Newman v. George A. Fuller Co.

• Decision Date: 22 July 1946
• Docket Number: No. 8775.,8775.
• Citation: 48 A.2d 345
• Parties: NEWMAN v. GEORGE A. FULLER CO. et al.
• Court: Rhode Island Supreme Court

48 A.2d 345

NEWMAN

v.GEORGE A. FULLER CO. et al.

No. 8775.

Supreme Court of Rhode Island.

July 22, 1946.

Case Certified from Superior Court, Providence and Bristol Counties; Jeremiah E. O'Connell, Presiding Justice.

Action of assumpsit by Walter C. Newman, Jr., against the George A. Fuller Company and others for overtime wages and liquidated damages under the Federal Fair Labor Standards Act. On a certified question as to whether the superior court has jurisdiction of the action.

Question answered and papers ordered sent back to the superior court.

Harlow & Boudreau, of Providence, for plaintiff.

Eugene J. Phillips, Marshall Swan, and Swan, Keeney & Smith, all of Providence, for defendants.

William S. Tyson, Solicitor, of Washington, D. C., George H. Foley, Regional Atty., of Boston, Mass., Frederick U. Reel, of Washington, D. C., and Harry A. Tuell, of Providence, Attys. U. S. Department of Labor, for L. Metcalfe Walling, Administrator of the Wage & Hour Division, U. S. Department of Labor, as amicus curiae.

CONDON, Justice.

This is an action of assumpsit by an employee against his employers, to which action defendants filed a demurrer on the ground that the superior court, under the established law of this state, had no jurisdiction to entertain such action. In the opinion of the justice of that court who heard the demurrer the question raised thereby was of such doubt and importance and so affected the merits of the controversy that, with the approval of the presiding justice of the superior court, he ordered it certified to this court for our determination in accordance with the provisions of General Laws 1938, chapter 545, § 6, and rule 20 of the rules of practice of the supreme court.

That question is stated in the order of certification as follows: ‘Has the Superior Court jurisdiction of an action at law wherein the plaintiff sues by virtue of the provisions of the Fair Labor Standards Act of 1938, so-called, being Public Act Number 718, Chapter 676, Seventy-fifth Congress, Third Session, 1938, 52 Statutes at Large 1060-1069, U.S.C.A. Title 29, sections 201-219, sections 7 and 15(a)(2), as amended, to recover wages for labor in interstate commerce, said action being brought on a claim for the difference between the regular hourly rate of wages and one and one-half said rate for hours worked beyond the statutory work week, plus an additional like sum as liquidated damages and a reasonable counsel fee, and wherein the ad damnum is Three Thousand Dollars?’

At the hearing in this court L. Metcalfe Walling, Administrator of the Wage and Hour Division, United States Department of Labor, was allowed to appear and file a brief as amicus curiae, and, with the consent of the plaintiff, the regional attorney of the division shared the time for oral argument allotted to the plaintiff. For convenience we shall hereinafter refer to his brief and argument as the plaintiff's, and for the same reason we shall refer to the Federal act under which suit was brought as the Fair Labor Standards Act.

Defendants contend that that act is a penal statute in an international sense and is, therefore, not enforceable in the courts of this state. In support of that contention they rely upon the recent case of Robinson v. Norato, 71 R. I. 256, 43 A.2d 467. The plaintiff contends, on the other hand, that that case is not in point for the reason that the Federal Emergency Price Control Act, therein held to be penal and unenforceable is clearly distinguishable from the Fair Labor Standards Act. In short he argues that the latter is clearly not penal but remedial; that the United States Supreme Court has so held; and that therefore we too should hold it not to be penal in an international sense.

In the Robinson case we said that the test of whether a statute is penal in an international sense is not what the Legislature or the court of its home state says it is but what the court of the state where it is sought to be enforced says it is. Acting in accordance with that doctrine we held the Emergency Price Control Act of 1942, 50 U.S.C.A.Appendix, § 901 et seq., to be penal. So long as our authority to apply that principle to Federal laws, as we do to the laws of our sister states, is not repudiated by the Supreme Court of the United States, what that court or any inferior Federal court may say of a Federal statute being remedial rather than penal is not controlling upon us when we are called upon to determine whether such a statute is penal in an international sense. For that reason Overnight Motor Transportation Co., Inc. v. Missel, 316 U.S. 572, 62 S.Ct. 1216, 86 L.Ed. 1682, and Brooklyn Savings Bank v. O'Neil, 324 U.S. 697, 65 S.Ct. 895, 89 L.Ed. 1296, cited by the plaintiff, wherein the Fair Labor Standards Act was held to provide liquidated damages as compensation to restore the worker to the minimum standard of well-being, defined in the act, and not a penalty or punishment by the government, are not binding upon us. However, that is not to say that they may not be helpful in determining whether or not the predominant feature of that act is to afford compensation and not in any real sense to provide a substituted form of punishment of the employer by way of a private civil action. We shall, therefore, have occasion to refer hereinafter to certain language of the court's opinions in those cases.

By sec. 16(a) the act provides certain criminal penalties for its violation, but by a separate sec. 16(b), it is provided: ‘Any employer who violates the provisions of section 6 or section 7 of this Act shall be liable to the employee or employees affected in the amount of their unpaid minimum wages, or their unpaid overtime compensation, as the case may be, and in an additional equal amount as liquidated damages. Action to recover such liability may be maintained in any court of competent jurisdiction by any one or more employees for and in behalf of himself or themselves and other employees similarly situated, or such employee or employees may designate an agent or representative to maintain such action for and in behalf of all employees similarly situated. The court in such action shall, in addition to any judgment awarded to the plaintiff or plaintiffs, allow a reasonable attorney's fee to be paid by the defendant, and costs of the action.’

It is significant that under this provision the right of action is exclusively in the employee injured by the violation. In this respect it differs from the Emergency Price Control Act. It also differs from that act in that it does not provide for the recovery of an arbitrary sum having no reasonably necessary relation to the injury suffered by the employee. The fact that the act provides for criminal prosecution in one section and for recovery of damages by a civil action in...