Stephens v. United States Steel Corp.
| Decision Date | 18 June 1954 |
| Docket Number | No. 14833.,14833. |
| Citation | 212 F.2d 705 |
| Parties | STEPHENS v. UNITED STATES STEEL CORP. |
| Court | U.S. Court of Appeals — Fifth Circuit |
Edward H. Saunders, Bessemer, Ala., for appellant.
D. K. McKamy, James R. Forman, Jr., Birmingham, Ala., Burr, McKamy, Moore & Tate, Birmingham, Ala., of counsel, for appellee.
Before HUTCHESON, Chief Judge, and HOLMES and BORAH, Circuit Judges.
Filed by Lethonia Stephens, plaintiff-appellant, the suit was in certain counts for wages due him by defendant-appellee for work and labor done, and in other counts for damages in tort for the failure of defendant to pay said wages. Still other counts, based on the Fair Labor Standards Act, 29 U.S.C.A. § 201 et seq., claimed that the appellee had not paid the minimum wage due.
The defendant, in addition to its defenses of no cause of action and a general denial, pleaded (1) payment, (2) estoppel, (3) waiver, (4) set off, (5) the statute of limitations, (6) receipt and release, (7) accord and satisfaction, (8) that the moneys were paid at plaintiff's request and for his benefit, and (9) subrogation and set off.
With the issues thus joined, defendant filed a motion for summary judgment attaching a number of affidavits and exhibits1 thereto, and the district judge, determining that the pleadings and affidavits did not present a material issue of fact and that defendant was entitled to judgment, gave judgment accordingly.
Plaintiff, appealing from that judgment, is here presenting for our decision this primary legal question, whether appellee in view of Section 201, Title 39 of the Alabama Code of 1940, had the right to deduct from his wages amounts which, at appellant's request, it had paid to various creditors of appellant, while appellee states the question thus: Can appellant have his debts paid for him and keep his wages too. A second, or alternative, question which will require decision only if it is decided that it was a breach of contract to withhold his wages on the ground that they had been paid to others upon assignments and that appellant can have both the debt payments and his wages, is whether for such breach an action in tort for damages will lie.
With commendable, indeed admirable industry and thoroughness, counsel for appellant2 and appellee have marshaled and presented the authorities each deems controlling or helpful. Viewed as furnishing an opportunity for a dialectical excursion these briefs in name only might repay the time and effort their close reading and analysis would require. Viewed, however, as briefs, as that term is used and understood in our rules and generally, that is as aids to a decision, and in the light of the undisputed facts and the controlling law on the question this appeal presents, it is quite evident that nothing will be gained by a like exuberance on our part.
Indeed, as we see the case, it is in very small compass. As to all the counts except the two based on the Fair Labor Standards Act, no one, including the appellee, denies the existence and the binding force of the statute in cases to which it applies, that is where assignments and orders of the kind prohibited by it are still executory and the effort is to enforce them as such.
Appellee's position was and is that the statute is without application here, first because the payroll authorizations are not the present transfers, the absolute appropriations of a chose in action, which the statute forbids,3 and, second, because if the authorizations in this case are within the prohibitions of the statute so that while still executory they could not be enforced by suit, they have all been executed, and plaintiff may not take the benefit of payments made under them and deny that the payments were rightfully made on his order.4
As to the claims under the Fair Labor Standards Act, appellee insists, and we agree, that appellant cannot prevail on them, both because the two year statute of limitations, 29 U.S.C.A. § 255, bars this suit and because there was, upon the record in this case, as matter of law, no violation of the act shown.
Upon this record, showing, as matter of law, that, of the situations, hypothesized by appellant in his lengthy discussion of what the law would be if they existed, none in fact exist, it would serve no useful purpose to decide, or even to discuss, what the law would be if any of them did in fact exist.
As one instance in point, appellant indulges in lengthy discussions of the law of situations where payroll authorizations are made for the benefit of the employer, as where the authorizations are a part of a system by which the employer compels the employee to patronize company owned commissaries, hospitals or medical services out of which the employer makes a profit, and thus uses the pay deduction authorizations to promote its own business interests.
Plaintiff's affidavit5 filed in opposition to the motion for summary judgment shows with precision the debts for which the deductions now complained of by him were made. It conclusively rebuts the existence of any situation of the kind supposed. It as conclusively establishes that the deductions were made for and enured only to the benefit of appellant who requested and authorized them.
In the circumstances disclosed by this record, the plainest principles of fair dealing concur with settled principles of law and equity in denying the recovery sought. The judgment was right.
It is affirmed.
1 As material here, this is the record:
The plaintiff, Lethonia Stephens, is thirty-nine years of age. He had worked for the defendant and its predecessor corporations off and on for approximately fifteen years. After leaving the service he was re-employed at Muscoda ore mines on Feb. 14, 1950, his badge number being 90, and his social security number being XXX-XX-XXXX. He worked at various times after his re-employment as a section helper, a mine helper, a mine helper (roof picking), and a drill helper. He also received credit for vacation, and upon his finally leaving the employment of the defendant he elected to receive severance pay. In addition, at one time during the period which will be referred to hereafter, the defendant, under an agreement with the Union, made a settlement to eliminate what was called an out-of-line differential and settled a grievance in reference to back pay and vacation pay.
The total amount of pay which the plaintiff was entitled to receive from the date of his re-employment on Feb. 14, 1950, to the date that he left the employment of the defendant, including pay for hours worked, vacation allowances, settlements referred to above, and severance pay, is shown by the affidavits of Mr. J. D. Cole, of Mr. I. E. Gray, and Mr. E. G. Fenn, together with the exhibits attached to Mr. Cole's affidavit numbered 1-A to 78-A, inclusive, which is a copy of the payroll statement given to the plaintiff, Lethonia Stephens, on every pay day during this period. The total amount of this is $7,680.40. These affidavits and exhibits show in what manner this amount was paid to or for the benefit of Lethonia Stephens at his request, which shows as follows:
Cash (including cash advances) .............................. $ 3,396.68
Deductions
1. Federal Taxes .............................. $ 319.94
2. Garnishments
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Blue Cross-Blue Shield of Ala. v. Fowler
...making any promissory assignment of future wages. Hence, we forego any consideration of Code 1940, T. 39, § 201. 1 Stephens v. United Staes Steel Corp., 5 Cir., 212 F.2d 705; Continental Cas. Co. v. Vines, 201 Ala. 486, 78 So. In his oral charge to the jury the trial judge adopted the theor......