Mitchell v. IDAHO LUMBER COMPANY, 14406.
| Decision Date | 24 June 1955 |
| Docket Number | No. 14406.,14406. |
| Citation | 223 F.2d 836 |
| Parties | James P. MITCHELL, Secretary of Labor, United States Department of Labor, Appellant, v. IDAHO LUMBER COMPANY, Inc., a Corporation, Appellee. |
| Court | U.S. Court of Appeals — Ninth Circuit |
Stuart Rothman, Sol., Bessie Margolin, Chief of Appellate Litigation, Morton J. Marks, Atty., U. S. Dept. of Labor, Washington, D. C., Kenneth C. Robertson, Regional Atty., San Francisco, Cal., for appellant.
Albaugh, Bloem, Barnard & Smith, Idaho Falls, Idaho, for appellee.
Before BONE, ORR and CHAMBERS, Circuit Judges.
This is an appeal from a judgment of the United States District Court for the District of Idaho, Eastern Division, dismissing an action brought by the Secretary of Labor under Section 16(c) of the Fair Labor Standards Act of 1938, as amended, 29 U.S.C.A. § 201 et seq., to recover unpaid overtime compensation allegedly owing to four employees of appellee who worked at a Salmon, Idaho, sawmill.
The facts are generally agreed to be that appellee corporation is engaged at Salmon, Idaho, in the operation of a sawmill and planing mill for the production, sale and distribution of green and finished lumber. This action, which was initiated after the employees named in the complaint (Laverne F. Westfall, Sylvester Kramp, Clifford C. Pierce and Robert Horn) filed written requests that the Secretary of Labor bring this action on their behalf, seeks to recover for them unpaid overtime compensation for the periods of time in which the employees were engaged in the production of some goods for out-of-State shipment. During the times covered by this action appellee had been engaged in the production of lumber and lumber products consisting of a quantity of bean boxes and pallets which were shipped to seed processing plants of the Rogers Brothers Seed Company located outside the State of Idaho. Appellee's president testified that he knew the pallets and bean boxes were to be delivered outside the State of Idaho when he took the Rogers Brothers order in February, 1952, and that the lumber used in the manufacture of the bean boxes and pallets was produced in the Salmon, Idaho, mill after the order had been taken.
The Salmon, Idaho, operation was relatively new. The Secretary of appellee testified that: "We bought the property in August of 1950 and probably the first sale would have been made in September." In February, 1952, Mr. Johnson, the president and general manager of appellee, negotiated the contract for the out-of-State sale and shipment of the pallets and bean boxes here involved. It is not contested that the production of the lumber for the bean boxes and pallets and the fabrication thereof extended over a period of five months.
The total amount of sales of the corporation from its first operation until December 1952 was estimated by the corporation secretary-treasurer and bookkeeper to be $234,000. (This figure includes freight charges and extends beyond the period of the production here in question.)
It is undisputed that Kramp, Pierce and Horn were employed in the production of lumber to fill the Rogers Brothers order for the workweek ending March 28, 1952, through the workweeks ending May 30, 1952, and that Westfall was employed in the manufacture of these bean boxes and pallets for the workweek ending May 9, 1952, through the workweeks ending August 28, 1952.
Out-of-State shipments of the pallets and bean boxes were made almost weekly for the period from May 21, 1952, until August 25, 1952. Appellee's gross sales for the months of May, June, July, and August 1952, totalled approximately $80,000 of which $11,561.49,1 or over 14% of the total gross sales, was for the pallets and bean boxes produced for shipment outside of the State of Idaho.
The district court, while finding that lumber products consisting of the pallets and bean boxes were shipped outside the State, concluded that since these goods were produced under a single contract, this contract constituted "an isolated transaction outside of the ordinary and usual course of defendant's business and operations, and, as such, did not constitute production of goods for interstate commerce within the meaning of the Fair Labor Standards Act."
The applicable language of the Fair Labor Standard's Act is very broad:
To continue reading
Request your trial
-
Mitchell v. Owen
...consequence when the goods produced were intended, at the time of their production, for interstate use or shipment. Mitchell v. Idaho Lumber Co., 9 Cir., 1955, 223 F.2d 836. Although there was no direct proof that the sand and gravel produced during the three month period (it is undisputed ......
-
Mitchell v. Sucrs. De A. Mayol & Co.
...D.C., 123 F.Supp. 109, certiorari denied 350 U.S. 839, 76 S.Ct. 77, 100 L.Ed. 748; Mitchell v. Royal Baking Co., supra; Mitchell v. Idaho Lumber Co., 9 Cir., 223 F.2d 836; Skidmore v. John J. Casale, 2 Cir., 160 F.2d 527, 531, concurring opinion of Judge Learned Moreover, there is no eviden......