Menocal v. GEO Grp., Inc.
| Citation | 882 F.3d 905 |
| Decision Date | 09 February 2018 |
| Docket Number | No. 17-1125,17-1125 |
| Court | U.S. Court of Appeals — Tenth Circuit |
| Parties | Alejandro MENOCAL, Marcos Brambila, Grisel Xahuentitla, Hugo Hernandez, Lourdes Argueta, Jesus Gaytan, Olga Alexaklina, Dagoberto Vizguerra, and Demetrio Valegra, on their own behalf and on behalf of all others similarly situated, Plaintiffs–Appellees, v. The GEO GROUP, INC., Defendant–Appellant, and National Advocacy Center of the Sisters of the Good Shepherd; National Employment Law Project; National Guestworker Alliance; National Immigrant Justice Center ; National Immigration Law Center; Pangea Legal Services; Public Citizen; Sanctuary for Families; Southern Poverty Law Center; American Immigrants for Justice; Asian Americans Advancing Justice ; Detention Watch Network; Human Rights Defense Center ; Illinois Coalition for Immigrant and Refugee Rights ; Justice Strategies; Legal Aid at Work; Human Trafficking Pro Bono Legal Center; Tahirih Justice Center ; Asista Immigration Assistance; Freedom Network USA, Amici Curiae. |
Mark Emery, Norton Rose Fulbright US LLP, Washington, D.C. (Charles A. Deacon Norton Rose Fulbright US LLP, San Antonio, Texas; and Dana Eismeier, Burns, Figa & Will, Greenwood Village, Colorado, with him on the brief), for Defendant-Appellant.
David Lopez, Outten & Golden LLP, Washington, D.C. (Juno Turner and Elizabeth V. Stork, Outten & Golden LLP, New York, New York; R. Andrew Free, Law Office of R. Andrew Free, Nashville, Tennessee; Alexander Hood, David Seligman, and Andrew Schmidt, Towards Justice, Denver, Colorado; Brandt Milstein, Milstein Law Office, Boulder, Colorado; Andrew H. Turner, The Kelman Beuscher Firm, Denver, Colorado; and Hans Meyer, Meyer Law Office, P.C., Denver, Colorado, with him on the brief), for Plaintiffs-Appellees.
Scott D. McCoy and Shalini Agarwal, Southern Poverty Law Center, Tallahassee, Florida, Alia Al-Khatib, Southern Poverty Law Center, Miami, Florida, and Lisa Graybill, Southern Poverty Law Center, New Orleans, Louisiana, filed a brief for the Southern Poverty Law Center as Amicus Curiae, in support of Appellees.
Adina H. Rosenbaum and Scott L. Nelson, Public Citizen Litigation Group, Washington, D.C., filed a brief for Public Citizen, Inc., and The National Employment Law Project, as Amici Curiae, in support of Appellees.
Katherine E. Melloy Goettel, Mark Fleming, Claudia Valenzuela, and Keren Zwick, National Immigration Justice Center, Chicago, Illinois, filed a brief for National Immigrant Justice Center, et al., as Amici Curiae, in support of Appellees.
Andrew C. Lillie, Nathaniel H. Nesbitt, and Ann C. Stanton, Hogan Lovells US LLP, Denver, Colorado, filed a brief for Human Trafficking Pro Bono Legal Center, Tahirih Justice Center, Asista Immigration Assistance, Freedom Network USA, and Sanctuary for Families, as Amici Curiae, in support of Appellees.
Before MATHESON, BACHARACH, and McHUGH, Circuit Judges.
This appeal addresses whether immigration detainees housed in a private contract detention facility in Aurora, Colorado (the "Aurora Facility") may bring claims as a class under (1) 18 U.S.C. § 1589, a provision of the Trafficking Victims Protection Act (the "TVPA") that prohibits forced labor; and (2) Colorado unjust enrichment law.
The GEO Group, Inc. ("GEO") owns and operates the Aurora Facility under government contract. While there, the plaintiff detainees (the "Appellees") rendered mandatory and voluntary services to GEO. Under GEO’s mandatory policies, they cleaned their housing units' common areas. They also performed various jobs through a voluntary work program, which paid them $1 a day.
The district court certified two separate classes: (1) all detainees housed at the Aurora Facility in the past ten years (the "TVPA class"), and (2) all detainees who participated in the Aurora Facility’s voluntary work program in the past three years (the "unjust enrichment class").
On interlocutory appeal, GEO argues that the district court abused its discretion in certifying each class under Rule 23(b)(3) of the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure. It primarily contends that the Appellees' TVPA and Colorado unjust enrichment claims both require predominantly individualized determinations, making class treatment inappropriate. Exercising jurisdiction under 28 U.S.C. § 1292, we affirm.
At all times relevant to this appeal, GEO owned and operated the Aurora Facility under contract with the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement ("ICE"). In operating this facility, GEO implemented two programs that form the basis for this case: (1) the Housing Unit Sanitation Policy, which required all detainees to clean their common living areas; and (2) the Voluntary Work Program, which compensated detainees $1 a day for performing various jobs.
The Aurora Facility’s Sanitation Policy had two components: (1) a mandatory housing unit sanitation program, and (2) a general disciplinary system for detainees who engaged in "prohibited acts," including refusal to participate in the housing unit sanitation program.
Under the mandatory housing unit sanitation program, GEO staff generated daily lists of detainees from each housing unit who were assigned to clean common areas after meal service. Upon arriving at the Aurora Facility, every detainee received a handbook (the "Aurora Facility Supplement") notifying them of their obligation to participate in this program. Dawn Ceja, the Aurora Facility’s Assistant Warden for Operations, confirmed at her deposition that "all of the detainees will have a turn on [the common area cleaning assignments]." App., Vol. II at 483.
Under the disciplinary system, detainees who refused to perform their cleaning assignments faced a range of possible sanctions, including: (1) the initiation of criminal proceedings, (2) disciplinary segregation—or solitary confinement—up to 72 hours, (3) loss of commissary, (4) loss of job, (5) restriction to housing unit, (6) reprimand, or (7) warning. The Aurora Facility Supplement included an explanation of the disciplinary system and the possible sanctions for refusing to clean.
The Appellees alleged that the TVPA class members were all "forced ... to clean the [housing units] for no pay and under threat of solitary confinement as punishment for any refusal to work." App., Vol. I at 19. Five of the nine named plaintiffs and three other detainees filed declarations further explaining that they had fulfilled their cleaning assignments because of the Sanitation Policy’s threat of solitary confinement.
Under the Aurora Facility’s VWP, participating detainees received $1 a day in compensation for voluntarily performing jobs such as painting, food services, laundry services, barbershop, and sanitation. Detainees who wished to participate in the VWP had to sign the "Detainee Voluntary Work Program Agreement," which specified that "[c]ompensation shall be $1.00 per day." App., Vol. V at 779. The Aurora Facility Supplement also specified that detainees would "be paid $1.00 per day worked (not per work assignment)" under the VWP. App., Vol. V at 761. Detainees had the additional option of working without pay if no paid positions were available.
The complaint alleged that the VWP class members were all "paid ... one dollar ($1) per day for their [VWP] labor." App., Vol. I at 19. Five of the nine named plaintiffs and three other detainees who had participated in the VWP filed declarations further describing their work. Their jobs had included serving food, cleaning the facilities, doing laundry, and stripping and waxing floors. Their hours had ranged from two to eight hours a day, and they had all received $1 a day in compensation.
The Appellees filed a class action complaint against GEO in the U.S. District Court for the District of Colorado on behalf of current and former ICE detainees housed at the Aurora Facility. The complaint alleged: (1) a TVPA forced labor claim based on the Sanitation Policy, and (2) an unjust enrichment claim under Colorado law based on the VWP.1
GEO moved to dismiss the complaint under Rule 12(b)(6) of the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure for failure to state a claim. Regarding the TVPA claim, GEO argued that the Thirteenth Amendment’s civic duty exception to the prohibition on involuntary servitude should also apply to the TVPA’s ban on forced labor.2 It further contended that such an exception would extend to government contractors in addition to the federal government. Regarding the unjust enrichment claim, GEO asserted sovereign immunity as a government contractor because ICE "specifically directed [it] to ... establish a voluntary detainee work program, and pay the detainees who volunteer for that program $1.00 per day." App., Vol. I at 198-99.
The district court rejected these arguments and denied GEO’s motion to dismiss the TVPA and unjust enrichment claims. See Menocal v. GEO Grp., Inc. , 113 F.Supp.3d 1125 (D. Colo. 2015). GEO moved for reconsideration of the court’s rulings. The court denied the motion, finding that GEO "d[id] not identify any intervening change in controlling law or new evidence previously unavailable" to warrant reconsideration. Menocal v. GEO Grp., Inc. , No. 14-cv-02887-JLK, 2015 WL 13614120, at *1 (D. Colo. Aug. 26, 2015).
GEO then moved for an order certifying an interlocutory appeal from the orders denying its motion to dismiss and its motion for reconsideration. It requested that the district court certify the following questions for interlocutory appeal:
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