Flores v. Rios

• Decision Date: 26 September 1994
• Docket Number: No. 93-3670,93-3670
• Citation: 36 F.3d 507
• Parties: 128 Lab.Cas. P 33,143 Jose FLORES, et al., Plaintiffs-Appellants, v. Reyes RIOS and Gibsonburg Canning Company, Defendants-Appellees.
• Court: U.S. Court of Appeals — Sixth Circuit

Page 507

36 F.3d 507

128 Lab.Cas. P 33,143

Jose FLORES, et al., Plaintiffs-Appellants, v. Reyes RIOS and Gibsonburg Canning Company, Defendants-Appellees.

No. 93-3670.

United States Court of Appeals, Sixth Circuit.

Argued May 9, 1994.

Decided Sept. 26, 1994.

Randall C. Marshall (argued and briefed), Mark Heller, Office of Advocates for Basic Legal Equality, Inc., Toledo, OH, for plaintiffs-appellants.

Jodie Lee Stearns (argued and briefed), Mitchell, Stearns & Hammer, Bowling Green, OH, for defendants-appellees.

John J. Rademacher, American Farm Bureau Federation, Park Ridge, IL (briefed), for American Farm Bureau Federation, amicus curiae.

Michael S. Bogren (briefed), Plunkett & Cooney, Kalamazoo, MI, for George Miller, amicus curiae.

Paula W. Coleman, U.S. Dept. of Labor, Office of the Sol., Washington, DC (briefed), for United States Dept. of Labor, amicus curiae.

Before: ENGEL, RYAN, and NORRIS, Circuit Judges.

ENGEL, J., delivered the opinion of the court, in which ALAN E. NORRIS, J., joined. RYAN, J. (pp. 516-17), delivered a separate opinion concurring in the judgment.

ENGEL, Circuit Judge.

This case involves the proper interpretation of 29 U.S.C. Sec. 1803(a)(1), which exempts family farms from regulations generally applied to agricultural employers under the Migrant and Seasonal Agricultural Worker Protection Act ("AWPA"), 29 U.S.C. Secs. 1801 et seq. Defendant Gibsonburg Canning Co. ("GCC") is a tomato farm and cannery operated by John and Jerry Schuett. Defendant Reyes Rios is a farm worker employed by GCC. In 1989, plaintiff Jose Flores asked Rios to call the Schuetts and ask if farm work was available for the Flores family. Through Rios, Jerry Schuett instructed Flores to relocate his family from Santa Rosa, Texas to Gibsonburg, Ohio to harvest tomatoes for GCC. Flores brings this action individually and on behalf of his wife and children, claiming that GCC violated AWPA by failing to compensate them properly, failing to provide adequate housing, and failing to make certain required disclosures. GCC concedes non-compliance, but insists that as a family farm, it is exempt from AWPA regulation.

Immediately prior to their scheduled trial date, Flores and GCC agreed to 28 stipulations of fact. Flores v. Gibsonburg Canning Co., No. 3:89CV7560 (N.D. Ohio Sept. 25, 1992), Joint Stipulations of Fact (hereinafter "Joint Stipulations"). In response to the parties' joint motion for the entry of judgment based upon their stipulated facts, the district court concluded that GCC qualified for AWPA's family business exemption, and consequently dismissed the suit. For the following reasons, we REVERSE the judgment of the district court.

I. Background

AWPA protects migrant workers by establishing safety, compensation, and disclosure requirements with which all agricultural employers and labor contractors must comply. See Bueno v. Mattner, 829 F.2d 1380, 1382 (6th Cir.1987), cert. denied, 486 U.S. 1022, 108 S.Ct. 1994, 100 L.Ed.2d 226 (1988). AWPA also protects farmers by establishing a clear standard of acceptable conduct which minimizes the risk of "haphazard" and "burdensome" litigation. H.R.REP. NO. 885, 97th Cong., 2d Sess. 1 (1982), reprinted in 1982 U.S.C.C.A.N. 4547, 4547. As the legislative history explains, AWPA "[wa]s a consensus bill" enacted "only after extensive negotiation between representatives of the agricultural community, organized labor, migrant groups, the United States Department of Labor, and the committees of jurisdiction in both [houses of Congress]." Id.

Apparently believing that family farms pose little threat of worker exploitation, Congress has exempted such operations, under certain conditions, from AWPA's regulatory scope. 29 U.S.C. Sec. 1803(a)(1). ¹ AWPA's legislative history suggests that the family business exemption should "be construed narrowly in a manner that furthers the remedial purposes of this Act." H.R.REP. NO. 885, at 12, U.S.Code Cong. & Admin.News 1982 at 4558. See Caro-Galvan v. Curtis Richardson, Inc., 993 F.2d 1500, 1505 (11th Cir.1993) ("AWPA is a remedial statute and should be construed broadly to effect its humanitarian purpose."); Martinez v. Shinn, 1991 WL 84473, at * 16 (E.D.Wash.1991), aff'd, 992 F.2d 997 (9th Cir.1993). Courts applying the family business exemption must take great care to avoid exposing workers to any serious threat of abuse.

At the same time, any proper interpretation of section 1803(a)(1) must not frustrate Congress' deliberate exemption of family farms from AWPA regulation. As the legislative history notes, AWPA was a consensus bill, designed at least in part to protect farmers from haphazard and burdensome litigation which does not further the act's remedial purposes. This is not, of course, the first time that Congress has embraced a federal policy designed to benefit the oft-beleaguered family farmer. See 11 U.S.C. Secs. 1201-1231 (providing special bankruptcy protection to family farmers). Because Congress has deliberately chosen to exclude these farmers from AWPA's regulatory scope, we must avoid any interpretation which "obliterate[s]" or "eviscerates" the exemption. Calderon v. Witvoet, 999 F.2d 1101, 1103 (7th Cir.1993).

The text of 1803(a)(1), supra note 1, indicates that the family business exemption applies to family-owned farms as long as all "farm labor contracting activity on behalf of [the] farm" is performed "exclusively" by family members. Thus, a court evaluating a farmer's claim to the family business exemption must conduct a two-step analysis. First, the court must identify the labor contracting activities involved in the farm's operation. Second, the court must ascertain whether these farm labor contracting activities were performed exclusively by members of the farmer's family. The performance of any farm labor contracting activity by a non-family member "spoils" an agricultural employer's claim to the family business exemption. Bueno, 829 F.2d at 1382-83; Calderon, 999 F.2d at 1103-05; Martinez, 1991 WL 84473, at * 16.

To identify GCC's "farm labor contracting activities," and ultimately to determine whether all of these activities were performed exclusively by John and Jerry Schuett, we must first divine from the statute which practices Congress wished to treat as farm labor contracting activities. In 29 U.S.C Sec. 1802(6), we find six relatively distinct contractual endeavors listed as examples of farm labor contracting activity: "recruiting, soliciting, hiring, employing, furnishing, or transporting" of migrant farm workers.

To qualify for AWPA's family business exemption, family members must perform all farm labor contracting activity necessary to operate the farm. Flores identifies three distinct sources of farm labor relied upon by GCC which he considers farm labor contracting activities not performed exclusively by the Schuetts. First, GCC borrowed surplus laborers from neighboring farms. Second, GCC hired workers referred by the Ohio Bureau of Employment Services, a state job placement agency. Third, GCC used its old workers to convey offers of employment to new workers. GCC admits to reliance upon these labor sources, but disputes whether such recruiting techniques constitute farm labor contracting activities performed by non-family members.

II. Borrowing of Workers

In their joint stipulations of fact, both parties agreed that GCC occasionally borrows workers from nearby farms:

Sometimes, when [GCC] [is] in need of additional workers for an unusually busy day, [the Schuetts] will call a neighboring farm and ask the farmer or the farmer's crewleader if they have any people who are not busy that day that can work for [GCC] that particular day, and to make sure that the other farmer does not need the workers that day. If there are workers available, [the Schuetts] will go to the farmer's labor camp and ask the workers to come work for [GCC] for the day.

Joint Stipulation No. 11.

Flores argues that borrowing of workers defeats GCC's family business exemption because these laborers are supplied through a non-family member's contracting activity. Insisting that these workers are only in Ohio--and thus available to be borrowed--as a result of labor contracting activity performed by GCC's neighbors, Flores contends that such preliminary contracting activity should be attributed to GCC when it hires idle workers from nearby farms.

The district court disagreed with Flores, explaining that other farmers may have brought the workers to Ohio, but that the Schuetts brought these workers to GCC:

[Flores] argue[s] that the workers are in Ohio and available for [GCC's] operations through someone else's farm labor activities. The Court disagrees. While someone else's labor contracting activities may indeed have brought the workers to Ohio, there is no nexus between the other person's contracting activity and [GCC's] solicitation of workers. The only farm labor contracting activity with some nexus to [GCC] takes place when the Schuetts personally go to the neighboring labor camp, and there is no basis to support [Flores'] contention that this should remove [GCC] from the family business exemption.

We agree with the district court that the labor contracting activities of other farmers cannot be attributed to GCC merely because GCC occasionally hires idle workers from nearby farms. The text of the family business exemption, 29 U.S.C. Sec. 1803(a)(1), supra note 1, specifically instructs us to examine the labor contracting activities performed "on behalf of" the family-owned farm. The labor contracting activities that brought the borrowed workers to Ohio, however, were not performed "on behalf of" the Schuetts' farm, and therefore cannot affect GCC's eligibility for the family business exemption. When a neighboring farmer spends time and money bringing workers to Ohio, such activities are clearly performed on the recruiting farmer's behalf, not GCC's.

Unlike Flores, we do not think this case is...