Crook v. Bryant

• Decision Date: 08 April 1959
• Docket Number: No. 7814.,7814.
• Parties: Elouise CROOK, Walter Crook, and J. W. Evans, Jr., doing business as Raleigh Wrecking Company, Appellants, v. Freda F. BRYANT, Administratrix of the Estate of Charles O. Bryant, deceased, Appellee.
• Court: U.S. Court of Appeals — Fourth Circuit

265 F.2d 541 (1959)

Elouise CROOK, Walter Crook, and J. W. Evans, Jr., doing business as Raleigh Wrecking Company, Appellants, v. Freda F. BRYANT, Administratrix of the Estate of Charles O. Bryant, deceased, Appellee.

No. 7814.

United States Court of Appeals Fourth Circuit.

Argued March 19, 1959.

Decided April 8, 1959.

James M. Henderson, Beckley, W. Va. (Fletcher W. Mann, Beckley, W. Va., on brief), for appellants.

Donald D. Hodson and William H. File, Jr., Beckley, W. Va. (L. L. Scherer, Beckley, W. Va., on brief), for appellee.

Before SOBELOFF, Chief Judge, SOPER, Circuit Judge, and BOREMAN, District Judge.

SOPER, Circuit Judge.

This suit was brought by the Administratrix of the estate of Charles O. Bryant to recover from his employer unpaid minimum wages and overtime compensation alleged to be due the decedent for services rendered in his lifetime under the Fair Labor Standards Act, 29 U.S. C.A. § 201 et seq. The defense was that Bryant's services were not within the purview of the statute but the District Judge, sitting as a jury, overruled this defense and found a verdict and judgment for the plaintiff, under §§ 216 and 260 of the Act, in the sum of $5500, which included $3584.28 or the difference between the amount paid to the employee and the amount due him for services at the rate specified in the statute, and also the sum of $1415.72 allowed by the judge in his discretion as additional liquidated damages, together with the sum of $500 as counsel fees for the plaintiff's attorney.

The defendants, trading under the name of Raleigh Wrecking Company, were located on a five and a half acre tract of land on the outskirts of Beckley, West Virginia. They used the land for the storage of wrecked and disabled cars from which they removed parts and sold them to the public, and also for repair work. The purchase and sale of wrecked or junked cars was confined to West Virginia.

The defendants were also engaged in the wrecking business, in the course of which they furnished 24-hour wrecker and towing service under a contract with the West Virginia Turnpike Commission on nineteen miles of a turnpike running from Beckley to Flat Top, West Virginia. These services were rendered to West Virginia cars and also to cars from other states. The Wrecking Company paid the Commission 4 per cent of the gross receipts earned by them under the contract. The Wrecking Company also furnished wrecker service not covered by the contract to vehicles on interstate U. S. Highways 19 and 21 leading to and from the turnpike, in the course of which they handled vehicles from other states.

Charles O. Bryant, the deceased, was a general employee of the defendants from February 27 to November 4, 1956. He served as night watchman and janitor and answered all telephone calls, including those relating to wrecker service. On Sundays he and other employees spent some time removing small parts from vehicles. He was severely handicapped, having two artificial legs. From Monday to Saturday he worked from 6:00 P.M. to 8:00 A.M., and from 10:00 A.M. on Sunday to 8:00 A.M. on Monday. He was supposed to rest at nights from 10:00 P.M. to 5:00 A.M. For these services he was paid $39.04 per week by check. There was evidence tending to show that he was paid an additional $10:00 per week in cash, but the judge rejected this testimony since it was not supported by the evidence of the bookkeeper who made the entries and found that the total weekly wage was the smaller sum. Thus, there was sufficient basis for the amount found to be due in the judgment of the court, if the work was covered by the statute.

The defense is based on the contentions that the employee was not engaged in commerce within the meaning of the Act and that, in any event, the amount of such work performed by him was so trivial that it should be disregarded as de minimis. In support of the first contention, it was shown that the greater part of the defendants' business related to the storage and repair of wrecked and junked cars and the sale of parts therefrom; and that the turnpike lies entirely in the State of West Virginia, running from Charleston to Princeton. Relying on these facts, the defendants argue that not only their principal business but also their wrecking business was wholly intrastate in character and therefore outside the scope of the statute. Since the turnpike is a limited access toll road built by the West Virginia Turnpike Commission and is used by vehicles traveling interstate, not by necessity but for convenience only, it is contended that none of the business of the company and none of the activities of the deceased employee were interstate in character.

The District Judge correctly rejected this contention. The turnpike, as shown by highway maps introduced into evidence, is a connecting link of the system of interstate highways and thus serves as an instrumentality of interstate commerce although it lies solely in a single state; and the services of the employee, insofar as they help to maintain the road free from obstruction, facilitated the flow of commerce from state to state. In Alstate Construction Co. v. Durkin, 345 U.S. 13, 73 S.Ct. 565, 97 L.Ed. 745, and in prior decisions cited therein, it was held...