Bay Ridge Operating Co., Inc. v. Aaron et al. (334 U.S. 446)
U.S. Supreme Court · decided June 7, 1948 · Supreme Court Database (Spaeth)
- Citation
- 334 U.S. 446 · 68 S. Ct. 1186
- Docket
- No. 366
- Argued
- January 12, 1948
- Decided
- June 7, 1948
- Term
- October Term 1947
- Vote
- 5–3
- Majority author
- Justice Reed
- Issue area
- Unions
- Disposition
- Affirmed
- Outcome
- Petitioning party lost
- Ideological direction
- Liberal
How the Justices voted
- Majority
- Chief Justice Vinson, Justice Reed (wrote), Justice Black, Justice Rutledge, Justice Murphy
- Dissenting
- Justice Burton, Justice R. H. Jackson, Justice Frankfurter (wrote)
Opinion excerpt
Mr. Justice Reed delivered the opinion of the Court. These cases present another aspect of the perplexing problem of what constitutes the regular rate of pay which the Fair Labor Standards Act requires to be used in computing the proper payment for work in excess of forty hours. The applicable provisions read as follows: “Sec. 7. (a) No employer shall, except as otherwise provided in this section, employ any of his employees who is engaged in commerce or in the production of goods for commerce— (3) for a workweek longer than forty hours after the expiration of the second year from such date, unless such employee receives compensation for his employment in excess of the hours above specified at a rate not less than one and one-half times the regular rate at which he is employed.” The problem posed is the method of computing the regular rate of pay for longshoremen who work in foreign and interstate commérce varying and irregular hours throughout the workweek under a collective bargaining agreement for handling cargo which provides contract straight time hourly rates for work done within a prescribed 44-hour time schedule and contract overtime rates for all work done outside the straight time hours. These two suits were brought as class actions on behalf of all longshoremen employed by two stevedoring companies, Bay Ridge Operating Co., and Huron Stevedoring Corp., to recover…
Excerpt of a 92,895-character opinion. The full text and citation network load in the interactive viewer above.