Crabb v. Welden Bros.

Citation65 F. Supp. 369
Decision Date12 March 1946
Docket Number479,503.,No. 374,374
PartiesCRABB v. WELDEN BROS. et al. DEDRICK v. SAME. PETERSON et al. v. C. F. LYTLE CO. et al.
CourtUnited States District Courts. 8th Circuit. United States State District Court of Southern District of Iowa

H. L. Bump, of Des Moines, Iowa, for plaintiffs Crabb and Dedrick.

Alfred T. Vollum, of Albert Lea, Minn. (of Vollum & Nichols, of Albert Lea, Minn.), for plaintiffs Peterson and Vollum.

Peter W. Janss (of Brunk & Janss), of Des Moines, Iowa, and Bert E. Church, of Wellington, Kan., for defendants.

DEWEY, District Judge.

Suits were instituted in this court by four salaried employees to recover overtime compensation under the provisions of the Fair Labor Standards Act, 29 U.S.C.A. § 201 et seq., against certain independent contractors who had engaged in the construction of the Alcan Highway.

The cases were consolidated for trial to the court.

In the spring of 1942 the United States of America was contemplating the construction of an international vehicular highway from Ft. St. John in Canada to a point in Alaska subsequently determined to be at Big Delta to join with an existing highway that continued to Fairbanks.

The highway was to follow a line of airports then existing in Canada and Alaska: Ft. St. John, Ft. Nelson, Watson Lake, Whitehorse, Boundary, Big Delta, and the respective termini of the existing roads in Canada and Alaska. It was to be called the Alcan Highway and was about 1,400 to 1,500 miles in length, about 300 miles of it in Alaska. (Distances are given for descriptive purposes and not intended to be accurate).

The project was delegated to the Public Roads Administration and that agency in turn employed the C. F. Lytle Company and the Green Construction Company as "project managers" for that part of the construction work in Alaska. And in 1942 there was procured and employed in such construction fourteen contractors who are designated as "affiliated contractors." These affiliated contractors and the project managers were authorized to and did enter into written contracts with individuals of different classifications to do the work.

The Army was working upon a supply road along the proposed route, and the project managers with the affiliated contractors took charge as soon as they could get their organization and the Government could transport those organizations and equipment to Alaska.

The only work that could be accomplished during the year 1942 was to build a supply trial or road. They did in that year with the use of heavy equipment knock down and push to one side of the trail or road the trees encountered. The roots did not extend very far into the ground because it did not thaw more than two or three feet below the surface. One reason the ground did not thaw any more in the short summer season was a deposit which covered the surface of the ground known as tundra or muskeg, some two or three feet in depth which served as an insulation.

The several project managers and the Public Roads Administration were able to and did finish a temporary road or trial in 1942 along the general route indicated. Besides removing the trees they removed the tundra and ditched the sides of the road to some extent, but it was not a finished road and, in fact, in the year 1943 they found it more difficult to use in some places than if the tundra had not been removed, as the summer thaw without the tundra soon made a morass of mud and mire that in many places prevented the use of trucks and equipment. Especially was this true in Canada from Whitehorse to the boundary line of Alaska, a distance of at least 50 miles.

Temporary bridges were constructed which washed out during the winter and spring of 1942-1943.

The Public Roads Administration in the spring of 1943 completed and published its surveys, location and plans and specifications for the permanent road and bridges. While the location of the permanent road was not influenced by the location of the supply trail or road, they were both built or to be built along the same proposed route which brought them more or less together or adjacent to each other.

In the year 1943 the project managers allocated the different portions of the work in Alaska to seventeen associated contractors, and the work was diligently prosecuted and completed, with the possible exception of a permanent bridge or two, by the middle of October in 1943. It was on this work in 1943 that these plaintiffs were employed.

The Public Roads Administration paid all the expenses of the project. It maintained offices in Seattle and perhaps at other points in the United States; bought and shipped the goods necessary for the feeding, housing and comfort of the men and for doing the work. These goods were sent to Alaska in convoyed ships and were unloaded on docks at the port of Valdez in southern Alaska. The goods were unloaded by Army personnel and first assembled at Valdez and later taken to warehouses and distributing points at different locations, by employees of contractors working under the direction of the project managers and the Public Roads Administration. Some of it was stored during the preceding winter in Fairbanks, Alaska. Later in the summer other storehouses were prepared and used on the highway and especially at a point known as Tok where a managerial headquarters had been constructed on the Alcan Highway.

The above method of procuring and delivering the goods did not include the gas and oil requirements. The Standard Oil Company of California maintained a gasoline storage plant at Valdez and sold and delivered in Alaska the gasoline and oil products, directly to the Public Roads Administration. Gasoline and oil products constituted more than half of all the supplies that were used by the contractors in building the road in Alaska. However, this does not mean that large quantities of goods were not brought in and distributed to the affiliated contractors, as it took a tremendous amount of goods to furnish the men with food, housing facilities and supplies, and the contractors with construction materials and equipment. One of the associated contractors was the Hoak Transportation Company which undertook to and did transport the goods, first, to the distributing points and later from those points to the contractors, although the associated contractors often hauled a part of their own supplies. One witness gave as a rough estimate the number of men employed on the project during the summer of 1943 at 5,000 and some 500 trucks being used in the transportation of supplies.

The general direction of the Alcan Highway from Ft. St. John in Canada to Big Delta and ultimately to Fairbanks, Alaska, ran in a northwesterly direction, but for our purposes we will consider it as running east and west.

When the project was started in 1942 there was a vehicular road known as the Richardson Highway from the port of Valdez extending in a northerly direction to Fairbanks. While this road was not an A-1 highway it was good enough for scheduled bus service. At a point about 75 miles north of Valdez on this road was a place called Gulkana, which was a managerial headquarters in 1942 and in the early part of 1943.

In order to facilitate the movement of the supplies to the main highway — as it was a roundabout route to go through Fairbanks — there was a cut-off extended in 1942 on what was known as the Slana Road or trail from Gulkana to a point on the Alcan Highway about midway between Big Delta and the Alaskan border. This point or place was first known as TanaCross, and was used as a storage depot and headquarters for some time but later they were moved a short distance east to Tok. The distance from Valdez to Tok by this supply route was about 150 miles. And Gulkana was about half way between Valdez and Tok.

In the year 1943, then, substantially all the supplies for the project in Alaska were moved from Valdez over the Richardson Highway and the Slana Road to Tok; and were distributed east and west on, or along, the Alcan Highway to the headquarters of the several affiliated contractors, located on that part of the Alcan Highway which they had been assigned to complete.

Under this general statement of the existing conditions in the year 1942 and 1943 we turn to the claims of the individual plaintiffs.

Plaintiff S. F. Crabb was employed by the defendant Welden Brothers, one of the associated contractors, by written agreement dated the 20th day of March, 1943, as a "Timber Foreman" at a basic wage of $525 per month. Mr. Crabb went to Alaska by plane, arriving at TanaCross on April 28, 1943. The headquarters of Welden Brothers at that time was at Clearwater, about 12 miles south of TanaCross on the Slana supply road, and he proceeded to construct, repair and put in operation three sawmills located at various places near Clearwater. He had four or five men at each of the mills, besides men in the timber, cutting and hauling logs for lumber. When trouble would appear at the sawmills he did the actual physical work in their repairs and to keep them in operation. The smaller of the mills was known as No. 3 mill and he testifies that when not otherwise occupied he ran this mill himself and also was often called upon to cruise the timber, help fell logs and provide the means and assist in bringing the logs from the timber to the sawmills.

After hearing his testimony I have no doubt of his doing more than 20 per cent. of work of the same nature as that performed by nonexempt employees under him. He is a man of considerable executive experience and ability and I also have no doubt that he had the authority to and did exercise that authority in firing men, and that his recommendations in the change of employee's classifications were given particular weight.

The plaintiff Frank B. Dedrick also signed a contract of employment with Welden Brothers, whereby he was engaged as a "Bridge Foreman" at a basic wage of $575 per month. He arrived in Alaska March 29, 1943. His general occupation was foreman in the building of the...

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