Lamonica v. Safe Hurricane Shutters, Inc.

• Decision Date: 06 March 2013
• Docket Number: No. 11–15743.,11–15743.
• Citation: 711 F.3d 1299
• Parties: Reinaldo Ramon LAMONICA, Augustin Milan, Angeles Lamonica Soler, Mario Feliciano, Guillermo Alborez, et al., Plaintiffs–Appellees, v. SAFE HURRICANE SHUTTERS, INC., a Florida corporation, d.b.a. Advanced Hurricane Protection, Steve Heidelberger, Francis McCarrol, Defendants–Appellants.
• Court: U.S. Court of Appeals — Eleventh Circuit

711 F.3d 1299

Reinaldo Ramon LAMONICA, Augustin Milan, Angeles Lamonica Soler, Mario Feliciano, Guillermo Alborez, et al., Plaintiffs–Appellees,

v.SAFE HURRICANE SHUTTERS, INC., a Florida corporation, d.b.a. Advanced Hurricane Protection, Steve Heidelberger, Francis McCarrol, Defendants–Appellants.

No. 11–15743.

United States Court of Appeals, Eleventh Circuit.

March 6, 2013.

Karl David Kelly, Jamie H. Zidell, Law Offices of Eddy O. Marban, Coral Gables, FL, Sarah Ruth Klein, Law Office of Sarah Ruth Klein, Fort Lauderdale, FL, Marguerite Maria Longoria, Sam J. Smith, Burr & Smith, LLP, Tampa, FL, for Plaintiffs–Appellees.

Chris Kleppin, Harry O. Boreth, Barry G. Feingold, Kristopher Walter Zinchiak, Glasser, Boreth & Kleppin, PA, Fort Lauderdale, FL, for Defendants–Appellants.

Appeal from the United States District Court for the Southern District of Florida.

Before BARKETT and PRYOR, Circuit Judges, and BATTEN,^* District Judge.

BATTEN, District Judge:

This is an appeal from a judgment awarding unpaid wages and liquidated damages under the Fair Labor Standards Act (“FLSA”). Appellees challenge the judgment itself, as well as the district court's denial of their post-trial motions under Federal Rules of Civil Procedure 50(b) and 59(e). For the reasons that follow, we affirm.

I. BACKGROUND

Mario Feliciano and Augustin Milan formerly installed hurricane shutters for Safe Hurricane Shutters, Inc. In relation to that employment, they brought this action along with seven of their former co-workers to recover unpaid overtime wages under the FLSA. In addition to the corporate defendant, they sued its president and CEO, Edward Leiva, and two of its directors, Steve Heidelberger and Francis McCarroll. After trial, the jury found in favor of Feliciano and Milan and against all of the defendants, awarding damages of $20,849.38 to Feliciano and $1,312.50 to Milan. The district court subsequently determined that Feliciano and Milan were entitled to liquidated damages in an amount equal to their actual damages and entered final judgment in favor of Feliciano in the amount of $41,698.76 and in favor of Milan in the amount of $2,625.00.

After the judgment was entered, Safe Hurricane Shutters, Heidelberger, and McCarroll filed a renewed motion for judgmentas a matter of law and alternative motion for new trial under Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 50(b). They also filed a motion to alter or amend the judgment under Rule 59(e). The district court denied both motions. Safe Hurricane Shutters, Heidelberger, and McCarroll now appeal the judgment, as well as the district court's order denying their post-trial motions.

II. DISCUSSION

The issues raised in this appeal require the application of several different standards of review, each of which will be discussed in context below.

A. In Pari Delicto

First, Appellants argue that the district court should have granted their motion for judgment as a matter of law based on the doctrine of in pari delicto, which states that “a plaintiff who has participated in wrongdoing may not recover damages resulting from the wrongdoing.” Official Comm. of Unsecured Creditors of PSA, Inc. v. Edwards, 437 F.3d 1145, 1152 (11th Cir.2006) (quoting Black's Law Dictionary 794 (7th ed.1999)). “We review a district court's ruling on a motion for judgment as a matter of law de novo.” Hubbard v. BankAtlantic Bancorp, Inc., 688 F.3d 713, 723 (11th Cir.2012).

Appellants argue that both Feliciano and Milan participated in the wrongdoing by failing to accurately report the income they earned from Safe Hurricane Shutters to the IRS. They further argue that Milan participated in the wrongdoing because he was an undocumented alien not authorized to work in the United States, and he applied to work for Safe Hurricane Shutters using a false Social Security number.¹ As a result, Appellants contend that Feliciano and Milan should be barred from recovering under the FLSA.

We have previously held that undocumented aliens are “employees” who may recover unpaid wages under the FLSA. Patel v. Quality Inn S., 846 F.2d 700, 706 (11th Cir.1988). Appellants argue that the Supreme Court effectively overruled Quality Inn in Hoffman Plastic Compounds, Inc. v. NLRB, 535 U.S. 137, 148–52, 122 S.Ct. 1275, 152 L.Ed.2d 271 (2002). However,

[w]e are bound by the holdings of earlier panels unless and until they are clearly overruled by this court en banc or by the Supreme Court. While an intervening decision of the Supreme Court can overrule the decision of a prior panel of our court, the Supreme Court decision must be clearly on point.

Randall v. Scott, 610 F.3d 701, 707 (11th Cir.2010) (internal citations and quotation marks omitted). For the reasons that follow, Hoffman is not clearly on point and therefore did not overrule Quality Inn.

In Hoffman, the Supreme Court held that the NLRB cannot award backpay to undocumented aliens who are terminated for union activity in violation of the National Labor Relations Act (“NLRA”). However, the Court did not disturb its prior holding that undocumented aliens “plainly come within the broad statutory definition of ‘employee’ ” contained in the NLRA. Sure–Tan, Inc. v. NLRB, 467 U.S. 883, 892, 104 S.Ct. 2803, 81 L.Ed.2d 732 (1984). Instead, the Court emphasized that it was merely limiting the remedies available to undocumented aliens under the NLRA. See Hoffman, 535 U.S. at 152, 122 S.Ct. 1275 (“Lack of authority to award backpay does not mean that the employer gets off scot-free.”). In Quality Inn, we found the statutory definitions of “employee” in the NLRA and FLSA to be analogous, and we drew upon Sure–Tan's analysis of the NLRA in concluding that undocumented aliens are also “employees” under the FLSA. 846 F.2d at 702–03.Hoffman does nothing to cast doubt on that portion of our holding.

Nor does Hoffman cast doubt on our holding that undocumented aliens may recover their unpaid wages under the FLSA. The NLRA, which was at issue in Hoffman, grants the NLRB “broad discretion to devise remedies that effectuate the policies of the Act, subject only to limited judicial review.” Sure–Tan, 467 U.S. at 898–99, 104 S.Ct. 2803. This limited judicial review includes the authority to reject the NLRB's chosen remedy where it “trenches upon a federal statute or policy outside the Board's competence to administer.” Hoffman, 535 U.S. at 147, 122 S.Ct. 1275.Hoffman was an exercise of that judicial authority; the Court rejected the NLRB's remedy on the ground that it trenched upon the policies underlying the Immigration Reform and Control Act of 1986 (“IRCA”).

In contrast, no administrative body or court is vested with discretion to fashion an appropriate remedy under the FLSA. Instead, the Act unequivocally provides that any employer who violates its minimum wage or overtime provisions “shall be liable to the employee or employees affected in the amount of their unpaid minimum wages, or their unpaid overtime compensation, as the case may be, and in an additional equal amount as liquidated damages.”²29 U.S.C. § 216(b). Unlike the NLRA, there is nothing in the FLSA that would allow us to conclude that undocumented aliens, although protected by the Act, are nevertheless barred from recovering unpaid wages thereunder.

Moreover, Hoffman does not give us cause to reconsider whether the IRCA was intended to amend the FLSA by implication, removing undocumented aliens from its protection. Of course, Hoffman did not even go this far with respect to the NLRA; it merely concluded that in light of the policies underlying the IRCA, an award of backpay to an undocumented alien “lies beyond the bounds of the Board's remedial discretion.” 535 U.S. at 149, 122 S.Ct. 1275. Even so, to give full consideration to Appellants' arguments, we will determine whether Hoffman's reasoning undermines our reasoning in Quality Inn. In doing so, we reemphasize that “amendments by implication are disfavored. Only when Congress' intent to repeal or amend is clear and manifest will we conclude that a later act implicitly repeals or amends an earlier one.” Quality Inn, 846 F.2d at 704.

In Hoffman, the Court concluded that awarding backpay to undocumented aliens under the NLRA would be inconsistent with the IRCA, which “ ‘forcefully’ made combating the employment of illegal aliens central to ‘[t]he policy of immigration law.’ ” 535 U.S. at 147, 122 S.Ct. 1275 (quoting INS v. Nat'l Ctr. for Immigrants' Rights, Inc., 502 U.S. 183, 194 & n. 8, 112 S.Ct. 551, 116 L.Ed.2d 546 (1991)). The Court rejected the view that Congress would have made it a crime for an alien to obtain employment with false documents and “nonetheless intended to permit backpay where but for an employer's unfair labor practices, an alien-employee would have remained in the United States illegally, and continued to work illegally, all the while successfully evading apprehension by immigration authorities.” Id. at 149, 122 S.Ct. 1275. The Court reasoned that “awarding backpay in a case like this not only trivializes the immigration laws, it also condones and encourages future violations.” Id. at 150, 122 S.Ct. 1275.

In contrast, an FLSA plaintiff “is not attempting to recover back pay for being unlawfully deprived of a job” that he could never have lawfully performed. Quality Inn, 846 F.2d at 705. “Rather, he simply seeks to recover unpaid minimum wages and overtime for work already performed.” Id.

In such circumstances, the immigration law violation has already occurred. The [award of unpaid wages] does not itself condone that violation or continue it. It merely ensures that the employer does not take advantage of the violation by availing himself of the benefit of undocumented workers' past labor without paying for it in accordance with minimum FLSA standards.

Madeira v. Affordable Hous. Found., Inc., 469 F.3d 219, 243 (2d Cir.2006). Thus, even after Hoffman, we maintain that “[b]y reducing the incentive to hire such workers the FLSA's coverage of undocumented...