Redlands Foothill Groves v. Jacobs

30 F. Supp. 995, 1940 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 3678
CourtDistrict Court, S.D. California
DecidedJanuary 5, 1940
Docket662-Y
StatusPublished
Cited by30 cases

This text of 30 F. Supp. 995 (Redlands Foothill Groves v. Jacobs) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering District Court, S.D. California primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
Redlands Foothill Groves v. Jacobs, 30 F. Supp. 995, 1940 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 3678 (S.D. Cal. 1940).

Opinion

YANKWICH, District Judge.

Back of this controversy is what may readily be conceded to be a radical departure in the realm of American Federal governmental activity,—control of working conditions, hours and wages,—by the Federal Government through the power to control interstate commerce, the “Fair Labor Standards Act of 1938,” 29 U.S.C.A. § 201 et seq.

Not that this is alien to our civilization.

The integrated economies of the early settlers of the American continent found it imperative to control economic activity.

So we find that in the earliest American criminal code,—that of Sir Thomas Dale, governing the Jamestown settlement in Virginia, (1611)—conditions of trading were regulated. Sales at prices other than those set by the community, the Governor or the Council were punished severely, as was also unauthorized trading with the Indians.

In what was known as the “Cotton Code”, which governed New Haven Colony until 1655, we find the following regulations :

“1 Firft it fhall be lawfull for the Governour with one or more of the Counfell,' to appoint a reafonable rate of prizes upon all fuch commodities as are out of the Ships, to be bought and fould in the Countrey.

“2 In trucking or trading with the Indians no man fhall give them for any commodity of theirs, Silver or Gold or any weapons of war, either Guns or Gun powder, nor Sword, nor any other munition, which might come to be ufed againft our felves.

“3 To the intent that all oppreffion in buying and felling may be avoyded, it fhall *998 be lawfull for the Iudges in every Towne, with the confent of the free Burgeffes to appoint certaine felect men, to fet reafonable rates upon all commodities, and proportionably to limmit the wages of workemen and labourers, and the rates agreed upon by them, and ratified by the Iudges, to bind all the Inhabitants of the Towne, The like courfe to be taken by the Governour and Affitants, for the rating of prizes throughout the Countrey, and all to be confirmed if need be by the Generali Court.” Ch. V, Cl. 1, 2, and 3 of 1641 Ed., as reprinted in May 1938, Bulletin of the New Haven County Bar Association, p. 74.

But, on the whole, while, through tariffs and subsidies, business activity was encouraged in the United States, conditions of employment of labor,—-except in dangerous employments,—were not made the subject of governmental interference.

Even when, at the end of the last century, state interference began, the Federal arm of the Government remained unused.

The wages and hour law, involved in this litigation, is a departure from this,— a departure which the Supreme Court condemned when it was first attempted in an effort to control child labor. Hammer v. Dagenhart, 1918, 247 U.S. 251, 38 S.Ct. 529, 62 L.Ed. 1101, 3 A.L.R. 649, Ann.Cas. 1918E, 724.

The departure is indicative of a new realistic approach to the problems of the day. Federal legislation is giving recognition to the relentlessness of facts.

Societies and economic systems do not change precipitately. At times, the change may be unnoticeable. And what may appear to later generations as a revolution may not even be perceptible to those'living at the time, and in the midst of the change. But change is.of the essence of social life.

What is happening today in human society?

For over a century, from the rise of the industrial system, Western society, including the United States, has been characterized by competition, more or less unrestrained.

. The economic thought which dominated it was that of the Manchester school of laissez faire, which taught that economic forces should be allowed free interplay. Order in economic society was supposed to flow from this.

The political thought which dominated it was the doctrine of non-interference of political liberalism. . The State (and the word is used here in the sense in which political science uses it, i. e., the coercive force of government) was to interfere as little as possible in the field of economics. Its role was to be that of a policeman, keeping, as it .were, the avenues of trade, industry, and commerce open and clear, so that the traffic might flow freely.

The rapid development' of industrialism resulted in the concentration of industrial and business activity, with the rapid disappearance of individual units. To the free, independent units, there succeeded a system of interdependence.

The high technological development in the last few decades hastened its full unfoldment.

The development of this social organism has led to the modification of the attitude of State non-interference.

The interest of the general good, the need to equalize opportunities, and to prevent ..oppression,, have led to,. interference on the part of the State. The State has been called upon to perform broader and wider services. And more functions, heretofore performed by individuals or by private initiative, or not performed at all, have come to be performed by the State. Greater and greater socialization of functions is taking place. The State is becoming an instrument of social welfare, aiming, as a French jurist has put it, á diminuer dans le monde la somme des souffrances injustes. J. Charmont, Les Transformations du droit civil. Avant-propos; See Carroll H. Woody: The Growth of Governmental Function in Recent Social Trends (1933) Vol. II, p. 1274 et seq.; Lyon, Watkins and Abramson, Government and Economic Life, 1939, pp. 441-475; Yankwich, The Constitution and the Future, 1935, pp. 28-30.

This recognition of the need for a greater societal control is behind the statute here involved.

The declaration of policy says:

“(a) The Congress hereby finds that the existence, in industries engaged in commerce or in the production of goods for commerce, of labor conditions detrimental to the maintenance of the minimum standard of living necessary for health, efficiency, and general well-being of workers (1) causes commerce and the channels and instrumentalities of commerce to be used to spread and perpetuate such labor conditions among the workers of the several *999 States; (2) burdens commerce and the free flow of goods in commerce; (3) constitutes an unfair method of competition in commerce; (4) leads to labor disputes burdening and obstructing commerce and the free flow of goods in commerce; and (5) interferes with the orderly and fair marketing of goods in commerce.

“(b) It is hereby declared to be the policy of the Act [chapter], through the exercise by Congress of its power .to regulate commerce among the several States, to correct and as rapidly as practicable to eliminate the conditions above referred to in su,ch industries without substantially curtailing employment or earning power.” 29 U.S.C.A. § 202.

This is achieved by providing a maximum of hours and the minimum.of wages for persons in industry engaged in interstate commerce. The administrative mechanism for carrying out the policy is this: There is created in the Department of Labor a wage and hour division under the direction of an Administrator.

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Bluebook (online)
30 F. Supp. 995, 1940 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 3678, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/redlands-foothill-groves-v-jacobs-casd-1940.