Wyatt v. Holtville Alfalfa Mills

• Decision Date: 05 July 1952
• Docket Number: No. 13600.,13600.
• Parties: WYATT et al. v. HOLTVILLE ALFALFA MILLS, Inc.
• Court: U.S. District Court — Southern District of California

106 F. Supp. 624

WYATT et al. v. HOLTVILLE ALFALFA MILLS, Inc.

No. 13600.

United States District Court S. D. California, Central Division.

July 5, 1952.

COPYRIGHT MATERIAL OMITTED

Patrick James Kirby, James M. Hall, Los Angeles, Cal., and William E. MacFaden, Redondo Beach, Cal., for plaintiffs.

Moss, Lyon & Dunn, Los Angeles, Cal., James E. Marable, El Centro, Cal., for defendant.

George E. Duemler, Atty., U. S. Department of Labor, Los Angeles, Cal., amicus curiae.

HARRISON, District Judge.

Plaintiff employees have brought this action under the Fair Labor Standards Act, 29 U.S.C.A. § 201, et seq., for overtime wages allegedly due them for work performed for the defendant. Defendant contends that, by reason of certain agricultural exemptions under the act, all the plaintiffs are exempt from its coverage.

It has been stipulated that the defendant is engaged in interstate commerce. The defendant operates an alfalfa dehydrating and pulverizing plant. Its employees work in shifts of twelve hours per day seven days per week.

Despite earlier assertions, plaintiffs now concede that the statute of limitations bars all claims for a period two years prior to the date of the filing of their written consents, 29 U.S.C.A. §§ 255(a), 256. The consents of all plaintiffs except W. B. Franklin were filed on September 13, 1951. The consent of W. B. Franklin was filed on October 9, 1951.

Most of the facts in this case have been stipulated by the parties. Because of various requirements under each of the four exemptions claimed it is necessary to analyze the work done by the various classes of employees and the nature of the employer's business.

Defendant's Operations

Defendant is a California corporation with its office, plant and equipment located a little more than a mile beyond the city limits of the City of Holtville, in Imperial County, California. Defendant owns field equipment, motor trucks and an alfalfa dehydrating and pulverizing mill and machinery.

The defendant does not own or rent farms nor does it grow any alfalfa on land owned by it. It does, however, negotiate with farmers for the purchase of their respective crops of mature alfalfa, and purchase same, crop by crop, at or about the time they mature. The fields from which these crops are purchased are located between one-half mile and eighteen miles from defendant's premises.

For approximately seven months of the year, the defendant programs its operations on a basis of twenty-four hours a day, seven days a week. The remainder of the year it operates twelve hours a day, seven days a week. Defendant's operations are year-round, although not as extensive during the five summer months as in the other seven months. This year-round schedule is the exception rather than the rule in the alfalfa dehydrating industry, including defendant's competitors in the Imperial Valley.

Defendant's employees may be divided into three general classifications: field workers, truck drivers and mill workers.

Field Workers

These employees are engaged in mowing, raking, chopping and removing by truck the alfalfa from the fields to which they are assigned by defendant. The field implements used include mowers, rakes and choppers and are all tractor powered. Approximately three mowers, three rakes and two choppers operate with the truckers as a field unit. These field employees are rarely, if ever, employed during the same work-week to operate more than one of the implements mentioned.

The entire mowing, raking, chopping and loading operations are synchronized. In a typical operation, the mowers, rakes and choppers, each drawn by a tractor, arrive at the field together. The mowers cut the crop. They are followed by rakes which collect and form the cut alfalfa into windrows. The rakes, in turn, are followed by the choppers, which as part of this synchronized operation, pick up the alfalfa from the windrows, chop it and blow it into the truck bed. The chopper has an individual motor to drive the lawnmower-like blades and operate the blowing device which blows the chopped alfalfa through a long, funnel-like attachment directly into the truck bed. The loading of the truck is automatic from the chopper to the truck. When the truck is fully loaded, it proceeds to defendant's premises, its place being taken by another truck.

In addition to the above mentioned employees, a maintenance man and truck are kept in the field on the day shift. He spends approximately ninety percent of his time servicing the machinery in the field and making minor repairs and part replacements. He returns to the mill only for major repairs on equipment and service his truck.

Truck Drivers

The work of these employees, while on the alfalfa fields, has been described. Upon arrival at the mill with a full load, the drivers back up their truck to a self-feeder or leave it in the yard for others to handle. They then drive their trucks back to the fields as soon as empty vehicles are available.

Mill Employees

The mill employees include a mill operator, mill operator assistants, bag-off men, sack sewers and car loaders. From the self-feeding device, the alfalfa passes through one of three dehydrators, then into a pulverizing and crushing machine, through a sifter, and then into a mixing box and finally into bags, or into a bin and thence through a pellet producing machine. The mill operator and his assistants are responsible for the passage of the alfalfa through these various operations. The bag-off men put the pulverized alfalfa into 100-pound sacks; the sewers sew the sacks; and, the loaders load the sacks from a conveyor into railroad cars for shipment.

A maintenance mechanic and his assistant maintain the equipment at the mill, and they, too, are included in this category of mill employees.

Exemptions Claimed by the Defendant

1. Section 13(a) (6) of the Fair Labor Standards Act, 29 U.S.C.A. § 213(a) (6):

"(a) The provisions of sections 206 and 207 of this title shall not apply with respect to * * * (6) any employee employed in agriculture; * *."

Agriculture is defined as follows by § 3(f) of the Act, 29 U.S.C.A. § 203(f):

"`Agriculture' includes farming in all its branches and among other things includes * * * harvesting of any agricultural or horticultural commodities * * * and any practices * * * performed by a farmer or on a farm as an incident to or in conjunction with such farming operations, * * *."

The exemption of § 13(a) (6) is claimed only for the so-called field employees.

Preliminarily, I may note that counsel for the plaintiffs make much of the fact that the defendant is a commercial industry. There is little room for argument on that score. The test under the Act, however, is the nature of the employee's activities, and not the character of the employer's business. In Kam Koon Wan v. E. E. Black, Limited, 188 F.2d 558, 562, the Court of Appeals for this Circuit stated:

"* * * Coverage of the Act depends upon the character of the employee's activities, and not upon the nature of his employer's business. * * *"

In Farmers Reservoir & Irrigation Co. v. McComb, 337 U.S. 755, 762, 69 S.Ct. 1274, 1278, 93 L.Ed. 1672, the Supreme Court carefully considered the statutory definition of "agriculture".

"As can be readily seen, this definition has two distinct branches. First, there is the primary meaning. Agriculture includes farming in all its branches. Certain specific practices such as cultivation and tillage of the soil, dairying, etc., are listed as being included in this primary meaning. Second, there is the broader meaning. Agriculture is defined to include things other than farming as so illustrated. It includes any practices, whether or not themselves farming practices, which are performed either by a farmer or on a farm, incidently to or in conjunction with `such' farming operations."

The Administrator's Interpretative Bulletin No. 14, par. 5 3 C.C.H. Labor Law Reporter, § 24,488 provides:

"* * * The term `harvesting of any agricultural or horticultural commodities' includes all operations customarily performed in connection with the removal of the crops by the farmer from their growing position in the field, greenhouse, etc. * * *"

The mowermen and rakemen are engaged in such operations, and their activities fall within the so-called "primary" meaning of "agriculture". Accordingly, they are exempt under § 13(a)(6) from coverage.

Initially, I had some difficulty in determining the status of the choppermen. After reviewing the evidence, however, I am satisfied these employees also are exempt from coverage. The facts here disclose the entire operation of harvesting and chopping to be an integrated and simultaneous operation. I believe the work of the choppermen may be said to fall within either the primary or secondary meaning of "agriculture". It is most difficult to draw the line between where the "harvesting" ends and when the "on farm" activities incidental to the farming operations begin. There is no need to draw that line in this case. The choppermen are exempt from coverage by reason of the agricultural exemption afforded by § 13 (a) (6).

The last of the field employees to be considered is the field maintenance man. As revealed above, this employee spends approximately ninety percent of his time in the field. The remaining portion of his workweek is spent at the defendant's plant where he services and repairs the equipment used.

The rule is well settled that an exemption cannot be had under the Fair Labor Standards Act unless the employee's entire workweek is spent in the exempted activity. In other words, if, during any workweek an employee performs work some of which is exempt under the section and some of which is not exempt, the exemption does not apply to him during such a workweek. Fleming v. Swift & Co., D.C., 41 F.Supp. 825, 832, affirmed Walling v. Swift & Co., 7 Cir., 131 F.2d 249; Walling v. DeSoto Creamery & Produce Co., D.C., 51 F.Supp. 938, 943; Shain...