Hawkins v. EI Du Pont de Nemours & Co.

• Decision Date: 05 November 1951
• Docket Number: No. 6333.,6333.
• Citation: 192 F.2d 294
• Parties: HAWKINS et al. v. E. I. DU PONT DE NEMOURS & CO., Inc.
• Court: U.S. Court of Appeals — Fourth Circuit

192 F.2d 294 (1951)

HAWKINS et al. v. E. I. DU PONT DE NEMOURS & CO., Inc.

No. 6333.

United States Court of Appeals Fourth Circuit.

Argued October 16, 1951.

Decided November 5, 1951.

T. Nelson Parker, Richmond, Va. (Parker, Fairbank, Neal & Harris and Thomas N. Parker, Jr., all of Richmond, Va., on brief), for appellants.

Aubrey R. Bowles, Jr., Richmond, Va. (H. Armistead Boyd, Richmond, Va., on brief), for appellee.

Before PARKER, Chief Judge, and SOPER and DOBIE, Circuit Judges.

SOPER, Circuit Judge.

The complainants in the District Court brought suit on April 24, 1951 under the Fair Labor Standards Act of 1938, 52 Stat. 1060, as amended, 29 U.S.C.A. §§ 201 to 219, to recover from their employer, E. I. DuPont de Nemours & Company, Inc. unpaid overtime compensation for services rendered during a period of two years prior to suit. They claimed that they were required to work for 50 minutes in excess of 40 hours per week, i. e., 10 minutes in excess of 8 hours on each day of the 5-day work week, and that they received no pay for the overtime. They sued for $2106.00 and in addition for an equal amount as liquidated damages and a reasonable counsel fee under Section 16 of the statute, 29 U.S.C.A. § 216.

The case came before the court on motion of the defendant to dismiss the bill of complaint which, with supporting affidavits contained allegations in effect as follows: The complainants were employed as workers in a cafeteria maintained by the company in its plant in Chesterfield County, Virginia, which was engaged in the production of goods for interstate commerce. The plant was completely fenced in and guarded at the entrances and the employees were not allowed to leave the plant during their work shift except for sickness or other good cause, and the cafeteria was the only available place for them to eat. The work performed by the complainants during the overtime period of ten minutes per working day consisted of working with the outgoing cafeteria operators in balancing the cash and making out required reports, and constituted an integral part of their principal activities. The motion to dismiss was supported by affidavit and was based on the ground: (1) because they were not employed in the production of goods for commerce or "in any closely related process or occupation directly essential to the production" of goods for commerce, as provided in Section 3 of the statute as amended by the Act of October 26, 1949, Ch. 736, 29 U.S.C.A. § 203(j), which became effective under the provisions of Section 16(a) of the Act on January 25, 1950, 29 U.S.C.A. § 202 note; and (2) because the period spent in overtime work was so short as to be de minimis and unworthy of consideration. The District Judge, being of the opinion that the first ground on which the motion was based was well taken, dismissed the complaint.

The company relies upon the tendency to restrict or explain the broad implications of the decision of the Supreme Court in Kirschbaum Co. v. Walling, 316 U.S. 517, 62 S.Ct. 1116, 86 L.Ed. 1638, which is manifest in McLeod v. Threlkeld, 319 U.S. 491, 63 S.Ct. 1248, 87 L.Ed. 1538, and Armour & Co. v. Wantock, 323 U.S. 126, 65 S.Ct. 165, 89 L.Ed. 118, and is also apparent in the Amendment of 1949 to Section 3(j) of the statute whereby the concluding words of the subsection, descriptive of activities associated with the production of goods which are covered by the Act, were changed from employment "in any process or occupation necessary to the production thereof" to "in any closely related process or occupation directly essential to the production thereof".

Prior to the passage of the Amendment, the bearing of the statute upon the activities of workers in cook-shops or cafeterias had been considered in a number of cases with varying results which depended in greater or less degree upon the question whether the eating place was an integral and necessary part of the employer's plant or merely a convenience for workers who had access to other cafeterias or restaurants in the neighborhood. The opinion has been expressed that the provision of sustenance for the workers who operate machines is as essential as the furnishing of power to the machines themselves and that the feeding of employees conveniently so that they need not leave the plant is an effective step in maintaining production. Basik v. General Motors Corp., 311 Mich. 705, 19 N.W.2d 142, 159 A.L.R. 966. Weight has been given to factory rules which require the workers to remain on the premises during the workday; see McComb v. Factory Stores Co., D.C.N.D. Ohio, 81 F.Supp. 403; and to the fact that in some cases the place of operation is so remote from populous settlements that the provision for food at the situs of the work is essential. Hanson v. Lagerstrom, 8 Cir., 133 F.2d 120; Consolidated Timber Co. v. Womack, 9 Cir., 132 F.2d 101; cf. Bayer v. Courtemanche, D.C.Conn., 76 F.Supp. 193; Kuhn v. Canteen Food Service, D.C.N.D.Ill., 77 F.Supp. 585; Tipton v. Bearl Sprott Co., D.C.S.D.Cal., 93 F.Supp. 496.

After the passage of the Amendment of 1949 the question was considered in an Interpretative Bulletin of the Administrator of the Wage and Hour Division of the Department of Labor effective on May 17, 1950 under the authority of Section 10 of the Portal-to-Portal Act, 29 U.S.C.A. § 259, which is set in the Cumulative Annual...