Bresgal v. Brock

• Decision Date: 18 November 1987
• Docket Number: 86-4072,Nos. 86-3996,s. 86-3996
• Citation: 833 F.2d 763
• Parties: Michael G. BRESGAL; Scott Landfield; Karl Gaines; Thomas A. Wilson; Northwest Forest Workers Association; Plaintiffs-Appellees, Cross-Appellants, Agustin Villegas; Rene Guerrero; Jesus Ponce, Plaintiffs-Intervenors, Appellees Cross-Appellants, v. William E. BROCK, Secretary of Labor, Defendant-Appellant, Cross-Appellees.
• Court: U.S. Court of Appeals — Ninth Circuit

Page 763

833 F.2d 763

56 USLW 2309

Michael G. BRESGAL; Scott Landfield; Karl Gaines; Thomas A. Wilson; Northwest Forest Workers Association Plaintiffs-Appellees, Cross-Appellants Agustin Villegas; Rene Guerrero; Jesus Ponce Plaintiffs-Intervenors, Appellees Cross-Appellants, v. William E. BROCK, Secretary of Labor, Defendant-Appellant Cross-Appellees.

Nos. 86-3996, 86-4072.

United States Court of Appeals, Ninth Circuit.

Argued and Submitted June 3, 1987.

Decided Nov. 18, 1987.

Richard K. Willard, Charles H. Turner, Leonard Schaitman, and John S. Koppel, Washington, D.C., for appellant/cross-appellee.

D. Michael Dale, Portland, Oregon, and Mary Lewis, Woodburn, Or., for appellees/cross-appellants.

Appeal from the United States District Court for the District of Oregon.

Before J. BLAINE ANDERSON, FARRIS and BRUNETTI, Circuit Judges.

FARRIS, Circuit Judge:

The plaintiffs are the Northwest Forest Workers Association and individual migrant agricultural workers who have worked in forestry on a seasonal basis.

In the forestry business, as in more conventional agricultural industries, independent labor contractors often act as middlemen, hiring and transporting migrant workers for seasonal labor on land owned by others. Testimony before Congress indicated that the unscrupulous practices of independent labor contractors have injured owners and laborers alike:

It is unfortunately an all too common experience for workers to be abused by farm labor contractors. Testimony revealed that in many cases the contractor: exaggerates conditions of employment when he recruits workers in their home base, or that he fails to inform them of their working conditions at all; transports Evidence has also emerged of contractor exploitation of farmers.

them in unsafe vehicles; fails to furnish promised housing, or else furnishes substandard and unsanitary housing; operates a company store while making unitemized deductions from workers' paychecks for purchases, and pays the workers in cash without records of units worked or taxes withheld.

S.Rep. No. 1295, 93rd Cong., 2d Sess. (1974) reprinted in 1974 U.S.Code Cong. & Ad.News 6441, 6442. The Farm Labor Contractor Registration Act of 1963, 7 U.S.C. Sec. 2041 et seq., was enacted to prevent abuses by labor contractors. The original legislation proved ineffective, and in 1974 Congress broadened its coverage and strengthened its enforcement mechanisms. The Act (1) provides for registration of farm labor contractors with the Department of Labor, (2) requires disclosure to workers of conditions of employment, and (3) imposes standards for the payment of wages, health and safety in housing, and safety for vehicles in which workers are transported. In 1983 the Act was rewritten again, and was renamed the Migrant and Seasonal Agricultural Workers Protection Act, 29 U.S.C. Sec. 1801 et seq. The provision at issue was added in 1974, and was unchanged in 1983.

The Secretary of Labor has taken the position that the Act does not apply to commercial forestry workers. The plaintiffs sought a declaratory judgment that the Act applies to forestry workers and an injunction requiring the Secretary of Labor to enforce it in the industry. The district court granted the requested relief, 637 F.Supp. 271.

DISCUSSION

I. Does the Migrant and Seasonal Agricultural Worker Protection Act apply to migrant and seasonal commercial forestry workers?

The Act originally adopted by reference the definition of "agriculture" contained in the Fair Labor Standards Act, and the definition of "agricultural labor" in the Internal Revenue Code. The Department of Labor interpreted the language of the Fair Labor Standards Act, 29 U.S.C. Sec. 203(f), to exclude forestry and lumbering operations from the rubric of "agriculture." That interpretation is codified in the Department's regulations. 29 C.F.R. 780.115. In the Department's view, "agriculture" is limited to work performed by a farmer or on a farm as an incident to or in conjunction with farming operations. 29 C.F.R. 780.200 (1986). The Internal Revenue Service has interpreted the Code definition, 26 U.S.C. Sec. 3121(g), similarly. See 26 C.F.R. 31.3121(g)-1(a) (1987).

When the Farm Labor Contractor Registration Act was rewritten in 1974, the definition of "agricultural employment" was supplemented. Section 1802(3) was amended to read:

The term 'agricultural employment' means employment in any service or activity included within the provisions of section 3(f) of the Fair Labor Standards Act of 1938 (29 U.S.C. 203(f)), or section 3121(g) of Title 26, and the handling, planting, drying, packing, packaging, processing, freezing, or grading prior to delivery for storage of any agricultural or horticultural commodity in its unmanufactured state.

29 U.S.C. Sec. 1802(3) (emphasis added). This definition was retained when the Act was rewritten and renamed in 1983. The question is whether the language added in 1974 broadens the coverage of the Act to include forestry work. The parties agree that the Act did not cover forestry work prior to the amendments.

In construing a statute in a case of first impression, the court looks first to the language of the statute itself, then to its legislative history, and then to the interpretation given to it by its administering agency. Brock v. Writers Guild of America West, Inc., 762 F.2d 1349, 1353 (9th Cir.1985). At all times, however, the goal is to determine congressional intent. "The court's objective is to ascertain the intent of Congress and to give effect to legislative will." Moorhead v. United States, 774 F.2d 936, 940 (9th Cir.1985).

The Text of the Statute

At issue is the phrase "agricultural commodity." We focus on the definition of the word "agriculture." A fundamental canon of statutory construction is that, unless otherwise defined, words will be interpreted as taking their ordinary, contemporary, common meaning. Perrin v. United States, 444 U.S. 37, 42, 100 S.Ct. 311, 314, 62 L.Ed.2d 199 (1979); Powell v. Tucson Air Museum Foundation of Pima County, 771 F.2d 1309, 1311 (9th Cir.1985). At the same time, "it is the duty of the court to give significance to every word, phrase, sentence, and part of an act in pursuance of the legislative purpose, and to give effect to the statute as a whole, and not render it partially or entirely void." Matter of Borba, 736 F.2d 1317, 1320 (9th Cir.1984); Watt v. Alaska, 451 U.S. 259, 266, 101 S.Ct. 1673, 1678, 68 L.Ed.2d 80 (1981). It is necessary to look to the purpose and intent of a statute when deciding what its terms mean. Commissioner of Internal Revenue v. Engle, 464 U.S. 206, 217, 104 S.Ct. 597, 604, 78 L.Ed.2d 420 (1984); District of Columbia v. Carter, 409 U.S. 418, 420, 93 S.Ct. 602, 604, 34 L.Ed.2d 613 (1973); United States v. Boyden, 696 F.2d 685, 687 (9th Cir.1983); 4A Sands, Statutory Interpretation Sec. 58.06 (1984) ("It is ancient wisdom that statutes should be interpreted so that the manifested purpose or object can be accomplished.").

We recognize that forestry workers are not commonly viewed as agricultural workers. Our examination of the underlying purposes of the Act, however, compels our conclusion that forestry workers who raise trees as a crop for harvest are engaged in "agricultural employment" for purposes of the Act. The committee reports accompanying the Act state clearly that Congress' primary concern was the welfare of migrant laborers, particularly aliens, who are subject to abuse by labor contractors. See S. Rep. No. 1295, 93rd Cong., 2d Sess. (1974), reprinted in 1974 U.S. Code Cong. & Ad. News 6441-45. The purpose of the Act was to regulate labor contractors wherever they operate. The conditions that Congress addressed in the Act, and the persons protected, are the same in the forestry industry as in more conventional agricultural industries. We find no principled reason for isolating forestry from all other agricultural areas in which migrant workers and labor contractors are common. As the district court noted, "[i]t is inconceivable that Congress intended to protect workers planting fruit trees in an orchard, and to disregard workers planting fir trees on a hillside, when both groups suffer from the same clearly identified harm."

The Legislative History

Our interpretation of the Act is supported by the Legislative history. Congress expressly stated its understanding that farm labor contractors in the forestry business are within the Act's coverage:

The Committee has been informed by the Commissioner of the Immigration and Naturalization Service that some government agencies have permitted the employment of illegal aliens as tree planters, thinners and other forest laborers by awarding contracts to forestry contractors who regularly employ aliens who have illegally entered the United States. The provisions of this bill and its penalties are intended to apply to such contractors.

1974 U.S.Code Cong. & Ad.News at 6444. (The House Report, H.Rep. No. 1493, 93rd Cong., 2d Sess. (1974), does not address this issue.) In reviewing this part of the legislative history, the Eleventh Circuit held that "[t]here is little doubt that the 1974 Amendments to FLCRA were intended to apply to forestry contractors who employ 'tree planters, thinners and other forest laborers.' " Davis Forestry Corp. v. Smith, 707 F.2d 1325, 1328 n. 3 (11th Cir.1983) (decided on other grounds).

We need look no further. The Supreme Court has instructed that the first question for the court in interpreting a statute is whether Congress had a specific intent with respect to the issue at hand. Chevron, U.S.A., Inc. v. Natural Resources Defense Council, Inc., 467 U.S. 837, 842-43 The Secretary argues that the reference to forestry in the committee report is a stray statement that never found expression in the language of the amendment to Sec. 1802(3) itself, and is therefore without effect. The amendment expanded the Act's coverage, the Secretary contends, but only in...