Wirtz v. Crystal Lake Crushed Stone Co.

327 F.2d 455, 48 Lab. Cas. (CCH) 31,528
CourtCourt of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit
DecidedFebruary 4, 1964
DocketNos. 14232, 14233
StatusPublished
Cited by5 cases

This text of 327 F.2d 455 (Wirtz v. Crystal Lake Crushed Stone Co.) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
Wirtz v. Crystal Lake Crushed Stone Co., 327 F.2d 455, 48 Lab. Cas. (CCH) 31,528 (7th Cir. 1964).

Opinion

CASTLE, Circuit Judge.

The Secretary of Labor brought these two actions1 in the District Court for injunctive relief under Section 17 of the Fair Labor Standards Act, as amended, 29 U.S.C.A. § 201 et seq. In No. 14232 Crystal Lake Crushed Stone Company is charged with violating the Act’s overtime provisions with respect to employees engaged in the quarrying, processing and handling of sand and gravel on Crystal’s premises. In No. 14233 Wolf Trucking Service 2 is charged with violating both the overtime provisions and record-keeping requirements 3 with respect to employees engaged in the handling and transportation of sand and gravel. The facts are stipulated. The District Court, after making and entering findings of fact and conclusions of law, denied the relief sought and dismissed the complaints. The Secretary prosecuted an appeal in each of the cases.

The record discloses that Crystal’s gravel pit is located at Elkhart Lake, Sheboygan County, Wisconsin. Through washing and crushing processes it produces sand, stone of two sizes, gravel, and chips or pea gravel from the “pit-run” it excavates or quarries. The chips are a by-product. Crystal employs six persons in its production, processing and handling activities. During the years 1958, 1959, and 1960, Crystal sold 597,-066 tons of these materials from which it grossed $519,740. During this three year period it sold 17,403 tons of chips to the Sheboygan County, State Highway Commission for $13,112. The chips were used in the repair and maintenance of roads and highways.

Two major customers of Crystal, Van Der Vaart Brick and Building Supply Company and J.P.R. Company, who manufacture and sell ready-mix concrete, concrete pipe and concrete blocks, purchased all of their sand and stone requirements from Crystal. Each of these firms operates a ready-mix concrete plant and delivers its ready-mix concrete to contractors and other purchasers by pouring it at the job-site from its own vehicles, specially designed trucks equipped with revolving cylinders to hold and transport the freshly mixed concrete. [457]*457During the three year period referred to these two customers purchased a total of 349,193 tons of sand and stone from Crystal. Except after March, 1959, when J.P.R. commenced to haul about one-third of its purchases from Crystal’s premises in its own trucks, Wolf transported all of this tonnage from Crystal’s premises to the plant of either Van Der Vaart or J.P.R. Crystal billed these customers for the transportation charge and paid it to Wolf. Wolf employs between 5 and 7 persons, mostly truck drivers engaged in such transportation, and received $258,-552 for such services. All other customers of Crystal, including the Highway Commission, transported their purchases from Crystal’s premises in the purchaser’s own vehicles.

In addition to its above trucking activities, Wolf furnished employees and supplied materials in connection with the construction and reconstruction of streets, parking lots, and sanitary sewers, house excavations, and farm driveways. This type of work was normally performed by Clarence R. Wolf and one or two other employees, who operated a caterpillar tractor, a back hoe, and an air hammer. The materials for this type of work were hauled to the job-site by one, two, or three of the truck drivers, depending on the nature and size of the project. The type of work performed by Wolf on streets, roads and highways included the spreading of gravel on road surfaces.

About 58 per cent of Crystal’s total sales were to Van Der Vaart and J.P.R., and approximately 16 per cent of the tonnage so represented was used in the manufacture of ready-mix concrete and concrete culvert pipe sold and delivered by Van Der Vaart or J.P.R. to purchasers using it in the repair of highways, roads and city streets.

The District Court recognized that the public streets, roads and highways involved are instrumentalities of interstate commerce4 but concluded that Crystal’s “off-the-road” employees were producing “essentially ‘local materials’ ” which “lost their identity as stone products processed by Crystal” before being “poured over into the stream of interstate commerce when Van Der Vaart and J.P.R. sold them as ingredients of ready-mix concrete and precast concrete products.” The court noted that “the ultimate purchasers for use of the ready-mix concrete * * * were too far removed” from Crystal; that “Crystal had neither knowledge nor control of the ultimate use to which the stone products it furnished J.P.R. and Van Der Vaart would be put”; that neither of these purchasers was obligated to buy all of its sand and stone requirements from Crystal (although in fact they did so), and that “for all Crystal knew” they might have sold their whole output for “uses other than the maintenance of instrumentalities of interstate commerce.” Crystal’s sales of gravel chips to the Highway Commission, the court concluded, “were sporadic and occasional and could not be relied on by' Crystal” and that such sales of a byproduct did not bring Crystal within the coverage of the Act.

With respect to Wolf’s truck drivers, the court concluded that the trucking activities from Crystal’s premises to the plants of Van Der Vaart and J.P.R. were “incidental to Crystal’s operation” and likewise were “well removed from the stream of interstate commercial activity.” With respect to the deliveries made by Wolf’s truck drivers to job-sites at which Wolf’s other employees were working the court concluded that it did not appear that the deliveries of materials were “specifically” to the jobs involving maintenance of instrumentalities of interstate commerce.

In our considered judgment the conclusion of the District Court that [458]*458Crystal’s direct sales of chips did not bring those of its employees engaged in the excavation and processing of the “pit-run” and handling of the resulting products within the coverage of the Act is clearly erroneous. We find no support in the record for a finding or conclusion that such sales were sporadic or isolated occasional exceptions. They occurred regularly in each of the years involved during several months and represented substantial quantities. That the chips were by-products is not of import. Mitchell v. Jaffe, 5 Cir., 261 F.2d 883; Tilbury v. Mitchell, 5 Cir., 220 F.2d 757 (affirming and adopting the reasoning of the District Court in 123 F.Supp. 109); Walling v. Peoples Packing Co., 10 Cir., 132 F.2d 236. That these purchases accounted for only approximately 3 per cent of Crystal’s tonnage and about 2.5 per cent of its receipts is likewise of no material significance. Congress “has made no distinction as to the volume or amount of shipments in the commerce or of production for commerce by any particular shipper or producer. It recognized that in present day industry, competition by a small part may affect the whole and that the total effect of the competition of many small producers may be great”. United States v. Darby, 312 U.S. 100, 123, 61 S.Ct. 451, 461, 85 L.Ed. 609. The rationale of Darby was reiterated in Mabee v.

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327 F.2d 455, 48 Lab. Cas. (CCH) 31,528, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/wirtz-v-crystal-lake-crushed-stone-co-ca7-1964.