Steiner v. Mitchell, 11934.

• Decision Date: 10 August 1954
• Docket Number: No. 11934.,11934.
• Citation: 215 F.2d 171
• Parties: STEINER et al. v. MITCHELL, Secretary of Labor.
• Court: U.S. Court of Appeals — Sixth Circuit

215 F.2d 171 (1954)

STEINER et al. v. MITCHELL, Secretary of Labor.

No. 11934.

United States Court of Appeals, Sixth Circuit.

August 10, 1954.

Cecil Sims, Nashville, Tenn. (Louis Leftwich, Jr., Denney, Leftwich & Glasgow, Wilson Sims and Bass, Berry & Sims, Nashville, Tenn., on the brief), for appellants.

Sylvia S. Ellison, Washington, D. C. (Stuart Rothman, Bessie Margolin and David F. Babson, Jr., Washington, D. C., and Jeter S. Ray, Nashville, Tenn., on the brief), for appellee.

Before SIMONS, Chief Judge, ALLEN, Circuit Judge, and FORD, District Judge.

FORD, District Judge.

The Secretary of Labor, in his capacity as Administrator of the Wage and Hour Division of the United States Department of Labor, instituted this action to enjoin the appellants from violating the overtime and record-keeping provisions of the Fair Labor Standards Act of 1938 as amended, 29 U.S.C.A. § 215 (a) (1, 2, 5). This appeal is from the judgment of the District Court granting the injunction.

Appellants are engaged in manufacturing automotive type wet storage batteries which they sell in interstate commerce. In their manufacturing operations at their plant at Nashville, Tennessee, appellants regularly employ from thirty to forty workmen. It is undisputed that the manufacturing process in which appellants' employees are engaged requires the use of various chemicals and chemical compounds, including sulphuric acid, lead metal, lead oxide, lead sulphate and lead peroxide, which create conditions which are dangerous to the health of the workers.

Before beginning their productive work in the morning, most of appellants' employees change from their street clothes into work clothes provided for them by the appellants, and when their productive labor is discontinued in the evening they remove the work clothes, take a shower bath and put on their street clothes. The changing of clothes and showering are activities which take place at the plant, and the work clothes for such changing and facilities for such showering are provided by the appellants.

The only question presented for determination is whether the activities of the employees of appellants in changing clothes and taking shower baths at the plant, on account of the hazardous conditions inherent in the nature of their work, are so closely related to the duties which they are employed to perform as to constitute an integral part thereof and should be classed as "principal" rather than "preliminary" and "postliminary" activities within the meaning of Section 4(a) (2) of the Portal-to-Portal Act of 1947, 61 Stat. 84-87, 29 U.S.C.A. § 254(a) (2), which is as follows:

"(a) Except as provided in subsection (b), no employer shall be subject to any liability or punishment under the Fair Labor Standards Act of 1938, as amended, the Walsh-Healey Act, or the Bacon-Davis Act, on account of the failure of such employer to pay an employee minimum wages, or to pay an employee overtime compensation, for or on account of any of the following activities of such employee engaged in on or after the date of the enactment of this Act. * * *

"(1) walking, riding, or traveling to and from the actual place of performance of the principal activity or activities which such employee is employed to perform, and

"(2) activities which are preliminary to or postliminary to said principal activity or activities, which occur either prior to the time on any particular workday at which such employee commences, or subsequent to the time on any particular workday at which he ceases, such principal activity or activities."

The use of the phrase "principal activity or activities" in the Statute suggests that the word "principal" in some situations, may apply to more than a single type of activity, but, in view of the great variety of industrial conditions and various types of industries throughout the nation, it was obviously not practicable for the area embraced by the words "principal activity or activities" to be precisely defined or marked out. The scope or reach of the phrase was left to be measured by the facts and circumstances involved in each industry.

For aid in determining the intent and purpose of Congress in the use of the words "principal activity or activities", it seems appropriate to resort to the legislative history of the Act. "When aid to construction of the meaning of words, as used in the statute, is available, there certainly can be no `rule of law' which forbids its use, however clear the words may appear on `superficial examination.'" United States v. American Trucking Associations, Inc., 310 U.S. 534, 543-544, 60 S.Ct. 1059, 1064, 84 L.Ed. 1345; Harrison v. Northern Trust Co., 317 U.S. 476, 479, 63 S. Ct. 361, 87 L.Ed. 407.

"It is the sponsors that we look to when the meaning of the statutory words is in doubt." Schwegmann Bros. v. Calvert Corp., 341 U.S. 384, 394-395, 71 S.Ct. 745, 750, 95 L.Ed. 1035.

In the Conference Report upon the Portal-to-Portal Act presented by Representative Gwynn in the House of Representatives (93 Cong.Rec. 4388) and by Senator Wiley in the Senate (93 Cong. Rec. 4371), it is said that the language of Section 4 of the Act, here in question, follows that of the Senate Bill. In the Report of the Senate Committee it is stated that the term "principal activities" includes all activities which are an integral part of a principal activity, two examples of which are set out in the report. In explaining the term "principal activities," Senator Cooper, one of the members of the Committee which reported the Senate Bill, and one of its sponsors, stated:

"* * * We believe that in the use of the words `principal activity\' we have preserved to the employee the rights and the benefits and the privileges which have been given to him under the Fair Labor Standards Act, because it is our opinion that those activities which are so closely related and are an integral part of the principal activity, indispensable to its performance, must be included in the concept of principal activity. * * * (93 Cong.Rec. 2297)."

Moreover "It is settled that `subsequent legislation may be considered to assist in the interpretation of prior legislation upon the same subject.'" Great Northern Ry. v. United States, 315 U.S. 262, 277, 62 S.Ct. 529, 535, 86 L.Ed. 836; Sarlls v. United States, 152 U.S. 570, 576, 14 S.Ct. 720, 38 L.Ed. 556.

By the "Fair Labor Standards amendments of 1949," 63 Stat. 910-11, Congress added paragraph "o" to Section 3 of the Act as follows:

"(o) Hours Worked. — In determining for the purposes of sections 6 and 7 the hours for which an employee is employed, there shall be excluded any time spent in changing clothes or washing at the beginning or end of each workday which was excluded from measured working time during the week involved by the express terms of or by custom or practice under a bona fide collective-bargaining agreement applicable to the particular employee."

It is not difficult to perceive that this amendment was predicated upon recognition by Congress that, under some circumstances and conditions, changing clothes and washing may be part of compensable "principal activities." It affords impressive confirmation of the interpretation of the Act in accordance with its above legislative history.

The authorities relied upon by appellants are not apposite to the questions here presented. Newsom v. E. I. Du Pont de Nemours & Co., 6 Cir., 173 F.2d 856, and Lasater v. Hercules Powder Co., 6...