no state lines; by ordinance, their service is confined to transportation `between any two points within the corporate limits of the City.\' None of them serves only railroad passengers, all of them being required to serve `every person\' within the limits of Chicago. They have no contractual or other arrangement with the interstate railroads. Nor are their fares paid or collected as part of the railroad fares. In short, their relationship to interstate transit is only casual and incidental."

Parts of this statement are descriptive of the activities of the employer's business in this case; but the important difference remains that the limousines of Airlines Transportation serve only airline passengers and that its business is carried on and controlled under contractual relations with interstate carriers by air. This difference brings the case much closer in fact to a phase of the Yellow Cab case other than that which has just been outlined. One of the transactions of the defendants in that case, which was condemned as part of a conspiracy to restrain interstate commerce in violation of...