Borden Co. v. Borella

In Borden Co. v. Borella, 325 U.S. 679 (1945), the Fair Labor Standards Act was invoked on behalf of maintenance employees of a building owned by an interstate producer and predominantly occupied for its offices. Recognizing that the question in every case is "whether the particular situation is within the regulated area," we concluded that the employees of the buildings in the Kirschbaum case (Kirschbaum Co. v. Walling, 316 U.S. 517 (1942)) "had such a close and immediate tie with the process of production" carried on by the lessees as to come within the Act. The Borden case involved Borden employees who, if they had been under the same roof where the physical handling of the goods took place, could hardly, without drawing gossamer and not merely nice lines, be deemed not to be engaged in an "occupation necessary to the production of goods" as described by 3 (j) of the Fair Labor Standards Act of 1938. To differentiate, in the incidence of the Fair Labor Standards Act, between maintenance employees who worked in the building where the business of the manufacture of milk products goes on and employees pursuing the same occupation for the Borden enterprise in an office separate from the manufacturing building, is to make too much turn on the accident of the division of the whole industrial process.