Casa Baldrich, Inc. v. Mitchell, Secretary of Labor

214 F.2d 703, 1954 U.S. App. LEXIS 3811, 26 Lab. Cas. (CCH) 68,531
CourtCourt of Appeals for the First Circuit
DecidedJuly 2, 1954
Docket4765
StatusPublished
Cited by6 cases

This text of 214 F.2d 703 (Casa Baldrich, Inc. v. Mitchell, Secretary of Labor) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering Court of Appeals for the First Circuit primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
Casa Baldrich, Inc. v. Mitchell, Secretary of Labor, 214 F.2d 703, 1954 U.S. App. LEXIS 3811, 26 Lab. Cas. (CCH) 68,531 (1st Cir. 1954).

Opinion

MAGRUDER, Chief Judge.

This is an appeal from a decree adjudging appellant company guilty of civil contempt for violating the terms of a 1948 injunction which had been issued under the provisions of the Fair Labor Standards Act of 1938, 52 Stat. 1060, 29 U.S.C.A. §. 201 et seq. Among other terms, this injunction ordered:

“1 — The defendant shall not contrary to Section 6 of the Act, pay any of its employees who are engaged in the production of goods for commerce, as defined by the Act, from the time of this Judgment, at wages less than the rates authorized by Section 6 of the Act or by an applicable order of the Administrator issued under Sections 6 and 8(c) of the Act. The provisions of this paragraph shall not prevent defendant from' paying any of its employees wages authorized as to such employees by a special certificate issued and in effect under Section 14 of the Act.”

The Administrator of the Wage and Hour Division of the Department of ■Labor commenced the instant proceeding on July 30, 1952, by applying to the district court for an adjudication in contempt. He took this action when it ap■peared that,, subsequent to December 10, 1951 (the effective date of a wage order promulgated for the printing and similar industries in Puerto Rico), the respondent, by paying wages below the required minimum, had failed to comply with the terms of the 1948 court decree-

Casa Baldrich, Inc., the respondent-appellant, in answer to a show cause order issued by the district court, admitted that it had been paying certain of its employees a wage less than that specified by the wage order of December 10, 1951. It contended, however, that this did not constitute contempt of the court’s decree because since the amend-mént of the Fair Labor Standards Act in 1949, “ * * * Defendant’s employees have ceased to be engaged in the production of goods for commerce and since such date your Defendant is an exempt establishment under the Fair Labor Standards Act, Section 13(a) (2) in that more than 75 per cent of its dollar volume sales of goods is not for resale and such sales are recognized as retail sales and services in the printing and supply business.”

It is apparent that the respondent’s failure to comply with the wage order did not violate the 1948 injunction if, as a result of an amendment to the Fair Labor Standards Act, the respondent’s employees were in fact no longer “engaged in the production of goods for commerce”. This is so because the decree by its terms is limited to employees so occupied. It is less apparent to us that Cása Baldrich is exculpated from contempt by demonstrating that it has since become exempt as a retail establishment under the amended statute, However, the case was tried below on the theory, apparently acquiesced in by the government, that if the defendant’s employees were otherwise covered by the Act, it was pertinent to the question of contempt to determine whether Casa Baldrich was entitled to an exemption under § 13 of the amended statute, Since the government and the respondent are both satisfied that this issue is properly before us, we shall proceed on that basis.

The district court held that the 1949 changes ' in the Fair Labor Standards Act did not pIace the employees outside that statute nor grant an exemption to the respondent. The court therefore adjudged Casa Baldrich to be in contempt, and required it to purge itself of said contempt “by making restitution to each of its employees of an amount equal to the difference between what respondent actually paid to its respective employees during the period since December 10, 1951 and the amount re *705 spondent should have paid to each of said employees had it not disobeyed the judgment of this Court.”

The initial question we face on appeal is whether appellant’s employees are engaged in the production of goods for commerce as that term is presently defined. The relevant provision of the statute is § 3(j). Prior to the amendment, that section read, 52 Stat. 1061:

“ ‘Produced’ means produced, manufactured, mined, handled, or in any other manner worked on in any State; and for the purposes of this Act an employee shall be deemed to have been engaged in the production of goods if such employee was employed in producing, manufacturing, mining, handling, transporting, or in any other manner working on such goods, or in any process or occupation necessary to the production thereof, in any State.

The section now reads, 63 Stat. 911:

“ ‘Produced’ means produced, manufactured, mined, handled, or in any other manner worked on in any State; and for the purposes of this Act an employee shall be deemed to have been engaged in the production of goods if such employee was employed in producing, „ , . . . , manufacturing, mining, handling, , ,. . transportmg, or m any other man- , . . , . ner working on such goods, or m , , , , , any closely related process or occupation directly essential to the pro- , ,. , „ duction thereof, m any State.”

We hold, upon the facts and reasoning shortly to be detailed, first, that the Casa Baldrich employees involved in this litigation devoted, during the period in question, some portion of their time to the actual production of goods for commerce; and for this reason they remain, after the amendment to § 3(j), as before, subject to the Act. Second, a portion of these employees’ time was spent in work closely related and directly essential to the production of goods for commerce; and for this independent reason they remain within the coverage °f the statute,

The following facts give rise to these two conclusions: Casa Baldrich is one of Puerto Rico’s largest printing companies. It has two printing shops, one in Hato Rey and another in downtown San Juan. Attached to the main establishment in San Juan is a stationery store which is separated from the printing plant and serviced by employees who are n°t involved in this appeal,

As a regU]ar part 0f jfs business, appellant does special order or job printing for numerous industrial and business concerns located in Puerto Rico, Among its regular clients Casa Baldrich numbers most of the large sugar centrals on the Islandf its banks> needlework manufacturers, and an airline company, There is no question that these concerns engage in foreign and interstate commerce or in the production of goods for such commerce. Casa Baldrich manufactures for these companies such things as letterheads and envelopes, accounting and business forms (including payrolls, production and shipping records), check books for the banks, and baggage tags for the airline. 1

This portion of the appellant's business apparently amounted to $44,247.- no 78 during period m question (December 10, 1951, through August 31, 1952). Appellants total dollar volume of sales during this same period was $264,563.62. While it appears that much of this latter figure is accounted for by relatively small sales to outfits of a local nature, Casa Baldrich used its employees indiscriminately on all of its printing orders, without attempting to segregate the work performed for the companies engaged in commerce or the production of goods for commerce from that performed for its small local customers. Thus some unsegregated portion of the appellant’s employees’ time *706

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214 F.2d 703, 1954 U.S. App. LEXIS 3811, 26 Lab. Cas. (CCH) 68,531, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/casa-baldrich-inc-v-mitchell-secretary-of-labor-ca1-1954.