(a) Section 12(a) and section 15(a)(1) of the Fair Labor Standards
Act of 1938 1 (hereinafter referred to as the
Act) contain certain prohibitions against putting into interstate or
foreign commerce any goods ineligible for shipment (commonly called
``hot goods''), in the production of which the child-labor or wage-hour
standards of the Act were not observed. These sections were amended by
the Fair Labor Standards Amendments of 1949 2 to provide,
among other things, protection against these ``hot goods'' prohibitions
with respect to purchasers ``who acquired such goods for value without
notice of such violation'' if they did so ``in good faith in reliance
on'' a specified ``written assurance.''
1 Pub. L. 718, 75th Cong., 3d sess. (52 Stat. 1060), as
amended by the Act of June 26, 1940 (Pub. Res. No. 88, 76th Cong., 3d
sess., 54 Stat. 616); by Reorganization Plan No. 2 (60 Stat. 616); by
Reorganization Plan No. 2 (60 Stat. 1095), effective July 16, 1946; by
the Portal-to-Portal Act of 1947, approved May 14, 1947 (61 Stat. 84);
by the Fair Labor Standards Amendments of 1949, approved October 26,
1949 (Pub. L. 393, 81st Cong., 1st sess., 63 Stat. 910); by
Reorganization Plan No. 6 of 1950 (15 FR 3174), effective May 24, 1950;
and by the Fair Labor Standards Amendments of 1955, approved August 12,
1955 (Pub. L. 381, 84th Cong., 1st sess., C. 867, 69 Stat. 711).
2 Pub. L. 393, 81st Cong., 1st sess. 963 Stat. 910.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
(b) These amendments to the Act relating to purchasers in good faith
and written assurances are for the protection of purchasers. The Act
does not provide that a purchaser must secure such an assurance or that
a supplier must give it. The amendments confer no express authority for
the Department of Labor to require the use of these assurances or to
prescribe their form or content. Whether any particular written
assurance affords the statutory protection to a purchaser who acquires
his goods in good faith and for value without notice of an applicable
violation, is left for determination by the courts. Opinions issued by
the Department of Labor on this question are advisory only and represent
simply the Department's best judgment as to what the courts may hold.
(c) The interpretations contained in this general statement are
confined to the statutory protection accorded these purchasers in
section 12(a) and section 15(a)(1) of the Act. These interpretations,
with respect to this protection of purchasers, indicate the construction
of the law which the Secretary of Labor and the Administrator of the
Wage and Hour Division 3 believe to be correct and which will
guide them in the performance of their administrative duties under the
Act unless and until they are otherwise directed by authoritative
decisions of the courts or conclude, upon re-examination of an
interpretation, that it is incorrect.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
3 The functions of the Secretary and the Administrator
under the Act are delineated in 13 FR 2195, 12 FR 6971, and 15 FR 3290.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
[15 FR 5047, Aug. 5, 1950, as amended at 21 FR 1450, Mar. 6, 1956]
