Fleming v. Enterprise Box Co., 277.
| Decision Date | 26 February 1941 |
| Docket Number | No. 277.,277. |
| Citation | 37 F. Supp. 331 |
| Parties | FLEMING, Administrator of Wage and Hour Division, United States Dep't of Labor, v. ENTERPRISE BOX CO. |
| Court | U.S. District Court — Southern District of Florida |
Bruce Aitchison, of Washington, D.C., and George A. Downing, Atlanta, Ga., for plaintiff.
Caraballo, Graham & Caraballo, of Tampa, Fla., for defendant.
Plaintiff seeks to enjoin defendant from violating the provisions of Section 15(a) (1), 15(a)(2), and 15(a)(5) of the Fair Labor Standards Act of 1938 (Act of June 25, 1938, c. 676, 52 Stat. 1060, 29 U.S.C.A. § 201 et seq. The complaint alleges that the defendant is engaged in manufacturing wooden cigar boxes, including the printing and labeling of said boxes, in the City of Tampa, Florida; that cigar boxes are produced from raw materials purchased and transported in interstate commerce from states other than the State of Florida, and that substantially all the goods produced by said employees in said plant have been and are being produced for interstate commerce and have been and are being sold, transported, shipped, and delivered in interstate commerce from said plant in the State of Florida through and to states other than the State of Florida. The plaintiff, before final hearing, made appropriate admissions that there was no evidence to show direct shipments by the defendant of its products to parties beyond the boundaries of the State of Florida. The complaint further alleged:
(1) That the defendant, since the effective date of the Fair Labor Standards Act, had failed to pay to many employees the minimum wage required by the Act.
(2) That the defendant worked employees for periods longer than the number of hours permitted by the Act without paying said employees time and a half for over time.
(3) That the defendant failed to keep records prescribed by the regulations of the Administrator of the Wage and Hour Division of the United States Department of Labor.
(4) That the defendant had falsified its records in material respects relative to the number of hours worked by its employees.
Motion by defendant to dismiss the complaint was overruled.
At the beginning of taking of testimony at final hearing the defendant made the following admissions in open Court, to wit:
1. That it has had, and still has, in its employ apprentices who were, and are, paid less than the amount provided by the Fair Labor Standard Act of 1938 and, further, that permits for employing said apprentices were not secured.
2. That the defendant has not paid overtime to the employees of the defendant who worked more than the maximum amount of hours fixed by said Act, but that all of said employees were paid straight time for said overtime.
3. That Jose Coromina, an employee of the defendant, is being paid 25¢ an hour for his work.
4. That helpers occasionally employed for short periods of time during last fall, after October 24, 1940, were paid 25¢ per hour.
5. That these admissions are made for the purpose of admitting true facts as well as shortening this trial but that they are not to be construed as admitting that the defendant is engaged in interstate commerce or in producing goods for interstate commerce within the meaning of said Act, but that it contends that it is engaged in purely intrastate manufacture and commerce and that its operations do not come within the purview of said Act.
Upon the filing of the foregoing admissions by the defendant the Court thereupon ruled that the only issues left for determination were:
(1) Whether the defendant was under the provisions of the Fair Labor Standards Act.
(2) Whether or not it had falsified its records relative to the matter of wages and hours of its employees.
At the conclusion of the testimony by the plaintiff the defendant moved the Court to dismiss the said cause and to deny the injunction sought, upon which motion the Court reserved its ruling on the question of whether or not the defendant was subject to the provisions of said Act and held that all other grounds of said motion were without merit. Thereupon, the defendant announced that it would offer no testimony but would submit the case on the testimony produced by the plaintiff.
Findings of Fact.
The Court finds:
1. That the defendant failed to pay to some of its employees the minimum wages required by Section 6 of said Act.
2. That the defendant failed to pay wages at the rate of time and a half for over time worked by some of its employees.
3. That the defendant failed to keep records as required by the Administrator.
4. That the defendant did not keep correct records of the hours worked by many of its employees but that it failsified its said records in that numerous pieceworkers were required to compute their total weekly earnings, divide said total earnings by thirty cents an hour and to record the result as the hours worked during a given week rather than to record the actual number of hours worked.
The evidence fails to show any sales or shipments by the defendant of its products to parties outside the State of Florida. All of its sales were made to cigar factories located in the City of Tampa in the State of Florida. There is, therefore, no proof of any direct sales or shipments by the defendant in interstate commerce.
The proof showed without dispute that labels were placed by the defendant on many of the cigar boxes manufactured by it, which labels were, as a rule, furnished by the cigar manufacturer. The proof also showed that labels bearing such inscriptions as "Engineers Club of New York", "The Yale Club of New York", "Princeton Club Special — Princeton Club of New York", were furnished by one cigar factory to the defendant and such labels were placed on the cigar boxes by the defendant in the process of the manufacture of same. It was also testified that the defendant manufactured cigar boxes with the "back strips" on the cigar boxes having printed thereon the name of one distributor in New York and another distributor in California. These labels were introduced by the plaintiff for the purpose of showing that they were the special brand of these particular clubs whose domicile was shown on the labels to be in New York, and that the cigars were manufactured on special order for these particular clubs, and that the defendant, in making the boxes and placing the labels thereon, knew that the boxes were to be transported in interstate commerce. The president of the defendant insisted that these labels were nothing more than trade marks for particular brands of cigars. The Court does not recall that the defendant made any explanation of the printing, on the back strips of certain cigar boxes manufactured by it, the name of the distributor or distributors appearing thereon.
The proof further shows that the cigar-making industry is a large and important industry in the City of Tampa, Florida, and that in excess of ninety-five per cent of all the cigars produced in Tampa are sold outside of the State of Florida. The regulations of the Treasury Department of the United States require that all cigars be sold in a box or container, which box or container cannot be refilled or re-used. It is necessary, therefore, in the sale of cigars, whether intrastate or interstate, that they be packed in boxes or containers. Such boxes, which might be either of wood, tin, paper, or some composition, are, therefore, essential to the sale and shipment of cigars whether sold in intrastate commerce or interstate commerce.
From the foregoing findings of fact, all of which are admitted or proven without dispute, it must necessarily follow that the injunction sought must be granted if the defendant was, indeed, in production of goods for interstate commerce, or if the defendant was making sales of goods with knowledge that same were intended for shipment, delivery, or sale in interstate commerce, under the provisions of the said Fair Labor Standards Act.
Legal Conclusions.
The perplexing legal question presented in this case is whether or not the employees of a defendant who makes no shipment nor sale of its products across state lines, but sells its entire production locally, are engaged in "interstate commerce" or whether they are engaged in "the...
To continue reading
Request your trial
-
Schulte v. Gangi
...4 Cir., 144 F.2d 584; Culver v. Bell & Loffland, 9 Cir., 146 F.2d 29; St. John V. Brown, D.C., 38 F.Supp. 385, 388; Fleming v. Enterprise Box Co., D.C., 37 F.Supp. 331, affirmed 5 Cir., 125 F.2d 897; Bracey v. Luray, 4 Cir., 138 F.2d 8. ...
-
Mitchell v. Jaffe
...5 Cir., 1941, 124 F.2d 42; Southern Advance Bag & Paper Co. v. United States, 5 Cir., 1943, 133 F.2d 449; Fleming v. Enterprise Box Co., D.C.S.D.Fla., 1941, 37 F.Supp. 331, affirmed, 5 Cir., 1942, 125 F.2d 897, certiorari denied Enterprise Box Co. v. Holland, 1942, 316 U.S. 704, 62 S.Ct. 13......
-
Gerdert v. Certified Poultry & Egg Co.
...of this interpretation, it is set at rest by the legislative history of the Act." This Court, in Fleming, Administrator, v. Enterprise Box Company, 37 F. Supp. 331, in a case arising at Tampa in the Southern District of Florida, has held that even though the goods produced were sold only lo......
-
Divine v. Levy, 365.
...that transaction might be, does not affect the question. Sunshine Mining Co. v. Carver, D.C.Idaho, 34 F.Supp. 274; Fleming v. Enterprise Box Co., D.C. Florida, 37 F.Supp. 331; United States v. Darby Lumber Co., 312 U.S. 100, 61 S.Ct. 451, 85 L.Ed. ___; N. L. R. B. v. Jones & Laughlin Steel ......