Silgaro v. Port Compress Co.

• Citation: 45 F. Supp. 88
• Decision Date: 16 April 1942
• Docket Number: Civ. A. No. 117.
• Parties: SILGARO v. PORT COMPRESS CO.
• Court: U.S. District Court — Southern District of Texas

45 F. Supp. 88

SILGARO v. PORT COMPRESS CO.

Civ. A. No. 117.

District Court, S. D. Texas, Corpus Christi Division.

April 16, 1942.

Pichinson & Alsup, of Corpus Christi, Tex., for plaintiff.

Kemp, Lewright, Dyer, Wilson & Sorrell, of Corpus Christi, Tex., for defendant.

KENNERLY, District Judge.

Plaintiff, a former employee of defendant, in his complaint filed February 5, 1941, sues defendant under the Fair Labor Standards Act of 1938, 29 U.S.C.A. §§ 201 to 219, for overtime between July 1, 1939, and September 6, 1940, and damages and attorney's fees, as provided in such Act. Defendant, owner and operator of a compress for the compressing of cotton for others for hire, in its amended answer, filed January 26, 1942, denies that either it or plaintiff, its employee, were, during such period, engaged in commerce or in the production of goods for commerce, and claims that neither of them came within the Act. Further, that they did not come within the Act, because, as defendant says, they were exempt under Subsection (c) of Section 7 and under Paragraph 10 of Subsection (a) of Section 13 of the Act.

The case has been submitted upon two stipulations, which are referred to and are quoted from as necessary.

1. Plaintiff's case is bottomed on that portion of Subsection (a) of Section 7 of the Act, 29 U.S.C.A. § 207, reading as follows:

"No employer shall, except as otherwise provided in this section, employ any of his employees who is engaged in commerce or in the production of goods for commerce —

"(1) for a workweek longer than forty-four hours during the first year from the effective date of this section,

"(2) for a workweek longer than forty-two hours during the second year from such date, or

"(3) for a workweek longer than forty hours after the expiration of the second year from such date,

unless such employee receives compensation for his employment in excess of the hours above specified at a rate not less than one and one-half times the regular rate at which he is employed."

The nature of defendant's business is set forth in the stipulation, a portion of which I quote:

"The parties stipulate that defendant is a service organization, which has as its function the receipt of gin bales of cotton from its customers, which bales are compressed in high density presses for the purpose of reducing the size of the bales of cotton, and that the compress stores the cotton, incidental to the compressing function. That defendant does not manufacture goods for commerce or produce goods moving in commerce, but that more than seventy-five per cent of the cotton received and run through the high density compresses ultimately moves in interstate commerce. It is stipulated that plaintiff's duties related to the performance by the defendant of these functions.

"The defendant has been engaged, at all times material hereto, in the business of compressing and storing cotton at a plant owned and operated by it in the City of Corpus Christi, Nueces County, Texas.

"Defendant does not engage in any process of production or manufacture of cotton. The cotton handled is not wrought into any other form or refined or treated in any way that facilitates or contributes to its being manufactured or wrought into goods. Defendant's function does not alter, in any wise, the raw state of the cotton but relates purely to the size and shape of the raw bundles and to the safekeeping thereof, and is all performed in Corpus Christi, Nueces County, Texas.

"The parties agree that the defendant is engaged in the business of the compressing of cotton, and operates for profit a plant in Corpus Christi, Nueces County, Texas, in which the cotton is compressed and in which it is stored, in the same plant, before and after the compressing function. Said plant contains elaborate and heavy machinery, known as high density presses, which are used to compress bales of cotton to a higher or greater density and in connection with the operation of the compress, the press owns a large area, or space, where cotton is kept and protected from the elements, before and after it is pressed. Raw, ginned cotton is concentrated from the area described and customarily is compressed when owners produce shipping orders, but considerable quantities of cotton bales are compressed and remain on the press for varying lengths of time, pending sale and shipment by the owners. All cotton which arrives at the compress in flat bales, or gin bales, is pressed with high density compress machinery, before it is shipped or leaves the plant. The plant also contains switching facilities, scales, docks, runways and office furniture and fixtures, and other usual and necessary types and kinds of facilities for the handling, recording and safekeeping of cotton. The handling of the cotton at the compress is done by the defendant, for a charge, paid by defendant's customers, the owners of the cotton, which charge covers the function of compressing the same, and the safekeeping and custody thereof in defendant's storage space and storage facilities operated in connection with the compress for a reasonable period, before and after the cotton is compressed and, in some instances, where the movement of the cotton is delayed, and where it is allowed to remain in the defendant's plant for a longer period, an additional charge is made.

"All of said facilities hereinabove described are intimately interrelated each with the other and constitute integral but not integrated parts of the unit, which is the plant operated for the compressing of cotton. The movement of the cotton from adjacent switching docks and from docks into defendant's plant and the safekeeping thereof, before and after it is compressed, and the movement of the cotton to portside are necessary and incidental to the function of compressing the same."

The nature of plaintiff's work for defendant is set forth in the stipulation, a portion of which I quote:

"Plaintiff's work was related to the defendant's business of compressing and storing cotton at its said plant in Corpus Christi and his duties and services constituted an integral part of the operation of the business of compressing cotton at said plant.

"The place of employment where defendant is engaged in the compressing of cotton at all times material hereto, necessarily included the warehouse, docking and switching facilities owned and operated by the defendant, and the plaintiff, Silgaro, was employed and worked during the times in question in said place of business."

The details of plaintiff's employment are set forth in the margin.¹

Under these circumstances, I conclude that both plaintiff and defendant were engaged, during the period of employment, in the production of goods for commerce within the meaning of the Act as to that part of the cotton compressed by defendant which moved in commerce. Warren-Bradshaw Drilling Co. v. Hall, 5 Cir., 124 F.2d 42.

2. The working hours of plaintiff are stipulated: "It is stipulated by the parties that from July 1, 1939, to September 6, 1940, plaintiff worked sixty hours per week, at thirty cents per hour, straight time, and during said period of time he worked fourteen Sundays additionally, ten hours per day, at straight time of thirty cents per hour."

But it may I think be regarded as settled in this Circuit and District that where, as here, an employee works both in intrastate and interstate commerce, he must, in order to recover under the Act, prove and point out what part of his work was in intrastate and what part in interstate commerce. Super-Cold Southwest Co. v. McBride, 5 Cir., 124 F.2d 90, 91, and cases there cited. This, plaintiff has not done. It has been stipulated that more than 75%, but not all, of the cotton compressed by defendant moved in interstate commerce, and plaintiff does not show the time he was employed on the 75% and the time employed on the other.

3. The first exemption claimed by defendant is under Subsection (c) of Section 7 of the Act, 29 U.S.C.A. § 207, the pertinent portion of which reads as follows (italics supplied): "In the case of an employer engaged in the first processing of milk, whey, skimmed milk, or cream into dairy products, or in the ginning and compressing of cotton, or in the processing of cottonseed, or in the processing of sugar beets, sugar beet molasses, sugarcane, or maple sap, into sugar (but not refined sugar) or into syrup, the provisions of subsection (a) shall not apply to his employees in any place of employment where he is so engaged; and in the case of an employer engaged in the first processing of, or in canning or packing, perishable or seasonal fresh fruits or vegetables, or in the first processing, within the area of production (as defined by the Administrator), of any agricultural or horticultural commodity during seasonal operations, or in handling, slaughtering, or dressing poultry or livestock, the provisions of subsection (a), during a period or periods of not more than fourteen workweeks in the aggregate in any calendar year, shall not apply to his employees in any place of employment where he is so engaged."

It is perfectly plain that under the stipulation, defendant was not, during the employment period, engaged "in the ginning and compressing of cotton." So that under the language used by Congress in Subsection (c), the parties are not exempt from the provisions of Subsection (a).

But defendant says that it is a matter of common knowledge² that there is no such thing in the cotton industry in the United States as a plant in which the cotton is both ginned and compressed. If this be correct, will the Courts then say that Subsection (c) exempts those engaged in ginning cotton or those engaged in compressing cotton? It would seem more logical to say that it exempts those engaged in ginning cotton, because the wording respecting ginning and compressing is found in the same Subsection with and in the company of exemptions which relate to first...