Aimable v. Long and Scott Farms

• Decision Date: 10 May 1994
• Docket Number: No. 92-2749,92-2749
• Citation: 20 F.3d 434
• Parties: 128 Lab.Cas. P 33,086, 2 Wage & Hour Cas. 2d (BNA) 49 Vergnaud AIMABLE; Alain Alcin; Gerta Alcin; Orasis Alcindor; Joseph Miguel Alcius, et al., Plaintiffs-Appellants, v. LONG AND SCOTT FARMS; John Miller, Jr., Defendants-Appellees. Leclerc DENEUS; Charlonet Gue; Alphonse Amilcar; Marie Andre; Rosette Charles; Donald Ernest; Wilfride Jean Eugene, et al., Plaintiffs-Appellants, v. LONG AND SCOTT FARMS; John Miller, Jr., Defendants-Appellees.
• Court: U.S. Court of Appeals — Eleventh Circuit

Page 434

20 F.3d 434

128 Lab.Cas. P 33,086, 2 Wage & Hour Cas. 2d

(BNA) 49

Vergnaud AIMABLE; Alain Alcin; Gerta Alcin; Orasis

Alcindor; Joseph Miguel Alcius, et al., Plaintiffs-Appellants, v. LONG AND SCOTT FARMS; John Miller, Jr., Defendants-Appellees.

Leclerc DENEUS; Charlonet Gue; Alphonse Amilcar; Marie

Andre; Rosette Charles; Donald Ernest; Wilfride

Jean Eugene, et al., Plaintiffs-Appellants, v. LONG AND SCOTT FARMS; John Miller, Jr., Defendants-Appellees.

No. 92-2749.

United States Court of Appeals Eleventh Circuit.

May 10, 1994.

Gregory S. Schell, FL Rural Legal Services, Inc., Lake Worth, FL, Michael Guare, FL Rural Legal Services, Inc., Lakeland, FL, for plaintiffs-appellants.

Daniel D. McMillan, Jones, Day, Reavis & Pogue, Los Angeles, CA, Timothy B. Dyk, Jones, Day, Reavis & Pogue, Washington, DC, for Vergnaud Amiable, et al.

David Richard Kresser, Charles Kelso, Fisher & Phillips, Atlanta, GA, for defendants-appellees.

Mark S. Ross, McKenna & Cuneo, San Francisco, CA, for amicus curiae Cong. George Miller.

Appeals from the United States District Court for the Middle District of Florida.

Before TJOFLAT, Chief Judge, BIRCH, Circuit Judge, and HENDERSON, Senior Circuit Judge.

TJOFLAT, Chief Judge:

In this case, we must decide whether a farm, which contracted with a farm labor contractor to provide laborers to harvest its crops, was the "joint employer" of those laborers for purposes of the Fair Labor Standards Act, 29 U.S.C. Secs. 201-19 (1988), and the Migrant and Seasonal Agricultural Worker Protection Act, 29 U.S.C. Secs. 1801-72 (1988 & Supp.1993). On cross-motions for summary judgment, the district court held that the farm was not the laborers' joint employer and entered judgment for the farm; the laborers appealed. We affirm.

I

Appellants (plaintiffs in two consolidated cases in the district court) are 206 migrant and seasonal farm workers. ¹ At various times between 1985 and 1989, each alleges to have been employed by John Miller, Jr., ² to harvest crops grown by appellee Long & Scott Farms, Inc. ("Long & Scott"), the owner and operator of a 1,200-acre vegetable farm in Florida. Frank Scott, the owner of a one-half share in Long & Scott, managed the day-to-day operations of the farm.

John Miller is a farm labor contractor with whom Long & Scott dealt for twenty-five years. As a farm labor contractor, Miller agrees to provide workers to harvest farmers' labor-intensive crops. Miller then recruits the required number of laborers (sometimes from out-of-state locations; at other times from migrant camps, small towns, or other farms in Florida); he also provides many of the laborers with housing at his labor camp and/or transportation to the work sites.

During Long & Scott's relationship with Miller, Long & Scott used no other contractor to supply laborers for its corn, cabbage, and cucumber crops. Miller, on the other hand, provided laborers to other farms, but only when that work would not interfere with his obligations to Long & Scott. During the period in question (1985-89), Long & Scott provided Miller with his largest single source of revenue. Nonetheless, because of Miller's other contracts, Long & Scott accounted for less than half of Miller's total revenue. Long & Scott paid Miller a flat rate, determined at the beginning of the produce season, for each quantity of produce picked. Similarly, Miller compensated most of his employees on a piece-rate basis.

Appellants filed these two suits against Miller and Long & Scott under the Fair Labor Standards Act ("FLSA") and the Migrant and Seasonal Agricultural Worker Protection Act ("MSAWPA"). ³ After extended discovery, appellants and defendant Long & Scott filed cross-motions for summary judgment in both cases. The district court granted appellants' motions in part, holding that Miller was appellants' employer for purposes of FLSA and MSAWPA. ⁴ The district court, however, found that Long & Scott was not appellants' joint employer; thus, the district court denied appellants' motions for summary judgment to the extent they related to Long & Scott. Concurrently, the district court granted Long & Scott's cross-motions for summary judgment and subsequently entered final judgments in both cases in favor of Long & Scott. It is from these judgments that appellants appeal. ⁵

II

In 1983, Congress enacted the Migrant and Seasonal Agricultural Worker Protection Act "to remove the restraints on commerce caused by activities detrimental to migrant and seasonal agricultural workers ... and to assure necessary protections for migrant and seasonal agricultural workers...." 29 U.S.C. Sec. 1801. Among its many provisions, MSAWPA required that agricultural employers register with the government, maintain certain employment records for migrant and seasonal agricultural workers, and comply with sundry housing, transportation, and compensation provisions. See 29 U.S.C. Secs. 1811-44. If an employer fails to adhere to any of the provisions in MSAWPA (as well as to any of the regulations promulgated pursuant to it), MSAWPA creates a private right of action in federal court on behalf of all aggrieved persons; MSAWPA further empowers district courts to impose actual damages or statutory damages of $500 per plaintiff per violation. 29 U.S.C. Secs. 1854(a) & (c).

Under MSAWPA, 29 U.S.C. Sec. 1802(5), "employ" is defined by reference to FLSA: " 'Employ' includes to suffer or permit to work." 29 U.S.C. Sec. 203(g). See also 29 C.F.R. Sec. 500.20(h)(1) (1992) (same definition). The MSAWPA concept of "employ" also "includes the joint employment principles applicable under the Fair Labor Standards Act." 29 C.F.R. Sec. 500.20(h)(4). The regulations promulgated under MSAWPA define "joint employment" as follows:

The term joint employment means a condition in which a single individual stands in the relation of an employee to two or more persons at the same time. A determination of whether the employment is to be considered joint employment depends upon all the facts in the particular case.

29 C.F.R. Sec. 500.20(h)(4)(i). The regulations also provide the Secretary of Labor (and thus, implicitly, the courts) with a means of determining whether joint employment is present:

Questions will often arise under the Act as to whether individuals employed by a farm labor contractor are also jointly employed by another person engaged in agriculture (including any person defined in the Act as an agricultural employer or an agricultural association). Such joint employment relationships are common in agriculture and have often been addressed by the Federal courts. See Hodgson v. Okada, 472 F.2d 965 [ (10th Cir.1973) ], Hodgson v. Griffin and Brand, 471 F.2d 235 [ (5th Cir.1973) ], Mitchell v. Hertzke, 234 F.2d 183 [ (10th Cir.1956) ], United States v. Rosenwasser, 323 U.S. 360, [65 S.Ct. 295, 89 L.Ed. 301 (1945) ], Rutherford Food Corporation v. McComb, 331 U.S. 722, 67 S.Ct. 1473 [91 L.Ed. 1772 (1947) ], Real v. Driscoll Strawberry Associates, Inc., 603 F.2d 748 [ (9th Cir.1979) ], Mednick v. Albert Enterprises, Inc., 508 F.2d 297 [ (5th Cir.1975) ], and Usery v. Pilgrim Equipment Company, Inc., 527 F.2d 1308 [ (5th Cir.1976) ]. In determining whether such a joint employment relation exists the courts have cited the broad definition of employ in the Fair Labor Standards Act which includes to suffer or permit to work. The factors considered significant by the courts in these cases and to be used as guidance by the Secretary, include, but are not limited to, the following:

(A) The nature and degree of control of the workers;

(B) The degree of supervision, direct or indirect, of the work;

(C) The power to determine the pay rates or the methods of payment of the workers;

(D) The right, directly or indirectly, to hire, fire, or modify the employment conditions of the workers;

(E) Preparation of payroll and the payment of wages.

29 C.F.R. Sec. 500.20(h)(4)(ii). ⁶

Based on the findings of the district court, to which Miller acceded, it is undisputed that Miller was appellants' employer. As such, Miller was required to fulfill each of the statutory requirements imposed upon employers. MSAWPA simultaneously imposes obligations not only upon direct employers (such as Miller), however, but also upon a broad class of potentially liable persons, including "agricultural employers." ⁷ See, e.g., 29 U.S.C. Secs. 1821(a) & (d) (information and recordkeeping requirements), 1831(c) (recordkeeping), 1822(a) (payment of wages), 1832(a) (payment of wages), and 1841(b)(1) (transportation requirements). Thus, if appellants demonstrate that, through the principle of "joint employment," Long & Scott was their "agricultural employer," Long & Scott would have been obligated along with Miller to fulfill each of the requirements of MSAWPA and FLSA. Therefore, the issue before us, as before the district court, is whether Long & Scott was appellants' joint employer.

III

A

To determine whether an employer/employee relationship exists for purposes of federal welfare legislation, we look not to the common law definitions of those terms (for instance, to tests measuring the amount of control an ostensible employer exercised over a putative employee), but rather to the "economic reality" of all the circumstances concerning whether the putative employee is economically dependent upon the alleged employer. See, e.g., Rutherford Food Corp. v. McComb, 331 U.S. 722, 730, 67 S.Ct. 1473, 1477, 91 L.Ed. 1772 (1947) (construing distinction between employee and independent contractor status under FLSA); Patel v. Wargo, 803 F.2d 632, 635 (11th Cir.1986) (analyzing joint employment under FLSA); Hodgson v. Griffin & Brand of McAllen, Inc., 471 F.2d 235, 237-38 (5th Cir.1973) (same). ⁸

Appellants posit a list of eleven factors to be considered as probative of economic dependency. Five are specifically outlined in the MSAWPA regulations ("the five regulatory factors"): (1) the nature and degree of control of the...