27 Puerto Rican Migrant FW v. SHADE TOBACCO GAA, I.

• Decision Date: 10 January 1973
• Docket Number: Civ. A. No. 15243.
• Citation: 352 F. Supp. 986
• Parties: 27 PUERTO RICAN MIGRANT FARM WORKERS v. SHADE TOBACCO GROWERS AGRICULTURAL ASSOCIATION, INC., & General Cigar Company.
• Court: U.S. District Court — District of Connecticut

352 F. Supp. 986

27 PUERTO RICAN MIGRANT FARM WORKERS v. SHADE TOBACCO GROWERS AGRICULTURAL ASSOCIATION, INC., & General Cigar Company.

Civ. A. No. 15243.

United States District Court, D. Connecticut.

January 10, 1973.

David M. Sheehan, Farmworkers Div., Neighborhood Legal Services, Inc., Springfield, Mass., Kevin Carey, Migrant Legal Action Program, Inc., Washington, D. C., James W. Zion, Neighborhood Legal Services, Inc., Hartford, Conn., for plaintiffs.

Aaron Nassau, Elsner & Nassau, Hartford, Conn., for defendants.

RULING ON MOTION TO DISMISS

CLARIE, District Judge.

The plaintiffs are 27 Puerto Rican migrant workers who allege a violation of the employment contract under which they labored in the tobacco fields of the Connecticut Valley this past summer. They are citizens of the Commonwealth of Puerto Rico. The defendants are the Shade Tobacco Growers Agricultural Association, a non-profit corporation organized under the laws of the State of Connecticut, whose membership consists of Connecticut and Massachusetts tobacco growers; and the General Cigar Corporation, a member of that Association.¹

The events giving rise to the cause of action allegedly transpired during the 1972 tobacco growing and harvesting season which ended this past fall. Although the work season began in the early spring, this action was not commenced until August 10, 1972. At the present time, the plaintiffs are no longer employed by the Association's grower members, the season having ended and they, presumably, having returned to Puerto Rico.

Jurisdiction is alleged under 28 U.S.C. § 1331, relating to cases "arising under" the laws of the United States; under 28 U.S.C. § 1332, by virtue of diversity of citizenship; under the Wagner-Peyser Act of 1933, 29 U.S.C. § 49 et seq., and 28 U.S.C. § 1337; and under the Civil Rights Act, 42 U.S.C. § 1983 and 28 U. S.C. § 1343(3) and (4). The defendants have moved pursuant to Rule 12 of the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure to dismiss the complaint for lack of subject matter jurisdiction. The Court, having reviewed the various memoranda, affidavits, and exhibits filed in connection herewith, and having heard counsels' extensive oral arguments, grants the defendants' motion to dismiss.

The Facts

The defendant Shade Tobacco Growers Agricultural Association (hereafter, the Association) recruits farm workers for its grower members who, in turn, operate farm labor camps at which workers are housed and fed during the tobacco growing and harvesting season. The plaintiffs were recruited by the Association from the Commonwealth of Puerto Rico through the interstate labor recruitment system established pursuant to the Wagner-Peyser Act of 1933, 29 U.S.C. § 49 et seq. Under that system, the United States Employment Service of the Department of Labor provides supervision and assistance to federally-funded state counterparts which, in turn, must conform to federal standards. A potential employer seeking farm laborers first files with the State Labor Department a request for the desired number of employees. If the attempt to secure such employees from the local labor market is unsuccessful, a clearance order is routed through the United States Employment Service to state labor departments in those areas having an excess of farm labor. The clearance order, prepared by the Employment Security Agency of the state in which labor is in demand, sets forth the terms and conditions of employment offered by the party seeking to recruit labor.

The Commonwealth of Puerto Rico is an area in which there is generally an excess of farm labor. Consequently, clearance orders for such help are routinely transmitted to the Department of Labor of Puerto Rico. However, by virtue of Law No. 87 (June 22, 1962), Laws of the Commonwealth of Puerto Rico, prospective employers desiring to recruit Puerto Rican farm workers must, as a precondition to such recruitment, formalize a written agreement, containing certain guarantees designed to protect Puerto Rican workers from exploitation. Before a clearance order is processed and workers are permitted to be sent from Puerto Rico, the agreement required by Law No. 87 must be approved by the Secretary of Labor of that Commonwealth.

The present controversy focuses upon one paragraph of said agreement which was entered into between the defendant Association and the Secretary of Labor of Puerto Rico.² Article 6C thereof provides:

"The Association and/or the Grower shall provide to the worker three (3) adequate hot meals per day at cost but not to exceed Two Dollars and thirty-three cents ($2.33) tax included. The worker agrees to pay such amount weekly."

The plaintiffs assert that the defendants breached this provision of the agreement, in that they have not provided the three adequate hot meals per day. The noon-time luncheon meal, which usually is consumed by the workers on the job while in the fields, consists of cold meat sandwiches, with hot soup being made available only to those workers who have supplied themselves with thermos bottles at their own expense.

Plaintiffs' counsel represent that the issue is much more fundamental than even they had initially appraised it. Puerto Ricans, they submit, are "little people" whose native culture has accustomed them to large, hot noon-time meals and whose physical stature is such that their health and well-being will not withstand the rigors of strenuous manual labor unless such hot meals are provided. Despite the defendants' representations that it was not until very recently that such a provision has been included within such contracts, the plaintiffs contend that it is "unthinkable" for a Puerto Rican to engage in strenuous physical labor without a hot noon-time meal.³ Moreover, in their verified complaint, the plaintiffs have alleged that the food provided was nutritionally inadequate and that the defendants never intended to comply with the aforesaid provision of the agreement.⁴

Alleging irreparable harm, the plaintiffs seek certification for a class action, which might include as many as 1200 plaintiffs, and request the following relief: (1) a preliminary and permanent injunction restraining the defendants from violating Article 6C of the agreement; (2) compensatory damages; (3) an order directing the defendants to reimburse all monies charged for food under the agreement in excess of cost and; (4) punitive damages in the amount of $25 for each plaintiff and every member of the class they represent.

The Law

The court is not unmindful of the peculiar needs and problems with which migrant farm workers are faced. However, viewed individually, and in proper perspective, the claim of each individual plaintiff⁵ falls well below the jurisdictional amount requirement of 28 U.S.C. §§ 1331 and 1332. Those sections require that the matter in controversy exceed "the sum or value of $10,000 exclusive of interests and costs. Moreover, such claims may not be aggregated in order to meet the jurisdictional amount requirement.

The circumstances under which claims may be aggregated are set forth in Snyder v. Harris, 394 U.S. 332, 89 S.Ct. 1053, 22 L.Ed.2d 319 (1969). There the issue presented was whether, in view of the 1966 amendment to Rule 23 of the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure, separate and distinct claims asserted by various claimants in a class action should be added together to meet the required jurisdictional amount. In reaffirming the traditional interpretation of the statutory phrase "amount in controversy," the Court held aggregation to be impermissible except:

"(1) in cases in which a single plaintiff seeks to aggregate two or more of his own claims against a single defendant and (2) in cases in which two or more plaintiffs unite to enforce a single title or right in which they have a common and undivided interest." 394 U.S. at 335, 89 S.Ct. at 1056.

The first criterion set forth in Snyder is clearly inapplicable in the present case, and the Court is not persuaded by the plantiffs' argument that they have united to enforce a single right or title in which they have a common or undivided interest. The fact that the rights of each plaintiff are embodied in a single instrument giving similar rights to all plaintiffs, and the fact that each plaintiff has a common concern in compliance with the terms of the agreement, does not make common and undivided those rights which are otherwise several and distinct.⁶ The essence of the plaintiffs' argument is that they are asserting a single right to a fund consisting of the aggregate amount by which all members of the plaintiff class were allegedly overcharged by the defendants for the food they received. Accordingly, they submit that it is the amount of the entire fund that determines the amount in controversy.

The Court is not persuaded by this argument and finds the plaintiffs' reliance on Berman v. Narragansett Racing Association, 414 F.2d 311 (1st Cir. 1969), cert. denied, 396 U.S. 1037, 90 S.Ct. 682, 24 L.Ed.2d 681 (1970), to be misplaced. In that case, the plaintiff class consisted of race horse owners who were entitled to a percentage of the profits earned by the defendants' racetracks. In examining the agreements under which the monies were claimed, the Court focused upon the nature of the right asserted and stated that, "under the annual agreements, the tracts promised that to such of the owners as become winners, they will pay as a group 44.7% of its share of the money wagered." 414 F.2d at 315, n. 10 (emphasis original). It was in this context that the Court held, "it is the amount of the entire fund, and not what each pursewinner's individual share will eventually be, that determines the amount in controversy . . . ." 414 F.2d at 315. In light of Snyder v. Harris, supra, Berman cannot be read as holding that the existence of a fund determines the nature of the right asserted, for such a reading would permit what Snyder has prohibited. Rather, the right asserted in Berman...