Opinion of the Court. 328 U.S. We do not find it necessary to determine whether the liability for unpaid wages and liquidated damages that § 16 (b) creates is unitary or divisible. Whether the liability is single or dual, we think the remedy of liquidated damages cannot be bargained away by bona fide settlements of disputes over coverage. Nor do we need to consider here the possibility of compromises in other situa Act of framing a sweeping generalization that all releases of liquidated damages are either valid or invalid." That brief called attention also (pp. 19-20) to government practice upon violations of the Act by contractors with cost-plus contracts with the War and Navy Departments: "If it is decided by the contracting agency, the Administrator, or on appeal by the Assistant Attorney General, that the employee should prevail, the United States Attorney handling the case is directed to negotiate a tentative settlement with the employee's counsel for submission to the contracting agency for acceptance or rejection. The wages due are of course always paid, but the claim for liquidated damages is the subject of bargaining, and almost invariably the employee's counsel is willing to accept considerably less than the total amount of liquidated damages. After payment of the amount agreed on, a judgment is entered dismissing the suit with prejudice, thereby preventing the employee from seeking to recover more on the same claim." Settlements of controversies under the Act by stipulated judgments in this Court are also referred to by petitioner. North Shore Corp. v. Barnett, 323 U. S. 679. Petitioner draws the inference that bona fide stipulated judgments on alleged Wage-Hour violations for less than the amounts actually due stand in no better position than bona fide settlements. Even though stipulated judgments may be obtained, where settlements are proposed in controversies between employers and employees over violations of the Act, by the simple device of filing suits and entering agreed judgments, we think the requirement of pleading the issues and submitting the judgment to judicial scrutiny may differentiate stipulated judgments from compromises by the parties. At any rate, the suggestion of petitioner is argumentative only as no judgment was entered in this case. "See Dize v. Maddrix, 324 U. S. 697, 701-2, 713. 108 Opinion of the Court. tions which may arise, such as a dispute over the number of hours worked or the regular rate of employment.10 The reasons which lead us to conclude that compromises of real disputes over coverage which do not require the payment in full of unpaid wages and liquidated damages do not differ greatly from those which led us to condemn the waivers of liquidated damages in the O'Neil case. said there, 324 U. S. at 708: We "The same policy which forbids waiver of the statutory minimum as necessary to the free flow of commerce requires that reparations to restore damage done by such failure to pay on time must be made to accomplish Congressional purposes. Moreover, the same policy which forbids employee waiver of the minimum statutory rate because of inequality of bargaining power, prohibits these same employees from bargaining with their employer in determining whether so little damage was suffered that waiver of liquidated damage is called for." In a bona fide adjustment on coverage, there are the same threats to the public purposes of the Wage-Hour Act that exist when the liquidated damages are waived. The damages are at the same time compensatory and an aid to enforcement. It is quite true that the liquidated damage provision acts harshly upon employers whose violations are not deliberate but arise from uncertainties or mistakes as to coverage. Since the possibility of violations inheres in every instance of employment that is covered by the Act, Congress evidently felt it should not provide for variable compensation to fit the degree of blame in each infraction." Instead Congress adopted a mandatory re 10 See Strand v. Garden Valley Telephone Co., 51 F. Supp. 898, 904-5. 11 Brooklyn Savings Bank v. O'Neil, supra, 713; West Coast Hotel Co. v. Parrish, 300 U. S. 379, 397; Adkins v. Children's Hospital, 261 U.S. 525, 563. Opinion of the Court. 328 U.S. quirement that the employer pay a sum in liquidated damages equal to the unpaid wages so as to compensate the injured employee for the retention of his pay.12 It is realized that this conclusion puts the employer and his employees to an "all or nothing gamble," as Judge Chase phrased the result in his dissent below. Theoretically this means each party gets his just deserts, no more, no less. The alternative is to find in the Act an intention of Congress to leave the adjustments to bargaining at the worst between employers and individual employees or at best between employers and the employees' chosen representatives, bargaining agent or some other. We think the purpose of the Act, which we repeat from the O'Neil case was to secure for the lowest paid segment of the Nation's workers a subsistence wage, leads to the conclusion that neither wages nor the damages for withholding them are capable of reduction by compromise of controversies over coverage." 13 Such a compromise thwarts the public policy of minimum wages, promptly paid, embodied in the WageHour Act, by reducing the sum selected by Congress as proper compensation for withholding wages." The only other material question presented by this certiorari 15 is whether the Wage-Hour Act covers service and 12 Overnight Motor Co. v. Missel, 316 U. S. 572, 583-84; Birbalas v. Cuneo Printing Industries, 140 F. 2d 826, 828-29. 13 Discussions of compromise of liability under the Wage-Hour Act will be found in 45 Col. L. Rev. 798; 14 George Washington L. Rev. 385 and 57 Harv. L. Rev. 257. 14 Brooklyn Savings Bank v. O'Neil, supra, 704-5, note 14. 15 The precise language of the question presented is as follows: "Whether building maintenance employees are within the protection of the Act if the facts relied on to establish coverage of the employees show only that some of the tenants in the building receive, work on and return in intrastate commerce goods belonging to local owners who are not tenants of the building and that subsequently some of the said goods are sold and shipped by such non-tenant owners in interstate commerce, there being no proof 108 Opinion of the Court. maintenance employees of a building that is tenanted by occupants who receive, work on and return in intrastate commerce goods belonging to non-occupants who subsequently in the regular course of their business ship substantial proportions of the occupants' products to other states.16 It is agreed by petitioner and respondents that if certain tenants are included as producers for interstate commerce the occupants of the building who are engaged in production for interstate commerce are sufficiently numerous and productive to bring the maintenance em either that at the time of production such tenants had any knowledge of the ultimate destination of the goods worked on by them or that at the time of production the non-tenant owners had any prior orders or agreements to sell and ship any part of the completed goods in interstate commerce." 16 No problem involving the soundness of the Wage-Hour standards to guide its enforcement of the Act is involved. We express no opinion on that question. As a working hypothesis the Wage-Hour Administration assumes that when as much as twenty per cent of a building is occupied by firms substantially engaged in production for commerce, then it is likely that maintenance employees will be covered. Release PR-19 (rev.), Nov. 19, 1943, Wage-Hour Division, U. S. Department of Labor. The Circuit Court of Appeals applied this rule with the result that it decided none of the respondents was covered by the Act prior to January 1, 1940. 150 F. 2d 694, 696-97. It decided that all the respondents were covered by the Act beginning January 1, 1940, because more than twenty per cent of the tenants then were engaged in the production of goods for commerce. No review of the first ruling is sought by respondents. Petitioner did not question the soundness of the twenty per cent standard in its petition for certiorari or brief. As no question is made in petition for certiorari or brief as to the propriety of the action or the power of the Circuit Court of Appeals in determining the kind of activity, state or interstate, that the petitioner's tenants carried on, rather than returning the case to the District Court for a finding of fact, we pass the question without inquiry and without intimation of our understanding of the proper procedure. Compare the majority and dissenting opinions in 150 F. 2d 694. Opinion of the Court. 328 U.S. ployees of the building within the coverage of the Act. Gangi v. D. A. Schulte, 150 F. 2d 694, note 5. That is, petitioner's building then would be in the same classification, so far as the coverage of its maintenance employees by the Wage-Hour Act is concerned, as were the buildings in Kirschbaum Co. v. Walling, 316 U. S. 517, and Borden Co. v. Borella, 325 U. S. 679. We then would have no problem as to the business of the tenants, that is, whether they were producers for interstate commerce, such as was involved in 10 East 40th Street Co. v. Callus, 325 U. S. 578. While the Wage-Hour Act covers employees engaged in the production of goods for commerce, a maintenance employee working for a building corporation which furnishes loft space to tenants can hardly be so engaged unless an adequate proportion of the tenants of that building are so engaged. Kirschbaum Co. v. Walling, 316 U. S. at 524; Walling v. Jacksonville Paper Co., 317 U. S. 564, 572. Our inquiry, therefore, is narrowed to a determination of whether or not these certain tenants of petitioner, twelve in number, are producing goods for interstate commerce. These tenants manufactured articles for non-tenant New York City business organizations, which organizations subsequently sold the articles in interstate commerce. The Circuit Court of Appeals held as to them, 150 F. 2d 697: 17 17 Petitioner says as to this finding: "The sole basis in the record for this finding is that the manufacturers for whom the said twelve tenant-contractors worked eventually disposed of some of their goods in interstate commerce. No evidence was offered and no attempt was made to prove that at the time when any of the additional twelve tenants worked on goods belonging to the manufacturers, such manufacturers had an order or an agreement or contract for the shipment of the goods, when completed, in interstate commerce. There was no testimony by any of the twelve tenants that they knew or had reason |