Questions are frequently asked as to whether the fact that an
employee crosses State lines in connection with his employment brings
him within the Act's coverage as an employee ``engaged in commerce.''
Typical of the employments in which such questions arise are those of
traveling service men, traveling buyers, traveling construction crews,
collectors, and employees of such organizations as circuses, carnivals,
road shows, and orchestras. The area of coverage in such situations
cannot be delimited by any exact formula, since questions of degree are
necessarily involved. If the employee transports material or equipment
or other persons across State lines or within a particular State as a
part of an interstate movement, it is clear of course, that he is
engaging in commerce.47 And as a general rule, employees who
are regularly engaged in traveling across State lines in the performance
of their duties (as distinguished from merely going to and from their
homes or lodgings in commuting to a work place) are engaged in commerce
and covered by the Act.48 On the other hand, it is equally
plain that an employee who, in isolated or sporadic instances, happens
to cross a State line in the course of his employment, which is
otherwise intrastate in character, is not, for that sole reason, covered
by the Act. Nor would a man who occasionally moves to another State in
order to pursue an essentially local trade or occupation there become an
employee ``engaged in commerce'' by virtue of that fact alone. Doubtful
questions arising in the area between the two extremes must be resolved
on the basis of the facts in each individual case.
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47 The employee may, however, be exempt from the overtime
provisions of the Act under section 13(b)(1). See part 792 of this
chapter.
48 Reck v. Zarmocay, 264 App. Div. 520, 36 N.Y.S. 2d 394;
Colbeck v. Dairyland Creamery Co., 17 N.W. 2d 262 (S. Ct. S.D.).
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