Razey v. Unified School District No. 385

470 P.2d 809, 205 Kan. 551, 1970 Kan. LEXIS 322
CourtSupreme Court of Kansas
DecidedJune 13, 1970
DocketNo. 45,716
StatusPublished
Cited by2 cases

This text of 470 P.2d 809 (Razey v. Unified School District No. 385) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering Supreme Court of Kansas primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
Razey v. Unified School District No. 385, 470 P.2d 809, 205 Kan. 551, 1970 Kan. LEXIS 322 (kan 1970).

Opinion

The opinion of the court was delivered by

Harman, C.:

This action by three plaintiffs is for overtime wages, liquidated damages and attorneys’ fees under the Fair Labor [552]*552Standards Act of 1938, or, in the alternative, for compensation pursuant to their contracts of employment as custodians.

Separate claims filed by plaintiffs were consolidated and heard in trial to the court. At the conclusion of plaintiffs’ evidence the trial court sustained defendant’s motion for involuntary dismissal. This appeal ensued.

Appelants’ evidence revealed the following: Appellee, Unified School District No. 385, commonly known as the Andover district, embraces territory in Rutler and Sedgwick counties. It has two school buildings to be maintained by custodial work. The new building contains fifteen rooms consisting of a cafeteria, kitchen, shop, band room, music room, drafting room, three practice rooms, boiler room, three rest rooms and two other rooms. The old budding has twenty-two normal size classrooms, three home economic rooms, gymnasium with stage, halls and stairways. The classrooms contain the standard school equipment. The two buildings have about 154 windows.

All three appellants were employed as custodians by appellee during the time for which they seek overtime wages. Appellant Wiles was employed as the head custodian. His contract and that of appellant Razey were written. Appellant Schroeder’s contract was oral. Other custodians were employed on a part time basis.

The contracts of Wiles and Razey, dated June 5,1967, and July 10, 1967, respectively, stated the duties expected of each and his salary based upon a forty-hour work week up to a certain date at a specified hourly rate, and thereafter salary based upon a forty-two hour week at a specified hourly rate. Roth contracts contained the following provisions:

“2. . . .
“b. Authorized overtime shall be paid at IK times the hourly earnings.
“5. The custodian shall work under the direction of the superintendent of schools or the principal of the school and all communication between the custodian and the Board shall be through the school administrator.”

On November 1, 1967, the contract of appellant Wiles was renegotiated in view of the overtime he had been working so as to stabilize his total monthly wage at about $525.00. This second contract was the same as the first except his hourly wage for a forty-hour work week was reduced and the contract contained the following: “. . . may work up to 60 hours per week authorized.”

[553]*553Appellant Schroeder worked from about January 2, 1968, to about February 4, 1968, by reason of an oral agreement with the school superintendent, Harold McCreight.

Appellants Wiles and Razey testified that when they were employed they were told by the superintendent the work was there to be done and it had to be done but not to turn in any overtime unless authorized by him; that the district had to comply with the federal wage and hour law which was in the process of being construed. Appellants found it impossible to do the work expected of them in the regular work week provided in their contracts and as a consequence worked overtime. Wiles began keeping a separate private record of the actual hours worked each day by Razey and himself. Schroeder kept his own record. Some of these overtime hours were presented to Superintendent McCreight — some were not. Each month appellee paid a certain amount of overtime wages as authorized by McCreight. Evidence was adduced as to the number of hours each appellant worked and the nature of the work done. Each contends he is entitled to overtime pay under the Fair Labor Standards Act for those hours for which he has not been paid.

In dismissing appellants’ action the trial court held the act “cannot apply to a purely local secondary school which is not engaged in interstate commerce.” Hence the first question to be determined is the application of the act under the evidence adduced.

A brief resume of the Fair Labor Standards Act (29 USCA § 201, et seq.) may be helpful. As originally enacted it required every employer to pay each employee engaged in interstate commerce or in the production of goods for interstate commerce a certain minimum hourly wage and to pay at a higher rate — time and a half — for work in excess of a specified maximum number of hours per week. The act defined the term employer so as to exclude any state or political subdivision of a state. As initially construed, it was the individual activities of the particular employee, and not those of the employer, which determined whether the employee was engaged in interstate commerce or in the production of goods for interstate commerce. In 1961 Congress enlarged the coverage to include each employee who in any work week is employed in an enterprise engaged in interstate commerce or in the production of goods for interstate commerce (29 USCA §206 [h]). In 1966 Congress again amended the act. To the fist of employer activities covered it added, among others, the operation of an elementary or [554]*554secondary school regardless of whether such school is public or private or operated for profit or not for profit, and it modified the definition of employer so as to remove the exemption of the states and their political subdivisions with respect to employees of schools 29 (USCA 1970 Cum. Pocket Part, § 203 [s] [4]).

In Maryland v. Wirtz, 392 U. S. 183, 20 L. ed. 2d 1020, 88 S. Ct. 2017, the court considered these amendments. It determined the effect of the 1961 amendment containing the “enterprise concept” was to extend protection to the fellow employees of any employee who would have been protected by the original act, but not to enlarge the class of employers subject to the act.

As to the 1966 amendment the court stated:

“In order to be covered by the Act, an employer . . . school must in fact have
‘employees engaged in commerce or in the production of goods for commerce, including employees handling, selling, or otherwise working on goods that ' have been moved in or produced for commerce by any person. . . .’ 29 U. S. C. § 203 (s) (1964 ed., Supp. II).” (p. 200.)

The burden of making the requisite showing is upon the employee claiming the benefits of the act. (Warren-Bradshaw Co. v. Hall, 317 U. S. 88, 87 L. ed. 83, 63 S. Ct. 125; Jackson v. Derby Oil Co., 157 Kan. 53, 139 P. 2d 146; Stewart v. Mabee Oil & Gas Co., 158 Kan. 388, 147 P. 2d 731).

Appellants concede the correctness of the foregoing principles. They also concede their evidence at trial did not show that any materials, supplies or equipment used by the school came from sources outside the state of Kansas. Their evidence went only so far as to describe the buildings in which their custodial duties were performed. They now request this court, pursuant to K. S. A.

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Cite This Page — Counsel Stack

Bluebook (online)
470 P.2d 809, 205 Kan. 551, 1970 Kan. LEXIS 322, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/razey-v-unified-school-district-no-385-kan-1970.