Samples v. United States

135 Ct. Cl. 548, 1956 WL 8316
CourtUnited States Court of Claims
DecidedJuly 12, 1956
DocketNo. 48637; No 48891; No. 49891
StatusPublished
Cited by3 cases

This text of 135 Ct. Cl. 548 (Samples v. United States) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering United States Court of Claims primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
Samples v. United States, 135 Ct. Cl. 548, 1956 WL 8316 (cc 1956).

Opinion

Madden, Judge,

delivered the opinion of the court:

These are suits by operating employees of The Alaska Nail-road for overtime pay under section 23 of the Act of March 28, 1934, 5 U. S. C. 673c. Operating employees are conductors, engineers, brakemen and firemen who are in charge of trains which move from station to station, and yard employees such as switchmen and hostlers. By the practice of The Alaska Railroad, and perhaps all American railroads, such [550]*550employees are paid on a dual system, including both time spent at work and miles traveled. Their wages are computed at the proper rate per hour for the hours spent at work during a day, and again at the proper rate per mile for the miles traveled during that day. Whichever computation gives the most pay is retained, and the other one is discarded.

In earlier litigation about the application of section 23 to employees of The Alaska Eailroad, the Government has contended that, since it would be difficult, perhaps impossible, to apply a forty-hour week law with time and a half for overtime to the operating employees paid on the dual system, the court should find that Congress did not intend section 23 to apply to any employees of the railroad. We concluded that the statute was, by its terms, applicable to the railroad and could be applied without inconvenience to nonoperating employees, as to whom there was no dual system of pay. Poggas v. United States, 118 C. Cls. 385; Parmenter v. United States, 125 C. Cls. 35; Nelson v. United States, 126 C. Cls. 553; Samples, et al. [In case of Hugh G. Savage] v. United States, 131 C. Cls. 797.

In our consideration of each of the former cases, we have been admonished by the Government that if we persisted in proceeding along the path we had taken we would finally reach the point where such ingenuity as we had could take us no farther. On the other hand, we were consoled by plaintiffs’ counsel’s assurance that these dire forebodings were being uttered in terrorem. So we proceeded, and have now to deal with the operating employees. As we rather expected, we find that it is neither easy nor impossible to apply section 23 to them.

Under the dual system of pay, 12% miles per hour is regarded as the standard speed of a train, and 100 miles of travel produces the same pay as eight hours of work paid by the hour. If it takes the train more than eight hours to travel the 100 miles, pay by the hour will be greater, and that computation will be used. . If, as is not unusual, the train completes the journey in less than eight hours, pay by the mile will be greater and that computation will be used.

A forty-hour week, of course, with overtime after forty hours, must be applied upon the basis of hours worked, and [551]*551not miles traveled or pay received. Hence if a trainman makes a 100 mile trip in six hours, he receives as much pay for the trip as a man would receive if he had made the trip on a slower train in eight hours, but he has accumulated only six hours toward a forty-hour week.

Under the railroad’s pay system, there were also numerous pay items called “arbitraries” for which the employee received pay though he did not work, or received pay for something extra which he did during the time that he was already working and being paid. The arbitraries are described in findings 42 and 43.

Prior to 1948, the railroad had preserved its payroll records, engineers’ and conductors’ time slips, and dispatchers’ train sheets. But in 1948 a new auditor effected a house cleaning of old records, and many records which would have been helpful in this litigation were destroyed. Suits for overtime were pending in this court when the records were destroyed, but the official who caused the destruction was not aware of that fact. Other officials were on notice of the claims, at least during the latter period of the destruction of the records, and it is most unfortunate that the records are not available, since their unavailability greatly increases the difficulties of the parties in presenting their cases, and of the court in arriving at decisions which it can regard as reasonably reliable. In the circumstances, the absence of the missing records must not be allowed to prejudice the position of the plaintiffs any more than is absolutely necessary.

The problem created by the destruction of records is that, for the years prior to 1941, as to most of the employees we have nothing except the summary pay sheets of the railroad showing the hours or miles paid for and the rate and total amount of pay. In many cases the sheets do not show hours, but miles, the hours having for some reason been translated into miles on the pay sheets. Further, for pay purposes, the arbitraries such as the layover day of eight hours each week, and all the other arbitraries are included on the pay sheets in terms of hours, or miles, i. e., the number of hours or miles which would account for the amount of pay which the particular arbitrary called for.

[552]*552The plaintiffs do not claim any right to count the hours which appear on the pay sheets but which do not represent hours worked, in ascertaining whether the time worked exceeded forty hours, and if so, by how much. Nor do they claim that the pay received for arbitrarles should be counted in ascertaining the basic hourly wage which is to be multiplied by one and one-half in computing overtime. They do, however, and rightly, deny the Government’s claim that these items of pay without work should be set off against overtime pay. The arbitrarles are items conceded to the employees by their superiors for reasons which seemed sufficient to them, and have no relation to the policy of the forty-hour week, with overtime, set by section 23 of the Act of March 28,1934.

One exception to the statement just made about offsets should be noted. The wage rate fixed by the railroad on May 1, 1943, and thereafter, gave the employees on trains other than passenger trains time and one-half for time in excess of eight hours spent on runs of 100 miles or less, and, on runs in excess of 100 miles, the excess over the quotient obtained by dividing that number of miles divided by 12*4. This was overtime pay, called dual system overtime, and the plaintiffs concede that the railroad should be credited with it in the week during which it was earned. If the credit was not used in that week, it could not be set off against overtime earned in another week.

The determination of overtime under section 23 is wholly applicable to a time basis for work in excess of forty hours a week. It need not nor should not destroy the elective “dual system” of pay whereby the greater compensation in hours or miles is payable, and which was in effect many years before 1934. In those instances where the earnings of the employee were greater in miles, by reason of operating trains at speeds in excess of the standard rate of 12y2 miles per hour, than the amounts earned on a time basis plus overtime, as described above, the mileage basis will continue in effect as heretofore but the comparison should be made weekly. In such weeks, the amount earned will be the greater of the amount earned and paid on a mileage basis or the amount earned including section 23 overtime less overtime previously paid to operating employees after May 1, 1943.

[553]*553Another problem which we resolved in Poggas,

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Related

Anderson v. United States
490 F.2d 921 (Court of Claims, 1974)
Parks v. United States
141 Ct. Cl. 415 (Court of Claims, 1958)
Samples v. United States
136 Ct. Cl. 791 (Court of Claims, 1956)

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135 Ct. Cl. 548, 1956 WL 8316, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/samples-v-united-states-cc-1956.