Gupta v. Wipro Ltd.
| Decision Date | 15 December 2017 |
| Docket Number | Civil Action No. 17-1954 (FLW) (DEA) |
| Parties | ARVIND GUPTA, Plaintiff, v. WIPRO LIMITED; AZIM HASHIM PREMJI; and the SECRETARY OF THE UNITED STATES DEPARTMENT OF LABOR; Defendants. |
| Court | U.S. District Court — District of New Jersey |
*NOT FOR PUBLICATION*
Pro se1 Plaintiff Arvind Gupta ("Plaintiff" or "Gupta") brings this action for alleged wage and hour violations under the Immigration and Nationality Act ("INA"), 8 U.S.C. § 1101, et seq., against Defendants, Wipro Limited ("Wipro"), Azim Hashim Premji, and the Secretary of the United States Department of Labor (the "Secretary") (collectively, "Defendants"). The action is nearly identical to a prior suit that Plaintiff brought before this Court in 2014, Gupta v.Perez, et al., No. 14-4054 ("Gupta I"), in which Plaintiff also asserted wage and hour claims against Wipro and the Secretary. As discussed further in the procedural history section of this Opinion, this Court issued a decision granting summary judgment against all of Plaintiff's claims in Gupta I, which decision was affirmed by the Third Circuit. Gupta v. Sec'y U.S. Dep't of Labor, 649 F. App'x 119 (3d Cir. 2016).
Presently before the Court is Wipro and Mr. Premji's (collectively, the "Wipro Defendants") Motion to Dismiss for lack of subject-matter jurisdiction, pursuant to Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 12(b)(1), and for failure to state a claim upon which relief can be granted, pursuant to Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 12(b)(6).2 For the reasons that follow, Defendants' Motion to Dismiss is GRANTED.
Because the parties are intimately familiar with the facts of this case, which mirror those asserted in Plaintiff's prior actions, the Court will only briefly revisit them here. Plaintiff, a citizen of India, works in the fields of financial services, business analysis, information technology, and program management. Compl. ¶ 2. Defendant Wipro is a global information technology, consulting and outsourcing company, with over 150,000 employees serving clients in over 175 cities worldwide. Id. at ¶ 4. Within the United States, Wipro employs both citizens and nonimmigrant workers through the federal H-1B visa program. Id. at ¶ 3. Defendant Azim Hashim Premji is the President of Wipro. Id. at ¶ 5.
On May 11, 2003, Plaintiff entered the United States to work for Wipro as an H1-B worker, pursuant to a labor condition application ("LCA") that had been approved by theDepartment of Labor ("DOL"). Id. at ¶ 20. The H1-B program "is designed to allow professionals from other countries who are employed in 'specialty occupations' to work in the United States on a temporary basis." Gupta, 649 F. App'x at 120. Gupta alleges that, from May 2003 until March 2006, Wipro engaged him to perform a variety of client-facing assignments, which required him to work at least forty hours per week. Compl. ¶ 28. Plaintiff further alleges that, since March of 2006, he has remained employed by Wipro, albeit in "nonproductive status while waiting for an assignment and being ready, willing, and able to perform any official duties . . . ." Id. at ¶ 114.4
This case has a long and protracted procedural history, involving various courts and administrative tribunals. It all began on May 20, 2009, when Gupta filed a complaint with the DOL's Wage and Hour Division ("WHD"), alleging that Wipro took unauthorized deductions from Gupta's wages, and seeking relief under the H-1B nonimmigrant worker provisions of the Immigration and Nationality Act. On May 29, 2009, the WHD rejected Gupta's complaint as untimely, because it was filed more than twelve months after the last alleged unlawful deduction.
In June of 2009, Gupta filed a second complaint in the WHD, alleging that Wipro had taken unauthorized deductions from the wages of other Wipro employees. In the second complaint, Gupta represented himself as a business competitor of Wipro, and submitted a single pay stub from a then-current Wipro employee, dated June 1, 2009, which Gupta claimed to have obtained through his work as a business recruiter. By letter dated January 7, 2010, the WHDinformed Gupta that, based on Gupta's representations as a business competitor, reasonable cause existed to investigate Wipro. Specifically, the WHD considered Gupta's second complaint to be potentially viable due to the allegation that Gupta was a business competitor of Wipro's, because, under federal regulations, status as a competitor of an H-1B employer may confer standing upon a claimant to pursue claims regarding other employees. See 20 C.F.R. § 655.715.
After opening the investigation, the WHD contacted Gupta seeking more information about his recruiting business. On April 22, 2010, Gupta sent an email to the WHD investigator overseeing his case, in which he admitted that he had never started a recruiting business. The WHD issued a decision on May 7, 2010, finding that, as a result of Gupta's email, there was no reasonable cause to investigate Gupta's second complaint, and that the case should be closed. On July 12, 2010, Gupta sent an email to the WHD, requesting that the principles of "equitable tolling" be applied to his May 2009 complaint as an aggrieved worker, on the ground that Wipro allegedly misled Gupta about his rights.
On August 26, 2010, Gupta filed a motion with the Office of Administrative Law ("OAL"), in which he requested a hearing before an Administrative Law Judge ("ALJ") regarding his complaints. On November 3, 2010, the ALJ issued an order directing the WHD Administrator to show cause why, given the Administrator's initial decision to conduct an investigation of Gupta's second complaint, the Administrator was not required to issue a post investigation determination letter under 20 C.F.R. § 655.806(b). In response, the Administrator attached Gupta's April 22, 2010 email, in which Gupta stated that he had never started a recruiting business, and argued that, as a result of Gupta's admission, Gupta lacked standing to file a complaint as an aggrieved "competitor" of Wipro under 20 C.F.R. §§ 655.715 and 655.806(a).
On December 23, 2010, the ALJ issued an order, in which the ALJ construed the Administrator's response to the order to show cause as a motion for summary decision. The ALJ invited the parties to submit briefs on the issue of whether, following Gupta's email, the WHD had subject matter jurisdiction to investigate Gupta's second complaint. Both Gupta and the Administrator filed supplemental briefs. In a decision dated March 28, 2011, the ALJ found that the Administrator was entitled to summary decision on both of Gupta's complaints, finding that the first complaint was time-barred, and that Gupta lacked standing to pursue the second complaint. Specifically, with respect to Gupta's aggrieved worker complaint, the ALJ found that, pursuant to 20 C.F.R. § 655.805(a)(2), Gupta's first complaint was untimely, because Gupta failed to file it within twelve months of Wipro's most recent allegedly unlawful deduction, and because Gupta was not entitled to equitable tolling. Next, with respect to Gupta's second complaint, the ALJ found that Gupta was not an aggrieved competitor under 20 C.F.R. § 655.715, and thus, lacked standing to pursue an aggrieved competitor claim. Finally, the ALJ decided that she did not have the authority to review Gupta's assertion that his complaint should be considered under 20 C.F.R. § 807 as a non-aggrieved "credible information source" complaint, because
On April 23, 2011, Gupta appealed the ALJ's decision to the Administrative Review Board ("ARB").5 On May 9, 2011, Gupta moved before the ARB to amend the dates of his employment with Wipro. Specifically, although Gupta had previously represented that his employment with Wipro ended on March 31, 2006, Gupta sought to amend the end-date of hisemployment until June 10, 2008, the day his H1-B visa expired. On August 11, 2011, the ARB remanded the case to the ALJ, holding that due process required the ALJ to give Wipro an opportunity to participate in the proceedings, notwithstanding Gupta's request that the matter remain confidential to the extent possible.
On January 25, 2012, after eliciting briefing on remand from the Administrator, Wipro, and Gupta, the ALJ entered a post-remand decision affirming summary decision against Gupta. In the decision, the ALJ denied Gupta's request to amend the dates of his employment. Additionally, the ALJ concluded that, despite Gupta's supplemental evidence,6 the record still reflected that Gupta's aggrieved worker complaint was untimely, given that March 2008, the date of Gupta's most recent paycheck from Wipro, preceded Gupta's May 2009 complaint by more than twelve months.
Undeterred, on January 30, 2012, Gupta filed a petition for review of the ALJ's decision with the ARB. On February 27, 2014, the ARB issued a final decision affirming the ALJ's dismissal of Gupta's case. At the outset, the ARB found that the undisputed facts established that Gupta's May and June 2009 complaints advanced the same, single type of violation: illegal deductions connected to the base salary earned in Gupta's home country. With respect to Gupta's first complaint, regarding Gupta's claim of H-1B violations pertaining to his own wages, the ARB affirmed the ALJ's finding that Gupta's claims as an aggrieved worker were time-barred. In particular, the ARB found that the last allegedly illegal deductions made from his wages occurred on or before March 2006, which made his 2009 complaints over three yearslate.7 The ARB also affirmed the ALJ's dismissal of Gupta's aggrieved competitor complaint as to the allegedly illegal deductions made from the wages of other H-1B...
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