United States Supreme Court Cases & Opinions

U.S. Supreme Court

Walling v. Helmerich & Payne, Inc., 323 U.S. 37 (1944)

Walling v. Helmerich & Payne, Inc.

No. 27

Argued October 17, 1944

Decided November 6, 1944

323 U.S. 37

Syllabus

1. Contracts of employment providing for the computation of compensation on the so-called Poxon or split-day plan held not in conformity with requirements of § 7(a) of the Fair Labor Standards Act. Walling v. Belo Corp., 316 U. S. 624, distinguished. P. 323 U. S. 39.

The vice of the split-day plan was that the contract regular rate did not represent the rate which was actually paid for ordinary nonovertime hours, nor did it allow extra compensation to be aid for true overtime hours. It was derived not from the actual hours and wages, but from a mathematical formula designed to perpetuate the pre-statutory wage scale.

2. A suit by the Administrator under the Fair Labor Standards Act to enjoin an employer from use of contracts of employment providing for computation of compensation on the so-called split-day plan held not rendered moot by the employer's voluntary discontinuance of the use of such contracts. P. 323 U. S. 43.

138 F.2d 705, reversed.

Certiorari, 321 U.S. 759, to review the affirmance, as modified, of a judgment which, in a suit by the Administrator, sustained the validity of certain contracts of employment under the Fair Labor Standards Act.