Red Hook Cold Storage Co. v. Dep't of Labor

• Decision Date: 29 November 1945
• Citation: 295 N.Y. 1,64 N.E.2d 265
• Parties: RED HOOK COLD STORAGE CO., Inc., et al. v. DEPARTMENT OF LABOR et al.
• Court: New York Court of Appeals Court of Appeals

295 N.Y. 1

64 N.E.2d 265

RED HOOK COLD STORAGE CO., Inc., et al.

v.DEPARTMENT OF LABOR et al.

Court of Appeals of New York.

Nov. 29, 1945.

Appeal from Supreme Court, Appellate Division, Second Department.

Action by the Red Hook Cold Storage Company, Inc., and another against the Department of Labor of the State of New York and others to review a determination of the Board of Standards and Appeals confirming the Department's order requiring alterations and construction of safeguards for workers in plaintiffs' warehouses. From a judgment of the Appellate Division, 268 App.Div. 11, 48 N.Y.S.2d 395, confirming a judgment of the Supreme Court for plaintiffs on a decision after trial at Special Term, Aldrich, J., declaring the orders invalid and vacating the Board's resolution affirming and approving them, defendants appeal by permission of the Court of Appeals.

Reversed, and complaint dismissed.

LEWIS and CONWAY, JJ., dissenting. Nathaniel L. Goldstein, Atty. Gen. (Irving Galt and Orrin G. Judd, both of New York City, of counsel), for appellants.

Benson R. Frost and Richard F. Russell, both of Poughkeepsie, for respondents.

DESMOND, Judge.

The Department of Labor, on the assumption that the establishments of plaintiffs are ‘factories' within section 2, subdivision 9, of the Labor Law, Consol.Laws, c. 31, issued and attempted to enforce certain departmental orders or regulations having to do with the health and safety of plaintiffs' employees. Plaintiffs refused to comply, asserting that their places of business are not ‘factories'. The matter was reviewed by the State Board of Standards and Appeals, which upheld the Labor Department's orders. Plaintiffs then brought this action, under section 111 of the Labor Law. Special Term decided in favor of plaintiffs. On appeal to the Appellate Division, Second Department, that court described the activities of plaintiffs and, concluding that the statutory definition did not cover the businesses conducted by them, affirmed the judgment. We granted leave.

Subdivision 9 of section 2 of the Labor Law is in part as follows: “Factory' includes a mill, workshop or other manufacturing establishment and all buildings, sheds, structures or other places used for or in connection therewith, where one or more persons are employed at manufacturing, including making, altering, repairing, finishing, bottling, canning, cleaning or laundering any article or thing, in whole or in part * * *.'

The testimony as to how plaintiffs carry on their (separate but similar) businesses was given by the managers of the two plants and is undisputed. Apples are picked by the farmer in the farmer's orchard and there put into crates, then picked up by the farmer's truck or another truck, then brought to the premises of one of the plaintiffs, unpacked and piled away until there is opportunity or order for their sale, whereupon they are taken into a packing room, dumped on a sizing machine and sorted into different grades by the sizing machine which is driven by a motor and carries the apples along on a moving belt dropping them into different bins for different sizes. Thereafter they are put into boxes, marked as to size and grade, and then, if they are not to be shipped out immediately, put back in the ‘cold room’. One of the plants (Germantown) handles pears also but does not grade the pears; in fact, it grades only a small percentage of the apples, most of them being merely stored. In the grading operation apples are handled and inspected by employees who throw away the culls. As to the refrigeration of the apples that are kept in cold storage, the refrigeration machine is run by an engine and compressors, etc., that is, a refrigerant is run through the pipes. The sorting operation at the Germantown plant employs about twelve or thirteen people, including office employees, during the ‘fill’ period, then drops down to about six after the fill is completed, then goes back up to twelve or thirteen during the packing operation. Besides, four engineers work on the refrigerating apparatus. The only machines in the Germantown building are the power-driven grading machine, refrigeration machinery and elevator. The farmer continues to own the apples or pears all the time. The boxes in which the apples are packed are solid except that they have a slatted top.

The other (Red Hook) plant has three refrigeration machines and its operations are essentially the same as that of the Germantown plant except that everything is on a somewhat larger scale. The Red Hook plant has two apple grading machines. At neither plant is the fruit washed or cleaned. A small percentage of the fruit is ‘fancy’ and is wrapped in sealed paper cartons, for sale in that form.

Plaintiffs say that these are merely storage warehouses. The State says they are ‘factories', if not according to some of the usages of that word, at least ‘factories' within the fair meaning of the expanded definition in the statute. The Board of Standards and Appeals thought that the handling of fruit in these plants involved ‘altering’ and ‘finishing’ within the very words of the statutory definition, and, in any case, that the statute should be liberally construed since it is a safety statute. The ‘alteration’ that the Board had in mind is that the apples, arriving in an ungraded mass, are sorted by machines into sizes and grades. The opinion of the Appellate Division points out that the word ‘factory’ ordinarily means a place for fashioning raw material, by human labor and machinery, into a product suitable for use in a different form and holds that the eight so-called categories in the statutory definition did not expand the word ‘factory’ to include this business because, said the Appellate Division, the fruit is not changed in any way but is merely stored, then shipped.

Originally the word ‘factory’ in the Labor Law was defined as including ‘also any mill, workshop or other manufacturing or business establishment where one or more persons are employed at labor’. L.1897, ch. 415, s 2. So long as the statute stood that way the courts held that ‘factory’ meant only a place where ‘manufacturing’ in the narrow sense was carried on, that is, where something was constructed or converted from raw or imperfect material into a finished article. Shannahan v. Empire Engineering Corporation, 204 N.Y. 543, 548, 98 N.E. 9, 10, 44 L.R.A.,N.S., 1185. This court, in the Shannahan case, said that the Labor Law in this connection should be read in a natural way. There the place of employment was a tugboat, navigating the Hudson River but claimed by plaintiff Shannahan to be a ‘factory’; this court pointed out that the Legislature could not, by the word ‘factory’, have meant a vessel. In 1917 (ch. 694) the Legislature amended the statute to its present form (so far as here material), by adding the words ‘including making, altering, repairing, finishing, bottling, canning, cleaning or laundering any article or thing, in whole or in part.’ It seems plain that the Legislature intended by that change to expand greatly the concept of ‘manufacturing’. The State does not claim that any cleaning is done in this plant but it argues that what is done is ‘altering’ or ‘finishing’ and, further, that the operation is so close to ‘bottling’ or ‘canning’ that it is within the general meaning of the statute.

It may be conceded that the operations of plaintiffs are not within the strict letter of the statutory definition. They...