Boyer v. Miller Hatcheries

• Decision Date: 25 November 1941
• Docket Number: Civil Action No. 31.
• Citation: 42 F. Supp. 135
• Parties: BOYER v. MILLER HATCHERIES, Inc.
• Court: U.S. District Court — Southern District of Iowa

42 F. Supp. 135

BOYER v. MILLER HATCHERIES, Inc.

Civil Action No. 31.

District Court, S. D. Iowa, E. D.

November 25, 1941.

James F. Hudson and Frank W. Oertel, both of Keokuk, Iowa, for plaintiff.

Ralph B. Smith, of Keokuk, Iowa, Chas. E. Rendlen, of Hannibal, Mo., and John E. Park, of Kansas City, Mo., for defendant.

DEWEY, District Judge.

This action is brought by the plaintiff to recover the difference between the wages paid to him and those provided by the Fair Labor Standards Act, 29 U.S.C.A. § 201 et seq., during the period from October 24, 1938, to the first day of July, 1940.

The action came on for hearing in open court at Keokuk, Iowa, on the 20th day of November, 1941, upon the issues, evidence was introduced, oral and written arguments had and the case submitted.

The Facts.

There is little dispute in the testimony.

The defendant, Miller Hatcheries, Incorporated, was during the time in question engaged in the business of operating a commercial hatchery in Keokuk, Iowa.

The defendant used a building and equipment located in the City of Keokuk in the operating of a chicken hatchery and owned no real estate or farming equipment.

In the defendant's hatchery were 19 large electric incubators wherein eggs are set and incubated and from which baby chicks are produced.

The eggs so used and set in said incubators came from farms in the general vicinity of defendant's hatchery and practically the entire product was sold to and for farmers and poultrymen. Keokuk is a town of about 16,000 population and is located in the extreme southeastern point of the State of Iowa and its trade territory includes the States of Iowa, Illinois and Missouri.

The total capacity of the incubators was the production of about 100,000 baby chicks a week and the capacity of the incubators was 300,000 eggs at one time.

The corporation produced and sold about 1,000,000 baby chicks a year. Ninety-five per cent. of the income of the corporation was from the sale of baby chicks which grossed about $90,000 a year. The baby chicks were sold over a large territory, the distribution being by parcel post and express.

The plaintiff, during the period in which he claims additional compensation, was not engaged in any particular part of the hatchery business, but as a general utility man—driving trucks to collect eggs and delivering chickens, cared for the incubators, both before and after they were used and during the time of hatching, culled chickens on farms, graded the eggs, worked around the hatchery and filled orders for baby chicks and shipped them.

Defendant, among other things, alleges: "That each and every service performed by the employees of defendant's hatchery, including plaintiff, are and were a part of or incidental to and constituted a part of the hatching of baby chicks as a whole * * *."

Sometime prior to December, 1940, and before the commencement of this suit, the defendant by unanimous consent of its stockholders and after all the formalities required by statute for dissolution of a corporation had been taken, was dissolved as of December 31, 1940.

Findings of Fact.

1. The defendant was engaged in interstate commerce during the period in question.

2. The plaintiff was also engaged in interstate commerce during the period in question.

3. During the period from October 24, 1938, to July 1, 1940, the plaintiff worked for the defendant longer hours and for a smaller wage than that provided by the Fair Labor Standards Act.

The difference between what he received and what he should have received, if paid according to the terms of the Act, aggregate $355.36.

Plaintiff does not ask for overtime which he testifies he worked, as he is unable to definitely prove the extent of such overtime as he does not have any records of such work; but the books of the company show that if he had been paid the minimum wages as provided by the Fair Labor Standards Act, during the period which he worked, he should have been paid the total additional amount stated above.

4. Defendant does not come within any exemptions of the Act.

Defendant practically admits the interstate character of its business and that the plaintiff during the period of his employment was engaged in such activities; but the defendant claims that it comes within certain exemptions in the provisions of the Fair Labor Standards Act, for the following reasons: that it is exempt from the provisions of the Act, (a) under the general agricultural exemption; (b) because of the seasonal nature of its business or the seasonal character of the work performed by the plaintiff; (c) because certain work performed by the plaintiff —the culling of flocks and local sales— is specifically exempt from the minimum wage and maximum hours provisions of the Act.

These claimed exemptions are in Sec. 213, Title 29, United States Code Annotated (Sec. 13, Fair Labor Standards Act of 1938). Several of the provisions of these exemptions are relied upon, but none of them are of any merit except that relating to "Agriculture." That section (213) provides, among other things, as follows: Sec. 213. Exemptions: "(a) The provisions of sections 206 and 207 Secs. 6 and 7 of the Act shall not apply with respect to * * * (6) any employee employed in agriculture; * * * (10) to any individual employed within the area of production (as defined by the Administrator), engaged in handling, packing, storing, ginning, compressing, pasteurizing, drying, preparing in their raw or natural state, or canning of agricultural or horticultural commodities for market, or in making cheese or butter or other dairy products." And under the list of definitions found in Section 203 of Title 29, United States Code Annotated (§ 3, Fair Labor Standards Act), is the following: Sec. 203. Definitions: "* * * (f) `Agriculture' includes farming in all its branches and among other things includes the cultivation and tillage of the soil, dairying, the production, cultivation, growing, and harvesting of any agricultural or horticultural commodities, * * * the raising of livestock, bees, fur-bearing animals, or poultry, and any practices (including any forestry or lumbering operations) performed by a farmer or on a farm as an incident to or in conjunction with such farming operations, including preparation for market, delivery to storage or to market or to carriers for transportation to market."

And Interpretative...