Crompton v. Baker

• Decision Date: 26 September 1941
• Docket Number: 94.
• Citation: 16 S.E.2d 471,220 N.C. 52
• Parties: CROMPTON v. BAKER.
• Court: North Carolina Supreme Court

16 S.E.2d 471

220 N.C. 52

CROMPTON v. BAKER.

No. 94.

Supreme Court of North Carolina

September 26, 1941

J W. Haynes, of Asheville, for appellant.

Claude L. Love and Roy A. Taylor, both of Asheville, for appellee.

DEVIN Justice.

This was an action instituted in the Superior Court of Buncombe County by an employee to recover unpaid minimum wages under the Fair Labor Standards Act of 1938, 29 U.S.C.A. § 201 et seq. Issues raised by the pleadings were submitted to the jury, and answered in favor of the plaintiff, and from judgment rendered in accord with the verdict the defendant appealed to this court.

The material facts determined by the verdict in the trial court were that the defendant was engaged in the meat packing business in the City of Asheville, North Carolina, and that in the course of his business he purchased live stock at points in the State of Tennessee and had same hauled to his premises in Asheville where the animals were slaughtered and the meat products sold wholesale to dealers in North Carolina. It was also found that in his place of business and in regular course defendant obtained the grease from the offal of the animals by cooking in vats or tanks, and that he sold the tank grease, seven to ten barrels per week, and also green hides, to dealers who shipped all of these products out of the state, and that this was done with knowledge that these products would thus be transported in interstate commerce by those to whom he sold.

It was further established by the verdict that Crompton, the plaintiff, served the defendant in his plant in Asheville as night watchman, and night engineer, and that, as was his duty to do, he fired the furnace, maintained the heat under the grease tanks cooked the product, checked the hides and kept up the refrigeration, as well as counted and checked-in the animals received during the night, and that he thus performed functions necessary to the production of goods for interstate commerce within the meaning of the Fair Labor Standards Act.

It was found that the plaintiff's minimum hourly wage under the Act, plus one and one-half times for overtime, less the amount paid him by the defendant, for nineteen and two-sevenths weeks, would amount to $321.11, and that plaintiff was entitled to have an additional equal amount as liquidated damages.

The defendant, in the trial below, noted exception to the issues submitted and to certain portions of the judge's charge to the jury, but in his brief in this court he bases his appeal entirely upon the denial of his motion for judgment of nonsuit (Rule 28, In re Beard's Will, 202 N.C 661, 163 S.E. 748), and contends that the Fair Labor Standards Act has no application here, and that, if it does the evidence fails to show that the defendant sold his products interstate, or with intent or expectation that they would be shipped in interstate commerce.

The Fair Labor Standards Act of 1938, 29 U.S.C.A. § 201, provides that any employer who violates the provisions of the Act establishing a minimum wage (§ 206), or maximum hours for a work week (§ 207), for his employees who are engaged in the production of goods for interstate commerce, shall be liable to the employees affected "in the amount of their unpaid minimum wages, or their unpaid overtime compensation, as the case may be, and in an additional equal amount as liquidated damages. Action to recover such liability may be maintained in any court of competent jurisdiction." § 216.

Section 215(a) (1) renders it unlawful for any person "to transport, offer for transportation, ship, deliver, or sell in [interstate] commerce, or to ship, deliver, or sell with knowledge that shipment or delivery or sale thereof in [interstate] commerce is intended, any goods in the production of which any employee was employed in violation of section 206 or section 207," with certain exceptions inapplicable here. In section 215(b) it is declared that "for the purposes of subsection (a) (1) proof that any employee was employed in any place of employment where goods shipped or sold in commerce were produced, within ninety days prior to the removal of the goods from such place of employment, shall be prima facie evidence that such employee was engaged in the production of such goods."

The power granted to the Congress by the Constitution to regulate commerce among the several states includes the power to prescribe the rules by which this commerce shall be governed. Gibbons v. Ogden, 9 Wheat, 1, 196, 6 L.Ed. 23. It extends not only to those regulations which aid and protect the commerce, but embraces those under which it may be prohibited. Reid v. Colorado, 187 U.S. 137, 23 S.Ct. 92, 47 L.Ed. 108; Kentucky Whip & Collar Co. v. Illinois C. R. Co., 299 U.S. 334, 57 S.Ct. 277, 81 L.Ed. 270. While the manufacture of goods is not itself interstate commerce, the shipment of manufactured goods interstate is such commerce, and the rules under which they may be shipped are regulations which the Congress has exclusive power to prescribe.

The constitutionality of the Fair Labor Standards Act of 1938 was...