Minimum Wage Board of Puerto Rico v. Luce & Co.

• Decision Date: 22 May 1946
• Docket Number: No. 3989.,3989.
• Parties: MINIMUM WAGE BOARD OF PUERTO RICO v. LUCE & CO., S. EN C.
• Court: U.S. Court of Appeals — First Circuit

155 F.2d 983 (1946)

MINIMUM WAGE BOARD OF PUERTO RICO v. LUCE & CO., S. EN C.

No. 3989.

Circuit Court of Appeals, First Circuit.

May 22, 1946.

Paul A. Sweeney, Atty., Department of Justice, of Washington, D. C. (John F. Sonnett, Asst. Atty. Gen., David L. Kreeger, Sp. Asst. to Atty. Gen., Warner Gardner, Sol., Department of Interior, Irwin W. Silverman, Chief Counsel, Division of Territories and Island Possessions, Department of Interior, and Shirley Ecker Boskey, Atty., Department of Interior, all of Washington, D. C., and Ismael Soldevila, General Counsel, Minimum Wage Board of Puerto Rico, of San Juan, Puerto Rico, on the brief), for appellant.

John T. Noonan, of Boston, Mass. (William J. Hession, of Boston, Mass., on the brief), for appellee.

Before MAGRUDER, MAHONEY and WOODBURY, Circuit Judges.

MAGRUDER, Circuit Judge.

The appeal in the instant case is taken from that portion of a judgment of the Supreme Court of Puerto Rico, entered on September 23, 1943, which set aside decree No. 2 issued on February 27, 1943, by the Minimum Wage Board of Puerto Rico. After full consideration we have concluded that the Supreme Court of Puerto Rico was not "inescapably wrong" in holding, as a matter of statutory construction, that the Minimum Wage Act of April 5, 1941, as amended on April 23, 1942, by Act No. 44, did not apply "to contracts for services entered into and executed" before the effective date of the said amendment. It thus becomes unnecessary for us to decide various other issues which would have been presented had we taken a contrary view on the construction of the statute.

Act No. 8, approved April 5, 1941, Laws P.R.1941, p. 302, created the Minimum Wage Board of Puerto Rico. The board is charged with the duty of studying the wages, working hours, and labor conditions which prevail in the different occupations, businesses, and industries in Puerto Rico, and of making investigations regarding the health, safety, and well-being of the workers. Whenever the wages paid in any occupation, business, or industry are insufficient to satisfy the normal needs of workers and are detrimental to the maintenance of the minimum standard of living necessary for their health, efficiency, and general well-being, it becomes the duty of the board to appoint a Minimum Wage Committee to investigate the labor conditions prevailing in such occupation, business, or industry, and within a period of three months to report to the board its findings with reference to the minimum wages, the number of working hours, and the labor conditions, indispensable to the maintenance of the health, safety, and general well-being of the workers in such occupation, business, or industry. On the basis of the report by such Minimum Wage Committee, and after a public hearing, the board is empowered to prescribe minimum wages, maximum working hours, and labor conditions by mandatory decree effective sixty days after its promulgation. Violation of the terms of such mandatory decree becomes a misdemeanor subject to punishment by fine or imprisonment. Any person aggrieved by a decree of the board may, within twenty days after promulgation of such decree, apply to the board for reconsideration. A review of the final decision rendered by the board may be obtained in the Supreme Court of Puerto Rico within fifteen days after the service thereof, and the court may affirm or set aside the decision of the board.

In January and February of 1942, a serious strike took place in the Puerto Rican sugar industry. Representatives of the insular government intervened, and the men went back to work on February 16, 1942.

There had been delay in the organization of the Minimum Wage Board, which did not hold its inaugural session until February 9, 1942, while the strike was still pending. At its first ordinary session, on February 11, 1942, the board resolved to make a study of the sugar cane industry for the purpose of regulating minimum wages, hours of work and working conditions.

Shortly after the termination of the strike, an amendment was made to the Minimum Wage Act by Act No. 44, approved April 23, 1942, Laws P.R.1942, p. 476. Since the Act was not passed by a vote of two thirds of all the members elected to each house, it did not become effective until ninety days thereafter, that is, on July 23, 1942, as provided in § 34 of the Organic Act, 39 Stat. 961, 48 U.S.C.A. § 825. The pertinent portions of Act No. 44 are as follows:

"Section 1. — Statement of Motives. — Without prejudice to the sacred right of striking, which belongs to workmen in order to better their living or working conditions, it is advisable and necessary to insure the permanence of industrial activities in Puerto Rico and to prevent the workmen from leaving their work when controversies arise between them and their employers in regard to wages, which controversies may be solved through the prompt fixing of reasonable wages. For such purpose, it is the duty of the State to determine proceedings which, guaranteeing to the workmen their right to claim better compensation, permit them to continue receiving the means indispensable for meeting their needs, and permit the industry to continue using the services of such workmen until their claims are aired. In times of emergency, when the uninterrupted activity of all industries is still more necessary, the establishment of special proceedings for the prompt fixing of wages, which, being applied in some cases with a retroactive effect, thus avoid the stoppage of the industry or the temporary deprivation of the workmen of their means of livelihood, is made more advisable.

"Section 2. — A new section numbered 10-A is hereby added to Act No. 8, * * * which section shall read as follows:

"Section 10-A. — Notwithstanding the provisions of other sections of this Act, the Governor of Puerto Rico, through a proclamation for that purpose, may require at any time that the Minimum Wage Board appoint a Minimum Wage Committee to investigate the working conditions prevailing in a certain occupation, business, or industry, where there exists or has existed within the six (6) months preceding the date of the Governor's proclamation, a state of strike, lockout, emergency, or controversy between workmen and employers, in regard to wages, and fix the minimum wages that shall be paid in the occupation, business, or industry in question.

"The Governor, on issuing the proclamation provided for in this section, shall set forth that the wages that the board may fix shall have retroactive effect to the date on which the laborers returned, or may return, to work. * * *

"(b) That the mandatory decree which the board shall issue, in accordance with Section 10 of this Act, shall be effective immediately and shall also have retroactive effect, as to the wages fixed, to the date on which the laborers in the industry in question returned, or may return, to work, if that act occurred prior to the promulgation of the decree of the board. The board shall determine the date of the return of the laborers to their work."

Purporting to act under the authority of the new Section 10-A, the governor on July 29, 1942, issued the following proclamation:

"By the Governor of Puerto Rico A Proclamation. Directing the Minimum Wage Board to fix Minimum Wages for the Sugar Industry.

Whereas, It is of public knowledge that at the commencement of the sugar grinding season of this year in Puerto Rico and during the second fortnight of January and the first one of February, 1942, a large part of the laborers engaged in the sugar industry were on strike, and

Whereas, The said laborers returned to their work on the understanding that the Minimum Wage Board was to study the sugar industry of Puerto Rico and fix proper minimum wages,

Now, therefore, I, R. G. Tugwell, Governor of Puerto Rico, pursuant to the authority vested in me by Section 10-A of Act No. 8 of April 5, 1941 as amended by Act 44, approved April 23, 1942, do hereby require the Minimum Wage Board to appoint a Minimum Wage Committee to investigate labor conditions existing in the sugar industry of Puerto Rico so that the Board may fix the minimum wages that should be paid to the employees of said industry.

The wages fixed by the Board, in due course and in accordance with the provisions of Section 10-A of the above mentioned Act, shall have retroactive effect to the date on which the laborers who were on strike returned to their work, said date to be determined by the Board.

In witness whereof, I have hereunto set my hand and caused to be affixed the Great Seal of Puerto Rico at the City of San Juan, this 29th day of July A.D., nineteen hundred and forty-two.

(Seal) R. G. Tugwell, Governor."

On August 14, 1942, the Minimum Wage Board appointed a Minimum Wage Committee for the sugar industry as required by the terms of the governor's proclamation. The board decided that the members of the committee so appointed should act and proceed also as a separate committee under § 6 of the original Act, pursuant to which a prospective...