Williams v. Mohawk Industries, Inc.

• Decision Date: 28 May 2009
• Docket Number: No. 08-13446.,08-13446.
• Citation: 568 F.3d 1350
• Parties: Shirley WILLIAMS, Gale Pelfrey, Bonnie Jones, Lora Sisson, individually and on behalf of a class, Plaintiffs-Appellants, v. MOHAWK INDUSTRIES, INC., Defendant-Appellee.
• Court: U.S. Court of Appeals — Eleventh Circuit

568 F.3d 1350

Shirley WILLIAMS, Gale Pelfrey, Bonnie Jones, Lora Sisson, individually and on behalf of a class, Plaintiffs-Appellants, v. MOHAWK INDUSTRIES, INC., Defendant-Appellee.

No. 08-13446.

United States Court of Appeals, Eleventh Circuit.

May 28, 2009.

Ronan P. Doherty, Joshua F. Thorpe, John E. Floyd, Nicole G. Iannarone, Bondurant, Mixson & Elmore, LLP, Atlanta, GA, Howard W. Foster, Touhy, Touhy, Buehler & Williams, LLP, Chicago, IL, for Plaintiffs-Appellants.

R. Carl Cannon, Constangy, Brooks & Smith, Atlanta, GA, Matthew D. Thames, Goddard, Thames, Hammontree & Bolding, LLC, Dalton, GA, Juan P. Morillo, Steven T. Cottreau, Clifford Chance, US, LLP, Washington, DC, for Defendant-Appellee.

Appeal from the United States District Court for the Northern District of Georgia.

Before BARKETT, PRYOR and FARRIS,^* Circuit Judges.

PRYOR, Circuit Judge:

This appeal concerns whether the district court abused its discretion when it denied a motion to certify a class action for employees of Mohawk Industries who complain that Mohawk engaged in racketeering activity by hiring illegal aliens and depressing the employees' wages. This appeal is the third time that our Court has considered issues in this litigation. Williams v. Mohawk Indus., Inc. (Mohawk I), 411 F.3d 1252 (11th Cir.2005) (per curiam); Williams v. Mohawk Indus., Inc. (Mohawk II), 465 F.3d 1277 (11th Cir. 2006) (per curiam). We conclude that the district court abused its discretion when it denied the employees' motion for class certification. The district court erred when it ruled that the employees' complaint fails to present issues of law or fact common to the class, Fed.R.Civ.P. 23(a)(2), and when it ruled that the claims of the proposed representatives are not typical of the claims of the absent class members, id. (a)(3). Those errors also led the district court to misapply the standard for determining whether the employees may maintain a class action for compensatory relief, id. (b)(3), and a hybrid class for injunctive relief, id. (b)(2). We reverse and remand for further proceedings.

I. BACKGROUND

Our discussion of the background is divided in two parts. First, we discuss the course of the litigation before the employees moved to certify a class action. Second, we discuss the employees' motion for class certification and the denial of that motion by the district court.

A. The Course of the Litigation

On January 6, 2004, current and former employees of Mohawk who worked for hourly wages at various facilities in northern Georgia filed a complaint that Mohawk engaged in a pattern of racketeering activity prohibited by the Racketeer Influence and Corrupt Organizations Act, 18 U.S.C. § 1962(c), by hiring and harboring illegal aliens in violation of the Immigration and Nationality Act, 8 U.S.C. §§ 1324(a)(1)(A)(iii), (a)(1)(A)(iv), (a)(3)(A). The employees alleged that Mohawk formed an enterprise with various temporary employment agencies to hire illegal aliens and depress wages. The employees alleged that they were harmed by the racketeering activity of Mohawk because their wages were depressed. The employees also alleged that Mohawk violated the Georgia statute that prohibits racketeering activity, Ga.Code Ann. § 16-14-4(a), (c), by committing various predicate acts involving fraud and misuse of visas, 18 U.S.C. §§ 1546(a), (b), and that Mohawk was unjustly enriched by its criminal activities under the law of Georgia.

Mohawk moved to dismiss the employees' complaint for failure to state a claim, Fed.R.Civ.P. 12(b)(6). The district court granted the motion as to one claim of unjust enrichment based on the alien workers' hesitation to bring worker's compensation claims, but denied the motion as to all other claims. At the request of Mohawk, the district court certified the order for an interlocutory appeal. We affirmed the decision of the district court that the employees stated claims under the federal and Georgia RICO statutes, but we reversed the decision that the employees stated a separate claim for unjust enrichment about agreed-upon wages. Mohawk I, 411 F.3d at 1266.

Mohawk petitioned the Supreme Court for a writ of certiorari and raised two questions for review: (1) whether a defendant corporation and its agents may constitute an enterprise under RICO; and (2) whether the employees had stated a claim that the alleged practices of Mohawk proximately caused injuries to business property in the form of depressed wages. The Supreme Court granted certiorari as to the first question, but then dismissed the petition as improvidently granted and remanded to our Court for further consideration in the light of Anza v. Ideal Steel Supply Corporation, 547 U.S. 451, 126 S.Ct. 1991, 164 L.Ed.2d 720 (2006). Mohawk Indus., Inc. v. Williams, 547 U.S. 516, 126 S.Ct. 2016, 164 L.Ed.2d 776 (2006). We again concluded that the claims of unjust enrichment failed and that the employees stated claims of racketeering under state and federal statutes, and we remanded to the district court for further proceedings. Mohawk II, 465 F.3d at 1295.

B. The Class Certification Decision

After discovery commenced, the employees moved to certify the following class of lawful employees of Mohawk in North Georgia:

All persons legally authorized to be employed in the United States who are or have been employed in hourly positions by Mohawk Industries, Inc., its subsidiaries or affiliates in Georgia at any time from January 5, 1999 to the present, other than Excluded Employees.

Excluded Employees are employees whose employment at Mohawk has been limited to: Dal-Tile, Unilin, or any Mohawk facility or facilities in Milledgeville, Dublin, Tifton, Norcross, Kennesaw or Atlanta, Georgia.

The employees sought certification of one of their claims under Georgia law, Ga. Code. Ann. § 16-14-4(a), for injunctive relief under Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 23(b)(2), and sought certification of all of their claims under Rule 23(b)(3).

The employees alleged several common questions when they sought certification, including whether "Mohawk conducted or participated, directly or indirectly, in the conduct of an enterprise's affairs," whether "Mohawk engaged in a pattern of racketeering activity," and whether "Mohawk engaged in a pattern of racketeering activity .... [or] a conspiracy to violate § 16-14-4(a) of the Georgia RICO statute." Mohawk argued that its hiring and wage-setting practices were decentralized and differed significantly over time, that there was no evidence of a single enterprise or conspiracy, and that proof of injury was not possible. The employees responded that "Mohawk's decentralization mantra" was irrelevant to the commonality analysis because the employees had alleged common questions for which they would present common proof.

The employees also argued that the claims of the named plaintiffs were typical: "The Named Plaintiffs' claims and the claims of the class members arise out of the same `course of conduct' (the operation and management of an enterprise through which Mohawk hires and harbors illegal workers) and `the same legal theory' (that this unlawful conduct depresses wages)." Mohawk responded that the claims of plaintiffs Jones and Pelfrey were not typical because Jones never worked at a Mohawk location that used temporary labor and Pelfrey was a former employee. The employees responded that Jones's claim was typical because her allegation, like the allegation of the class, was that the illegal hiring by Mohawk depressed all the wages of legal employees, regardless of location.

The employees also argued that the scheme by Mohawk to hire and harbor illegal workers satisfied the requirement that a defendant "has acted ... on grounds that apply generally to the class," Fed.R.Civ.P. 23(b)(2). Mohawk argued against certification under subsection (b)(2) on the ground that the damages sought by the employees were not incidental to their claim for equitable relief. The employees responded that they were seeking certification of a hybrid class for only injunctive relief under subsections (b)(2) and (c)(4), and that class would be separate from the class for which they were seeking monetary damages under subsection (b)(3).

The employees argued that the common issues whether Mohawk conducted the affairs of an enterprise, engaged in a pattern of racketeering activity, and participated in a conspiracy, and whether and to what extent the class suffered injury predominated because those issues would have to be resolved in every class member's individual action. Mohawk argued that hiring and wage-setting differed across the class, there was no evidence of a single enterprise or conspiracy, there was no common method of proving injury or damages, and defenses based on statutes of limitation would require individual determinations. The employees responded that any hiring and wage discretion did not negate the existence of common questions, arguments about the existence of an enterprise and damages were premature arguments about the merits of their complaint, and the employees sought only damages incurred during the limitations period.

The district court denied class certification. The district court determined that the employees satisfied the requirements of numerosity, Fed.R.Civ.P. 23(a)(1), and adequacy of representation, id. (a)(4), but that the employees did not satisfy the requirements of commonality, id. (a)(2), and typicality, id. (a)(3). The district court agreed with Mohawk that the employees had not satisfied the commonality requirement because "[c]ontrary to Plaintiffs' arguments that Defendant engaged in one grand conspiracy to employ illegal workers, the evidence in the record indicates that Defendant's operations, including its use of temporary employment agencies and wage-setting practices, are extremely decentralized." The district court also agreed with Mohawk that neither of the proposed class representatives presented claims typical of...