McComb v. Union Stock Yards & Transit Co.

168 F.2d 375, 1948 U.S. App. LEXIS 3006
CourtCourt of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit
DecidedMay 28, 1948
DocketNo. 6444
StatusPublished
Cited by2 cases

This text of 168 F.2d 375 (McComb v. Union Stock Yards & Transit Co.) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
McComb v. Union Stock Yards & Transit Co., 168 F.2d 375, 1948 U.S. App. LEXIS 3006 (7th Cir. 1948).

Opinion

MINTON, Circuit Judge.

The Administrator of the Wage and Hour Division sued to enjoin the defendant, Union Stock Yards and Transit Company of Chicago, frem violating the Fair Labor Standards Act1 by employing certain watchmen in the yards more hours per week than authorized by the Act, without paying them overtime therefor. There is no question but that the defendant has violated the Act if its watchmen are subject thereto. The District Court held that the defendant was exempt from Section 7 of the Act under Section 13(b) (2)2 thereof. This judgment was entered pursuant to motions for summary judgment made by both parties. The District Court sustained the motion of the defendant and denied the injunction, and dismissed the plaintiff’s complaint. From this judgment the plaintiff has appealed.

The undisputed facts are as follows. The defendant operates and has operated since 1865 in Chicago a stockyards for the receipt and sale of livestock. At present, the yards cover a half section of land almost entirely enclosed by fences and buildings; all the streets and alleyways are private and controlled by the defendant, and the many miles of railroad tracks therein are owned by the defendant and leased to a subsidiary of the New York Central Railroad Company. Trucks deliver about one third of the livestock to the yards, the truckers unloading the livestock into the holding pens. Line haul railroads deliver two thirds of the livestock. On direct con[376]*376signments of the inbound livestock, usually to the packers, the unloading is done by the defendant, bu't the consignees take the livestock directly from the unloading pens. On indirect consignments, the inbound livestock is also unloaded by the defendant and then driven from the unloading pens into the holding pens where it is weighed, fed, watered, and cared for until sold and removed from the yards. For outbound shipments over the line haul railroads, the livestock is collected in the holding pens and then driven by the defendant’s employees into the loading pens where it is loaded into the cars. The defendant owns all of the chutes, pens, and other facilities for the services it renders. For its loading and unloading charges the defendant files tariffs with the Interstate Commerce Commission, and its charges therefor are collected by the railroads as a part of their total transportation charges, the railroads in turn paying the defendant its share of the total tariff. For its stockyards services other than the loading and unloading, the defendant’s charges are regulated by the Secretary of Agriculture.

Within the stockyards area there are four industrial plants, the Drovers Journal Publishing Company and the Pulverized Manure Company, which are closely allied with the yards’ operations; the Produce Terminal Corporation, which produces electrical power for sale to the defendant and to the Chicago Junction Railroad, among others; and the Mercury Manufacturing Company, which manufactures industrial equipment and is not allied with the defendant’s operations. The yards area is operated as an integrated whole, although the defendant’s functions are divided into transportation and stockyards services.

The employees are not separated or regimented as to the services they render but are used when and wherever needed. To protect and police this whole yard and to look after the safety and well being of the animals and of the property therein, the defendant employs approximately fifty watchmen or policemen whose services are here involved. While some of these watchmen are assigned certain posts of duty, including guarding the industrial plants inside the yards, others patrol certain sections of the yards. Any of them may be sent or go to any place in the yards where their services may be required for the guarding and care of the livestock, for the protection of the structures and animals from destruction by fire, and for directing traffic and guarding the gates — in short, doing whatever may be necessary for the operation and protection of the whole area-In emergencies, the watchmen may be required to load and unload livestock.

It is the defendant’s contention, and the District Court sustained it, that the watchmen were exempt from the provisions of Section 7 of the Fair Labor Standards Act by the exemption provisions of Section IT (b) (2), which reads as follows: “(b) The provisions of section 207 of this title shall not apply with respect to * * * (2)-any employee of an employer subject to the: provisions of sections 1-27 of Title 49.”

The statute 49 U.S.C.A. § 1(3) (a) fixes: the status of the defendant by including its operations in the definition of a railroad. The part of the statute applicable to the defendant’s facilities reads as follows f “ * * * and terminal facilities of every kind used or necessary in the transportation of the persons or property designated herein * *

In Adams et al. v. Mills, 286 U. S. 397, 409, 52 S.Ct. 589, 76 L.Ed. 1184, the Supreme Court upheld the jurisdiction of the-Interstate Commerce Commission to declare unlawful an extra charge of 25^ per car for unloading livestock in the defendant’s yards. The Supreme Court said at page 409 of 286 U. S., at page 592 of 52 S.Ct.: “That the yards are, in effect, terminals of the railroads is clear. They are-in fact used as terminals; and necessarily-so.”

In Union Stock Yards & Transit Co. v. United States et al., 308 U. S. 213, 60 S.Ct. 193, 201, 84 L.Ed. 198, the Supreme Court reviewed the numerous efforts made by the-' defendant to avoid the jurisdiction of the Interstate Commerce Commission and to-avoid the holdings of the Supreme Court, that its status was that of a rail terminal. In this case the Supreme Court reaffirmed-, the holding that the loading and unloading of the livestock in the yards made the defendant a railroad terminal, and the court: [377]*377sustained the jurisdiction of the Interstate Commerce Commission over such activities. This status of the defendant has been consistently and firmly maintained by the United States. Ever since the passage of the Railroad Retirement Act,3 the Carriers Taxing Act,4 and the Railroad Unemployment Insurance Act,5 the defendant has been required to pay the taxes on its employees imposed by these statutes, including the watchmen here involved, because of its status as a railroad terminal.

The test of the exemption of the employees with which we are here concerned is whether the defendant employer was subject to 49 U.S.C.A. §§ 1-27. The employees’ exemption does not depend upon the character of the work performed by them. For the purpose of regulation and the fixing of charges, the defendant is subject to the Interstate Commerce Commission as to loading and unloading services which are part of transportation, while the charges for stockyards services are subject to the jurisdiction of the Secretary of Agriculture. Congress clearly divided the jurisdiction for the purpose of regulating the charges for the services the defendant was performing, but it did not divide the jurisdiction as to the regulation of the wages and hours of the defendant’s employees. It made no allocation of employees to transportation and stockyards services when it exempted the employees of an employer subject to 49 U.S.C.A. §§ 1-27.

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Bluebook (online)
168 F.2d 375, 1948 U.S. App. LEXIS 3006, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/mccomb-v-union-stock-yards-transit-co-ca7-1948.