Fleming v. Hawkeye Pearl Button Co.

• Decision Date: 26 June 1940
• Docket Number: No. 11592.,11592.
• Citation: 113 F.2d 52
• Parties: FLEMING v. HAWKEYE PEARL BUTTON CO. et al.
• Court: U.S. Court of Appeals — Eighth Circuit

113 F.2d 52 (1940)

FLEMING v. HAWKEYE PEARL BUTTON CO. et al.

No. 11592.

Circuit Court of Appeals, Eighth Circuit.

June 26, 1940.

Alex Elson, of Chicago, Ill., and Rufus G. Poole, Associate General Counsel, of Washington, D. C. (George A. McNulty, General Counsel, Irving J. Levy, Asst. General Counsel, and Kenneth C. Robertson, all of Washington, D. C., Lee K. Beznor, of Chicago, Ill., Carl A. Auerbach, of Washington, D. C., and Robert J. Wieferich, of Chicago, Ill., on the brief), for appellant.

Wayne G. Cook, of Davenport, Iowa (G. Allbee and Harold E. Wilson, both of Muscatine, Iowa, William T. Waterman, of Davenport, Iowa, Allbee & Allbee, of Muscatine, Iowa, and Lane & Waterman, of Davenport, Iowa, on the brief), for appellees.

Before GARDNER and SANBORN, Circuit Judges, and COLLET, District Judge.

GARDNER, Circuit Judge.

This is an appeal from an order of the lower court granting appellees' motions to dismiss appellant's action brought to enjoin alleged violations of the Fair Labor Standards Act of 1938. Act of June 25, 1938, c. 676, 52 Stat. 1060-1069, 29 U.S.C. §§ 201-219, 29 U.S.C.A. §§ 201-219.

The action was commenced by the Administrator of the Wage and Hour Division of the United States Department of Labor. Defendants were the Hawkeye Pearl Button Company and numerous individuals. Some of the individual defendants entered their appearance and consented to the entry of judgment against them. The other defendants, the appellees here, filed motions to dismiss the complaint on the ground that it failed to state a cause of action against the appealing defendants upon which relief might be granted. As the motions were sustained, we must accept as true all the well pleaded facts as set forth in the complaint. So far as relevant to the issues, they are substantially as follows:

The Hawkeye Pearl Button Company is an Iowa corporation, with its principal place of business at Muscatine, Iowa. It is engaged in the manufacture, sale and distribution of buttons and pearl novelties, such as watch fobs and necklaces made from clam shells and composition buttons made from casein and other materials. In connection with this business it operates a number of button cutting plants located at Muscatine, Iowa, Keokuk, Iowa, and Canton, Missouri. It maintains a sales office at New York City. These shells are obtained from fresh water clams, which are inedible. Shortly after October 24, 1938, it began a reduction of operations in its cutting plants and encouraged and promoted an increase in the number of small cutting plants commonly referred to in the trade as "privy plants," and an increase in the operations of such plants, including those of the individual defendants, who are dominated and controlled by the Hawkeye Pearl Button Company. The individual defendants are "cutters," that is, they engage in but one aspect of the process of making buttons, the cutting of round pieces of shells from fresh water clam shells. The portions so cut are referred to in the trade as "button blanks." It is from the button blanks that the buttons are made. The cutters are supplied with these fresh water clam shells by the Hawkeye Company. Such shells are obtained from river beds in the states in the Mississippi River Valley, the Ohio River Valley and the Tennessee River Valley and in other states, and are purchased by the Hawkeye Pearl Button Company and brought into Iowa and distributed to the cutters. In addition to use in the manufacture of buttons, clam shells are used for the manufacture of shell novelties, for road materials, for poultry feed, and in other ways. Within its own plant, the Hawkeye Company employs persons not only in the cutting of button blanks, but in all the steps necessary to the manufacture of buttons from clam shells. It operates a large button finishing factory for the purpose of finishing and sorting button blanks produced in its button cutting shops. 185 employees, exclusive of office staff and executives, are employed in this finishing factory.

The various steps in the manufacture of buttons are described in the complaint in some detail. In general, these steps include: (1) the classification of the shells into different sizes; (2) placing them in soaking tanks before they are cut into blanks; (3) cutting the blanks with machinery; (4) classifying the blanks according to their various thicknesses and quality; (5) churning and grinding them so as to remove rough edges; (6) soaking them for the purpose of softening them so that they may be machined; (7) putting them through machines for the purpose of shaping and drilling them; (8) again putting them through a churning process for the purpose of polishing; and (9) finally sorting, grading and packing them.

None of the employees of the company, while employed in its plants, engaged in catching, taking, gathering, cultivating or harvesting of clams or clam shells from rivers or other bodies of water, nor in the operation or processing of clams or clam shells for distribution or sale as such, nor in the distribution or sale thereof to other manufacturers of buttons, and no violation of the Act is claimed as to any of its employees who may be engaged in any such activities, nor as to employees of cutters who may be engaged in any such activities. There are allegations adequate to show the required relationship to and connection with interstate commerce. Violations of the Fair Labor Standards Act of 1938 are charged in that a wage of less than 25¢ per hour was paid employees. Sections 6 and 7 of the Act read as follows:

"Minimum Wages

"Sec. 6 § 206. (a) Every employer shall pay to each of his employees who is engaged in commerce or in the production of goods for commerce wages at the following rates —

"(1) during the first year from the effective date of this section, not less than 25 cents an hour "(2) during the next six years from such date, not less than 30 cents an hour,

"(3) after the expiration of seven years from such date, not less than 40 cents an hour, or the rate (not less than 30 cents an hour) prescribed in the applicable order of the Administrator issued under section 8 208, whichever is lower, and

"(4) at any time after the effective date of this section, not less than the rate (not in excess of 40 cents an hour) prescribed in the applicable order of the Administrator issued under section 8 208.

"(b) This section shall take effect upon the expiration of one hundred and twenty days from the date of enactment of this Act chapter.

"Maximum Hours

"Sec. 7 § 207. (a) No employer shall, except as otherwise provided in this section, employ any of his employees who is engaged in commerce or in the production of goods for commerce —

"(1) for a workweek longer than forty-four hours during the first year from the effective date of this section,

"(2) for a workweek longer than forty-two hours during the second year from such date, or

"(3) for a workweek longer than forty hours after the expiration of the second year from such date,

unless such employee receives compensation for his employment in excess of the hours above specified at a rate not less than one and one-half times the regular rate at which he is employed."

The motions to dismiss are based upon the contention that the employees of the Hawkeye Company and the other appellees are exempt from the wage and hour provisions of the Act (Secs. 6 & 7) by reason of the exemption contained in Section 13(a) (5). Section 13(a) (5) provides that Sections 6 and 7 shall not apply to "* * * any employee employed in the catching, taking, harvesting, cultivating, or farming of any kind of fish, shellfish, crustacea, sponges, seaweeds, or other aquatic forms of animal and vegetable life, including the going to and returning from work and including employment in the loading, unloading, or packing of such products for shipment or in propagating, processing, marketing, freezing, canning, curing, storing, or distributing the above products or by-products thereof".

The sole question for determination on this appeal is, therefore, whether or not employees engaged in the manufacture of buttons from clam shells are exempt from the wage and hour provisions of the above quoted Act by virtue of the exemptions contained in Section 13(a) (5). The meaning of the statute must in the first instance at least be sought in its language, and if that is plain and the Act is constitutional, the sole function of the court is to enforce it. Caminetti v. United States, 242 U.S. 470, 37 S.Ct. 192, 61 L.Ed. 442, L.R.A. 1917F 502, Ann.Cas.1917B, 1168. If the statutory meaning is clear, there is, of course, no occasion to resort to rules of construction. Andrews v. St. Louis Joint Stock Land Bank, 8 Cir., 107 F.2d 462. In Thompson v. Terminal Shares, Inc., 8 Cir., 104 F.2d 1, 8, we said: "`A thing which is within the intention of the makers of a statute is as much within the statute as if it were within the letter; and a thing which is within the letter of the statute, is not within the statute, unless it be within the intention of the makers.' People v. Utica Ins. Co., 15 Johns., N.Y., 358, 381, 8 Am.Dec. 243; Territory of Hawaii v. Mankichi, 190 U.S. 197, 212, 23 S.Ct. 787, 47 L.Ed. 1016; Barrett v. Van Pelt, 268 U.S. 85, 90, 91, 45 S.Ct. 437, 69 L.Ed. 857."

In Heydenfeldt v. Daney Gold Min. Co., 93 U.S. 634, 638, 23 L.Ed. 995, it is said: "If a literal interpretation of any part of it a statute would operate unjustly, or lead to absurd results and be contrary to the evident meaning of the Act taken as a whole, it will be rejected; and there is no better way of discovering the true meaning of a law when there are expressions in it which are rendered ambiguous by their connection with other clauses, than by considering the necessity for it, and the causes which induced the Legislature to pass it." Compare: Keifer & Keifer v. Reconstruction Finance Corp., 306 U.S. 381, 59 S.Ct. 516, 83 L.Ed. 784.

In the last cited...