Brown v. Maryland & Pennsylvania Railroad

719 A.2d 807, 5 Wage & Hour Cas.2d (BNA) 60, 1998 Pa. Super. LEXIS 3280
CourtSuperior Court of Pennsylvania
DecidedNovember 4, 1998
StatusPublished

This text of 719 A.2d 807 (Brown v. Maryland & Pennsylvania Railroad) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering Superior Court of Pennsylvania primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
Brown v. Maryland & Pennsylvania Railroad, 719 A.2d 807, 5 Wage & Hour Cas.2d (BNA) 60, 1998 Pa. Super. LEXIS 3280 (Pa. Ct. App. 1998).

Opinions

JOYCE, Judge:

This is an appeal from the final order of the trial court sustaining Appellees’ preliminary objections to Appellant’s complaint. For the reasons set forth below, we affirm. The relevant facts and procedural history of this case are as follows.

Appellant, Michael Brown, was a long-time employee of Appellee, Maryland and Pennsylvania Railroad Company, of which Appel-lees’, Smith, Ziegler and Hill are Chief Executive Officer, Secretary Treasurer and Vice-President respectively. Appellant worked as a laborer servicing and repairing locomotive engines. Prior to 1991, Appellant was paid on an hourly basis and received time and a half for any overtime worked. In 1991, Ap-pellees informed him that he would receive a salary prospectively, without any additional compensation for overtime worked. Appellant was not subject to a collective bargaining agreement at any time.

Appellant initiated the suit in the case at bar pursuant to the Fair Labor Standards Act, 29 U.S.C.A. §201 et seq., Pennsylvania Wage Payment and Collection Act, 43 P.S. §260.1 et seq., and the Pennsylvania Minimum Wage Act of 1968, 43 P.S. §333.101 et seq. On November 6, 1997, the trial court dismissed Appellant’s complaint based on Appellees’ preliminary objections. In essence, the trial court determined that the state action was preempted by federal law pursuant to the Railway Labor Act, 45 U.S.C.A. §§ 151-188 under the trial judge’s mistaken belief that Appellant was subject to a collective bargaining agreement.

Appellant petitioned for reconsideration based on the trial court’s erroneous reliance on the alleged collective bargaining agreement. On December 18,1997, the trial judge purported to grant Appellant’s petition for reconsideration acknowledging the erroneous assumption and found that both the Railway Labor Act and the Adamson Act, 45 U.S.C.A. §§ 65-66,1 rely on the existence of a collective bargaining agreement, which did not exist in the situation at bar and therefore, federal preemption did not apply. However, the trial court lacked jurisdiction to grant reconsideration because more than thirty (30) days had passed subsequent to the court’s dismissal of the complaint. Thereafter, Appellant filed this timely appeal from the November order dismissing the complaint.

Before turning to the issue presented for our review, we note that the trial court’s opinion purporting to grant reconsid[809]*809eration properly acknowledged that the Railway Labor Act, 45 U.S.C.A. §§151-188 solely applies when a collective bargaining agreement is in existence. However, the trial court erred in determining the Adamson Act’s application relied on the existence of a collective bargaining agreement. The Adam-son Act provides:

§ 65. Establishment of eight hour day
Eight hours shall, in contracts for labor and service, be deemed a day’s work and the measure of standard of a day’s work for the purpose of reckoning the compensation for services of all employees who are now or may hereafter be employed by any common carrier by railroad, except railroads independently owned and operated not exceeding one hundred miles in length, electric street railroads, and electric interurban railroads, which is subject to the provisions of subtitle IV of Title 49, and who are now or may hereafter be actually engaged in any capacity in the operation of trains used for the transportation of persons or property on railroads, except railroads independently owned and operated not exceeding one hundred miles in length, electric street railroads, and electric interurban railroads, from any State or Territory of the United States or the District of Columbia to any other State or Territory of the United States or the District of Columbia, or from one place in the United States to an adjacent foreign country, or from any place in the United States through a foreign country to any other place in the United States: Provided, That the above exceptions shall not apply to railroads though less than one hundred miles in length whose principal business is leasing or furnishing terminal or transfer facilities to other railroads, or are themselves engaged in transfers of freight between railroads or between railroads and industrial plants.
§ 66. Penalty for violation
Any person violating any provision of section 65 of this title shall be guilty of a misdemeanor and upon conviction shall be fined not less than $100 and not more than $1,000, or imprisoned not to exceed one year, or both.

45 U.S.C.A. § 65 — § 66. The rules of statutory construction govern our interpretation. Our object is to ascertain and effectuate the intention of the General Assembly. 1 Pa. C.S.A. § 1921(a). When the language of a statute is clear and unambiguous, it must be given effect in accordance with its plain and common meaning. 1 Pa.C.S.A. § 1921(b); Commonwealth v. Burnsworth, 543 Pa. 18, 24, 669 A.2d 883, 886 (1995). In attempting to ascertain the meaning of a statute, we must consider the intent of the legislature and examine the practical consequences of a particular interpretation. Commonwealth v. Davis, 421 Pa.Super. 454, 618 A.2d 426, 428 (Pa.Super.1992). We presume the legislature did not intend a result that is absurd and unreasonable. Id.

We believe that the statute is clear and unambiguous on its face. Therefore, it must be given effect in accordance with its plain and common meaning. Conspicuously absent from the language of the statute is reference to an existing collective bargaining agreement. Because the statute does not mention such a prerequisite, we decline to imply its necessity. We now turn to Appellant’s claim.

The sole issue raised for our review is whether the Adamson Act preempts Appellant’s state law claims for overtime compensation.

Where a preliminary objection in the nature of a demurrer is sustained, an appellate court’s review is limited. All material facts set forth in the complaint as well as all inferences reasonably dedueible therefrom are admitted as true for the pui’pose of this review. The question presented by demurrer is whether, on the facts averred, the law says with certainty that no recovery is possible. Where a doubt exists as to whether a demurrer should be sustained, this doubt should be resolved in favor of overruling it.

Moser v. Heistand, 545 Pa. 554, 559, 681 A.2d 1322, 1325 (1996) (citation omitted). We need not accept a party’s allegations as true to the extent they constitute conclusions of law, however. Scarpitti v. Weborg, 530 Pa. 366, 368, 609 A.2d 147, 148 (1992).

[810]*810The exercise of federal supremacy is not lightly to be presumed. It will not be presumed that a federal statute was intended to supersede the exercise of the power of the state unless there is a clear manifestation of intention to do so.... [Wjhere Congress has not made clear its intention to preempt or where the conflict is a potential one or peripheral to the purpose of the federal statute, state legislation will be allowed to stand.

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Related

Wilson v. New
243 U.S. 332 (Supreme Court, 1917)
General Committee v. M.-K.-TR CO.
320 U.S. 323 (Supreme Court, 1943)
NATIONAL ASS'N OF REGULATORY UTIL. COM'RS v. Coleman
399 F. Supp. 1275 (M.D. Pennsylvania, 1975)
Commonwealth v. Burnsworth
669 A.2d 883 (Supreme Court of Pennsylvania, 1995)
Commonwealth v. Davis
618 A.2d 426 (Superior Court of Pennsylvania, 1992)
Moser v. Heistand
681 A.2d 1322 (Supreme Court of Pennsylvania, 1996)
Scarpitti v. Weborg
609 A.2d 147 (Supreme Court of Pennsylvania, 1992)

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Bluebook (online)
719 A.2d 807, 5 Wage & Hour Cas.2d (BNA) 60, 1998 Pa. Super. LEXIS 3280, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/brown-v-maryland-pennsylvania-railroad-pasuperct-1998.