Overstreet v. North Shore Corporation

• Decision Date: 30 October 1941
• Docket Number: No. 393.,393.
• Citation: Overstreet v. North Shore Corporation, 43 F.Supp. 445 (S.D. Fla. 1941)
• Parties: OVERSTREET et al. v. NORTH SHORE CORPORATION et al.
• Court: U.S. District Court — Southern District of Florida

43 F. Supp. 445

OVERSTREET et al. v. NORTH SHORE CORPORATION et al.

No. 393.

District Court, S. D. Florida, Jacksonville Division.

October 30, 1941.

Dillon Hartridge and John W. Lee, both of Jacksonville, Fla., for plaintiff.

W. Gregory Smith and R. R. Axtell, both of Jacksonville, Fla., for defendant.

Chas. H. Spitz, Associate Wage & Hour Atty., of Jacksonville, Fla., amicus curiae.

WALLER, District Judge.

The Fair Labor Standards Act, 1938, 29 U.S.C.A. § 201 et seq., provides that employees engaged in interstate commerce or in the production of goods for commerce shall be paid the minimum wage and shall be paid time and a half for overtime. It does not provide that employees engaged in a business that affects interstate commerce, or in an instrumentality used by others for interstate commerce, shall be paid the minimum wage or time and a half. The employees in this case were maintaining a toll road. Neither the employees nor the employer were engaged in interstate commerce under the decision of the United States Supreme Court in Detroit International Bridge Company v. Corporation Tax Appeal Board, 294 U.S. 83, 55 S.Ct. 332, 333, 79 L.Ed. 777. In the latter case the bridge company was operating an international toll bridge from Michigan to Canada and claimed an exemption from taxation of the annual franchise tax of the State of Michigan. The Michigan Statute exempted from the tax the "capital or surplus of such corporation represented by property exclusively used in interstate commerce." Pub.Acts Mich.1921, No. 85, § 5, as amended by Pub.Acts 1929, No. 175. The bridge company contended that since it maintained a toll bridge over which interstate and foreign commerce traveled no tax would be due under the exemption above quoted. The Supreme Court in the above-cited case quoted approvingly the following language from the case of Covington & Cincinnati Bridge Co. v. Kentucky, 154 U.S. 204, 14 S.Ct. 1087, 38 L.Ed. 962:

"Clearly, the tax was not a tax on the interstate business carried on over or by means of the bridge, because the bridge company did not transact such business. That business was carried on by the persons and corporations which paid the bridge company tolls for the privilege of using the bridge." (Italics supplied.)

It is difficult to find clearer language. The question involved is whether the road company, and consequently its employees, was engaged in interstate commerce. If it were, the Fair Labor Standards Act would apply. If...