Fleming v. Kenton Loose Leaf Tobacco Warehouse Co., 49.
| Decision Date | 11 October 1941 |
| Docket Number | No. 49.,49. |
| Parties | FLEMING, Adm'r of Wage and Hour Division, Department of Labor, v. KENTON LOOSE LEAF TOBACCO WAREHOUSE CO. |
| Court | U.S. District Court — Eastern District of Kentucky |
Charles H. Livengood, Jr., Regional Atty., Wage & Hour Division of U. S. Dept. of Labor, of Nashville, Tenn. (Gerard D. Reilly, Sol. and Irving J. Levy, Asst. Sol., both of Washington, D.C., and Jeter S. Ray, Atty., all of U. S. Department of Labor, both of Nashville, Tenn., on the brief; Charles R. Reynolds, Jr., of Washington, D. C., of counsel), for plaintiff.
William A. Price, of Rouse, Price & Adams, of Covington, Ky., for defendant.
The Administrator of the Wage and Hour Division of the United States Department of Labor seeks to enjoin the defendant from violating Sections 15(a) (2) and 15(a) (5) of the Fair Labor Standards Act of June 25, 1938, 52 Stat. 1060, 29 U.S. C.A. §§ 201-219.
Section 15(a) (2) of the Act makes it unlawful to violate the provisions of Sections 6 and 7. Section 6 requires employers to pay employees engaged in interstate commerce or in the production of goods in interstate commerce according to a certain wage scale. Section 7 fixes maximum hours. Section 15(a) (5) also makes it unlawful for any employee to violate the provisions of Sections 11(c). Section 11(c) provides for the keeping of accurate records of the wages and hours of the employees.
The defendant is a loose leaf tobacco warehouse where tobacco is sold at public auction for a period of sixty to ninety days each season. It has not complied with the provisions of the Act. The question for determination is whether a tobacco loose leaf auction sales warehouse is subject to the provisions of the Fair Labor Standards Act.
There is no material dispute about the facts in the case. The defendant conducts for from sixty to ninety days a tobacco auction at Covington, Kentucky, on the banks of the Ohio River and directly opposite the City of Cincinnati. Growers of tobacco deliver their crops to the warehouse where it is weighed and placed in baskets according to grade. The baskets are then placed in rows on the warehouse floor and auctioned off.
From the time the tobacco is brought to the warehouse by the owner until it is sold and removed from the warehouse floor it is handled by employees of the defendant.
For the three years in question it is shown that from 36% to 50% of the tobacco so handled by the defendant came from other States to Kentucky for sale. Eight to ten percent is removed out of the State immediately by the purchaser and ninety percent of what remains in the State is eventually shipped out of the State for manufacture, usually within two years.
Other than an infinitesimal amount, none of the tobacco is bought by the warehouse. The whole function of the warehouse is to lend its agencies, for a stipulated fee, to the grower or seller of the tobacco for sale to the purchasers, usually manufacturers of tobacco products.
The defendant or warehouse is not a producer and never has any interest in the tobacco except to handle it during the process of delivery, sale and transfer between grower and manufacturer. Yet this product is undoubtedly moving in interstate commerce at the time of this handling. Currin v. Wallace, 306 U.S. 1, 59 S.Ct. 379, 83 L.Ed. 441.
The purposes of the Fair Labor Standards Act are set forth in Section 2(a), wherein it is stated that the legislation is necessary because Congress finds "labor conditions detrimental to the maintenance of the minimum standard of living necessary for health, efficiency, and general well-being of workers", all of which burdens and affects interstate commerce.
The Court cannot question this pronouncement of Congress. The record here amply justifies such a finding by Congress in the industry under consideration. It is shown and not contradicted that Kentucky has the lowest wage scale of any of the tobacco marketing States.
In Board of Trade of Chicago v. Olsen, 262 U.S. 1, 43 S.Ct. 470, 477, 67 L.Ed. 839, the court said:
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