Wirtz v. Camp Hill Lumber Co.

35 F.R.D. 301, 1964 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 7541
CourtDistrict Court, M.D. Alabama
DecidedMarch 10, 1964
DocketCiv. A. No. 629-E
StatusPublished

This text of 35 F.R.D. 301 (Wirtz v. Camp Hill Lumber Co.) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering District Court, M.D. Alabama primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
Wirtz v. Camp Hill Lumber Co., 35 F.R.D. 301, 1964 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 7541 (M.D. Ala. 1964).

Opinion

JOHNSON, District Judge.

This is an action by the Secretary of Labor, United States Department of Labor, suing to enjoin the defendants from violating the provisions of §§ 15(a) (2) and 15(a) (5) of the Fair Labor Standards Act, as amended, and to enjoin and restrain the defendants from withholding the payment of minimum wages and overtime compensation in the total amount of $7,668.44 to certain enumerated employees. The answer of the defendants, as reflected by the pretrial order of this Court, specifically denies any violations of the Fair Labor Stand- • ards Act during the periods involved and' specifically denies that any amount in' unpaid minimum wages and overtime1 compensation has been unlawfully withheld by the defendants from the employees named in the complaint for the periods and in the amounts claimed by the Secretary of Labor. The defendants demand a jury trial in this case as to that part of the complaint wherein the plaintiff seeks to enjoin and restrain the defendants from withholding the payment of minimum wages and overtime compensation. The plaintiff Secretary moves this Court to strike the demand of the defendants for a trial by jury on the ground that the right to trial. by jury of this cause does not exist under the Constitution or statutes of the United States. The 1961 amendment to the Fair Labor Standards Act as enacted May 5, 1961 (P.L. 87-.30Í 75, Stat. 65), [302]*302as' that améndment relates to- the issue now.before this Court, provided:

“Injunction Proceedings
“Sec. 17. The district courts, together with the United States District Court for the District of the Canal Zone, the District Court of the Virgin Islands, and the District Court of Guam shall have jurisdiction, for cause .shown, to restrain violations of section 15, including in the case of violations of section 15(a) (2) the restraint of any withholding of payment of minimum wages or overtime compensation found by the court to be due to employees under this Act (except sums which employees are barred from recovering, at the time of the commencement of the action to restrain the violations, by virtue of the provisions of section 6 of the Portal-to-Portal Act of 1947).”

The question now presented by the plaintiff’s motion to strike the defendants’ demand for a jury trial has received, and is continuing to receive, considerable attention; by the lower courts. As yet, there has been no appellate court decision on the question. Of the twelve decisions called to the attention of ’this Court on this question as to whether the “restraint of withholding” provisions of the 1961 amendment to the Act gives a right to trial by jury, ten of them1 have determined that the defendants have no such right. Two of them 2 have held that the defendants in such instances áre entitled to the jury trial.’ -

The defendants’ contention, in support of their demand for a jury trial, is simply that they have a right under the Seventh Amendment to the Constitution of the United States to have a jury determine whether or not they owe their employees—or former employees, as the case may be—money as earned compensation, which has not been paid. The Seventh Amendment reads as follows:

“AMENDMENT VII—CIVIL TRIALS
“In Suits at common law, where the value in controversy shall exceed twenty dollars, the right of trial by jury shall be'preserved, and no fact tried by a jury, shall be otherwise reexamined in any Court of the United States, than according to the rules of the common law.”

The Federal Rules of Civil Procedure for the United States Courts, in dealing with this matter in Rule 38(a), states as follows :

“RULE 38. JURY TRIAL OF RIGHT
“(a) Right Preserved. The right of trial by jury as declared by the Seventh Amendment to the Constitution or as given by a- statute of the United States shall be preserved to the parties inviolate.”

The plaintiff, in asking this Court to strike the jury trial demand, argues that the Fair Labor Standards Act estab[303]*303lished statutory rights which were not “contractual or common law rights” within the meaning of the Seventh Amendment and that the' Fair Labor Standards Act established remedies Which were unknown to the common law.

This Court elects to join the majority of the district judges in deciding this issue. It seems clear from the legislative history of the 1961 amendments to the Fair Labor Standards Act that the amendments, particularly that part dealing with “restraint of withholding,” were designed and intended by Congress to be included as a part of “the general equity jurisdiction of the courts.” Senate Report No. 1744, 86th Congress, 2d Session 1960, p. 33. There is no question but that Congress has considerable leeway in fashioning statutory remedies and in creating new causes of actions. 5 Moore’s Federal Practice, 38.11(7). As Judge Bootle stated in Wirtz v. Alapaha Yellow Pine Products, Inc., supra:

“This is a traditional and typical equity suit. Its primary aim is injunctive relief to protect the public interest, ‘and since the public interest is involved * * * those equitable powers assume an even broader and more flexible character than when only a private controversy is at stake.’ Porter v. Warner Holding Co., supra, 328 U.S. [395] at 398, 66 S.Ct. [1086] at 1089, 90 L.Ed. 1332. ‘Courts of equity may, and frequently do, go much farther both to give and withhold relief in furtherance of the public interest than they are accustomed to go when only private interests are involved.’ Virginian Ry. Co. v. System Federation No. 40, 300 U.S. 515, 552, 57 S.Ct. 592, 601, 81 L.Ed. 789, 802 (1937). Its ultimate purpose is to give effect to the policy of Congress and ‘when Congress entrusts to an equity court the enforcement of prohibitions contained in a regulatory enactment, it must be taken to have acted cognizant of the historic power of equity to provide complete relief in light of the statutory purposes. As this Court long ago recognized, “there is inherent in the Courts of Equity a jurisdiction to * * * give effect to the policy of the legislature.” Clark v. Smith, 13 Pet. 195, 203, 10 L.Ed. 123, 127.’ Mitchell v. [Robert] DeMario Jewelry, 361 U.S. 288, 291, 292, 80 S.Ct. 332, 334-336, 4 L.Ed.2d 323.
“If, upon the trial of this case, the evidence should be such as to convince the court that in the exercise of its sound discretion an injunction against withholding of payment should be granted the court would then be imposing not so much judicial sanctions as legislative sanctions specifically authorized by Congress, as Congress had a clear right to do. ' National Labor, Relations Board v. Jones & Laughlin Steel Corp., 301 U.S. 1, 47, 48, 57 S.Ct. 615, 629, 81 L.Ed. 893, 917 (1937).

Free access — add to your briefcase to read the full text and ask questions with AI

Related

Clark v. Smith
38 U.S. 195 (Supreme Court, 1839)
Virginian Railway Co. v. System Federation No. 40
300 U.S. 515 (Supreme Court, 1937)
Brooklyn Savings Bank v. O'Neil
324 U.S. 697 (Supreme Court, 1945)
Porter v. Warner Holding Co.
328 U.S. 395 (Supreme Court, 1946)
Mitchell v. Robert DeMario Jewelry, Inc.
361 U.S. 288 (Supreme Court, 1960)
Wirtz v. Alapaha Yellow Pine Products, Inc.
217 F. Supp. 465 (M.D. Georgia, 1963)
Wirtz v. Robert E. Bob Adair, Inc.
224 F. Supp. 750 (W.D. Arkansas, 1963)
Mitchell v. Pidcock
299 F.2d 281 (Fifth Circuit, 1962)
Wirtz v. Turner
227 F. Supp. 395 (N.D. Georgia, 1963)
Wirtz v. Norton
34 F.R.D. 535 (N.D. Georgia, 1963)

Cite This Page — Counsel Stack

Bluebook (online)
35 F.R.D. 301, 1964 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 7541, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/wirtz-v-camp-hill-lumber-co-almd-1964.