Walling v. West Kentucky Coal Co.

60 F. Supp. 681, 1944 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 1547
CourtDistrict Court, W.D. Tennessee
DecidedDecember 1, 1944
DocketCiv. A. No. 612
StatusPublished
Cited by8 cases

This text of 60 F. Supp. 681 (Walling v. West Kentucky Coal Co.) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering District Court, W.D. Tennessee primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
Walling v. West Kentucky Coal Co., 60 F. Supp. 681, 1944 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 1547 (W.D. Tenn. 1944).

Opinion

BOYD, District Judge.

This cause came on for trial before me at Memphis, Tennessee, on the 24th, 25th and 26th days of October, 1944. George W. Jansen of Washington, D. G, Jeter S. Ray and Glen M. Elliott of Nashville, Tennessee, appeared on behalf of the plaintiff; James G. Wheeler of Paducah, Kentucky, Lucius E. Burch, Jr., and C. O. Franklin, both of Memphis, Tennessee, appeared on behalf of the defendant.

Upon consideration of the pleadings filed herein, the testimony adduced at the trial, including documentary evidence, and the entire record in the case, and after hearing arguments of counsel, the Court makes and files the findings of fact, conclusions of law and order for judgment hereinafter set forth.

Findings of Fact

I. Defendant is, and at all times since the effective date of the Fair Labor Standards Act of 1938, Act of June 25, 1938, c. 676, 52 Stat. 1060, 29 U.S.C.A. § 201 et seq., has been, a corporation organized under the laws of the State of New Jersey, having its home offices in Earling[684]*684ton, Kentucky, domesticated, and doing business in the State of Tennessee at Memphis.

II. Since the effective date of the Fair Labor Standards Act, defendant has owned and operated coal mines in the State of Kentucky producing approximately 15,-000 tons of coal per day. It has owned and operated a railroad in Kentucky running from its mines to the Ohio River, used in transporting the coal produced by it. On the Ohio and Mississippi Rivers it owns a number of barges used in transporting its coal to various points upon these rivers, as well as loading, unloading and screening equipment at strategic points. The West Kentucky Coal Company of New Jersey has two wholly owned subsidiary corporations, the West Kentucky Coal Company of Delaware and the St. Bernard Coal Company. The parent and subsidiary corporations maintain branch offices and sales outlets through which coal, mined by the parent corporation, is sold and distributed in a number of states, including Kentucky, Tennessee, Arkansas, Louisiana, Mississippi, Wisconsin, Illinois, Missouri, Nebraska and Indiana. One of such branch establishments is located at Memphis, Tennessee, and with defendant’s operations at the Memphis establishment this action is primarily concerned.

III. At Memphis defendant regularly employs thirty-five to forty persons in ordering, receiving, unloading, screening, selling, and distributing coal, in processes and occupations necessary thereto, in performing commercial tug boat services on the Mississippi River, and in the keeping and transmission of records covering all such operations. In carrying on its operations at Memphis, the defendant maintains an up-town office at 14 North Second Street, a barge fleet landing on the Arkansas side of the Mississippi River, a tug boat on the Mississippi River, Yard No. 1 located at the foot of Butler Avenue and physically connected with unloading equipment on the Tennessee side of the Mississippi River, and Yard No. 2 located on Heistan Street.

All coal distributed by defendant at Memphis is ordered and received from points outside Tennessee, and is received both by railroad and river barge. Defendant receives by rail substantially all coal delivered from Yard No. 2, while coal delivered from Yard No. 1 is received by barge to the extent that navigation and transportation facilities will permit. Rail shipments received at both Yards No. 1 and No. 2 are unloaded by defendant’s employees at Memphis.

All coal received by barge, being in excess of ninety percent of the total volume delivered from Yard No. 1, is mined by the defendant at its mines in Western Kentucky, transported on its railroad to the Ohio River, loaded upon its barges and towed down the Ohio and Mississippi Rivers to Memphis, where the barges are received by defendant’s tug boat and moored at defendant’s fleet landing in Arkansas until needed. As coal is needed at Yard No. 1, defendant’s tug boat tows the barges across the Mississippi to a steam shovel or digger, owned and operated by defendant, mounted upon a barge hull moored to the Tennessee bank of the Mississippi. Defendant’s employees operate the steam shovel in unloading barges, placing the coal in a hopper which feeds it onto a conveyor. The conveyor, consisting of a series of endless belts, lifts the coal over Riverside Drive and carries it approximately 1500 feet to the top of an elevator located on Yard No. 1. This elevator consists of eight bins with a capacity of sixteen carloads, eight hundred' tons, of coal. Four of the bins are equipped with power-driven machinery for screening the coal, the screenings thus obtained being designated and sold by defendant as pea and slack coal. Truck deliveries from Yard No. 1 are principally of screenings or pea and slack coal and the greater portion of such coal is obtained by the screening process.

Whereas the sale of screenings by defendant at Memphis comprises a large percentage of its total sales, it is established that screenings and the sale thereof constitute a minor, incidental and undesirable part of the sales of the retail coal dealer, as the term is generally understood. Domestic consumers do not generally purchase pea and slack coal, and sales of such coal to domestic consumers by defendant at Memphis comprise an inconsequential percentage of its business.

In addition to activities in connection with the sale and distribution of coal, defendant owns and operates at Memphis a tug boat on the Mississippi River, performing commercial tug service for boats and barge fleets moving in interstate commerce between all points on the Mississippi River.

Defendant is the only coal dealer in Memphis with equipment and facilities for [685]*685handling and unloading barge lot shipments, making sales on the river to boats, performing tug boat service, and an elevator with power driven machinery to perform the screening process.

IV. All defendant’s operations and employees at Memphis are under the general supervision and control of a local manager stationed in the up-town office. Employees are transferred from job to job and from one site of operations to another, spending a substantial part of their time doing each kind of work during the same workweek, as occasion demands. For example, it is established both by defendant’s time and payroil records, and the testimony of employees, that various employees during the same workweek have been transferred between two or more such jobs as laborer on the steam shovel, conveyor, elevator, unloading coal from freight cars at either Yard No. 1 or No. 2, acting as night watchman at the steam shovel or at the fleet landing in Arkansas, performing services on the tug, making truck deliveries from either or both yards, and maintaining and repairing the equipment used in unloading and screening coal at Yard No. 1. Records in connection with all operations at Memphis are cleared through the up-town office where a stenographic and bookkeeping force is employed.

V. Defendant’s operations at Memphis since the effective date of the Fair Labor Standards Act have been carried on for the purpose of distributing its coal throughout the territory adjacent thereto, such territory consisting of portions of the States of Tennessee, Arkansas, Louisiana and Mississippi. Prior to approximately October 1942 a salesman, stationed in Memphis, traveled throughout this territory, but since that time sales outside the immediate vicinity of Memphis have been solicited largely by telephone and mail from the Memphis office.

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60 F. Supp. 681, 1944 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 1547, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/walling-v-west-kentucky-coal-co-tnwd-1944.