Helena Glendale Ferry Co. v. Walling

• Decision Date: 23 December 1942
• Docket Number: No. 12318,12319.,12318
• Citation: 132 F.2d 616
• Parties: HELENA GLENDALE FERRY CO. v. WALLING, Administrator of Wage and Hour Division, United States Department of Labor. WALLING, Administrator of the Wage and Hour Division, United States Department of Labor, v. JOHNSON.
• Court: U.S. Court of Appeals — Eighth Circuit

132 F.2d 616 (1942)

HELENA GLENDALE FERRY CO. v. WALLING, Administrator of Wage and Hour Division, United States Department of Labor. WALLING, Administrator of the Wage and Hour Division, United States Department of Labor, v. JOHNSON.

Nos. 12318, 12319.

Circuit Court of Appeals, Eighth Circuit.

December 23, 1942.

Walter T. Nolte, Atty., Office of Solicitor, United States Department of Labor, of Washington, D. C. (Warner W. Gardner, Sol., and Mortimer B. Wolfe, Asst. Sol., both of Washington, D. C., Llewellyn S. Duke, Regional Atty., of Dallas, Tex., and Edward J. Fruchtman and George W. Crockett, Jr., Attorneys, United States Department of Labor, both of Washington, D. C., on the brief) for L. Metcalfe Walling, Administrator.

A. M. Coates, of Helena, Ark. (Douglas S. Heslep, of Helena, Ark., on the brief), for Helena Glendale Ferry Co. and another.

Before STONE, SANBORN, and RIDDICK, Circuit Judges.

RIDDICK, Circuit Judge.

The Helena Glendale Ferry Company, a corporation, operates a ferry across the Mississippi River from Helena, in Arkansas, to a point on the opposite shore in the State of Mississippi, for the transportation of passengers and freight in interstate commerce. A. C. Johnson is the owner of all but two shares of the capital stock in the ferry company and is its general manager. This suit was brought by the Administrator of the Wage and Hour Division of the United States Department of Labor to enjoin the ferry company and Johnson from alleged violations of the Fair Labor Standards Act of 1938, 29 U.S.C.A. § 201 et seq., in respect to the requirements of the Act concerning minimum wages and maximum hours of employees and the keeping and preservation of records in conformity with regulations of the Administrator promulgated by him under the authority of the Act. A. C. Johnson was joined as a defendant on the allegation that he was an employer within § 3(d) of the Act, defining an employer as "any person acting directly or indirectly in the interest of an employer in relation to an employee."

The ferry company and Johnson defended on the ground that all of the employees of the company were exempt from the provisions of the act under § 13(a)(3) because they were seamen and, with respect to two of the company's employees, on the further ground that they were exempt because they were executive and administrative employees within the meaning of § 13(a)(1) of the Act.

The district court dismissed the suit as against defendant A. C. Johnson; found that the ferry company had violated the Act with respect to three persons who, in the opinion of the court, were employees of the ferry company not within the exemptions claimed; and permanently enjoined the ferry company from further violations of the Act in the respects charged in the complaint.

The ferry company has appealed on the grounds that the court erred in holding that two of the employees, concerning whom the injunction was granted, were not executive nor administrative employees within the meaning of § 13(a)(1) of the Act, or were not seamen within the meaning of § 13(a) (3) of the Act; and on the further ground that the third person, with respect to whom violations of the Act were found by the court, was not an employee of the company. The Administrator appeals from the order dismissing the suit as to A. C. Johnson, assigning as error the refusal of the court to hold that A. C. Johnson was an employer of the employees of the ferry company within the meaning of the Act.

All of the ferry company's employees are engaged in interstate commerce. Apparently all except three are seamen exempt from the provisions of the Act. The company did not comply with the minimum wage and maximum hours provision of the Act with respect to the three persons which the court found to be entitled to the protection of the Act. The required record of hours of labor and wages was not kept by the company.

The company operates three vessels in its ferry business. It maintains its office upon a floating barge adjacent to the Arkansas shore of the river at Helena. This floating barge or landing stage is attached to the shore by cables, enabling it to rise and fall with the rise and fall of the river. This arrangement is necessary because of frequent variations in the water level of the Mississippi, making it impossible to maintain on the river bank a permanent landing stage which at all stages of the river would be conveniently accessible to approach by the ferry boats. The purpose of the floating barge is to provide a feasible and convenient method for receiving and discharging passengers to and from the ferry boats at all stages of the river. The ferry company maintains on the barge an office for the transaction of business and waiting rooms for its passengers. The barge is connected with the shore by a movable bridge which may be raised or lowered with changes in the river stage, and is served by electric light and telephone connections from utility companies of the city of Helena.

The ferry company employs two young women in its office on the barge in question in the capacity of clerks or cashiers, and claims that they are either seamen or executive and administrative employees within the terms of the section of the Fair Labor Standards Act of 1938 which exempts employees engaged in such occupations from the operation of the Act. The duties of these young women are entirely clerical. They have no control whatever over the operation of the ferry boats nor over the crews nor over the other employees of the ferry company. They are occupied exclusively with the sale of tickets, collections of charges for passengers and freight and the issuance of receipts therefor, and the keeping of records of these transactions and of the payrolls of the company. One of them is on duty during the day and the other at night, and in the absence of A. C. Johnson, they are the only employees of the ferry company engaged in its service upon the landing barge. When not on duty they live at their homes in Helena. They exercise no discretion in the administration of the affairs of the company.

The evidence also discloses that A. C. Johnson operates a cotton plantation on the Mississippi side of the river, where he employs one Marvin Johnson as foreman or farm superintendent. In this capacity Marvin Johnson receives wages of $18.00 per week, a residence on the farm, and one acre of land for use as a garden. He has charge of the machinery and livestock upon the farm, attending to the maintenance of the former and feeding and care of the latter. His duties require him to supervise the other labor employed in planting and harvesting the crops. He also operates the farm truck and tractors, hauling the cotton and wood from the farm to Helena, and supplies from Helena to the farm. The sole service that he performs exclusively for the ferry company consists in hauling a load of coal each day to the landing stage in Helena, and this is done usually on one of his return trips across the river to the farm. On the Mississippi side of the river he maintains the roads leading through the...