Simpson v. Sanderson Farms, Inc.

• Citation: 744 F.3d 702
• Decision Date: 07 March 2014
• Docket Number: No. 13–10624.,13–10624.
• Parties: Melissa SIMPSON, Sabrina Roberts, on behalf of themselves and all those similarly situated, Plaintiffs–Appellants, v. SANDERSON FARMS, INC., Perry Hauser, et al., Defendants–Appellees.
• Court: U.S. Court of Appeals — Eleventh Circuit

744 F.3d 702

Melissa SIMPSON, Sabrina Roberts, on behalf of themselves and all those similarly situated, Plaintiffs–Appellants,

v.SANDERSON FARMS, INC., Perry Hauser, et al., Defendants–Appellees.

No. 13–10624.

United States Court of Appeals, Eleventh Circuit.

March 7, 2014.

Howard W. Foster, Matthew A. Galin, Foster, PC, Chicago, IL, William Wright Calhoun, Calhoun Law Group, LLC, Joseph P. Durham, Jr., Lee Durham, LLC, Albany, GA, for Plaintiffs–Appellants.

Walter J. Brand, Joseph Collins Wohner, Jr., Paul H. Stephenson, Watkins & Eager PLLC, William F. Ray, Attorney at Law, Jackson, MS, Eric Seth Fisher, Michael Eric Ross, Taylor English Duma, LLP, Benton J. Mathis, Jr., Kelly Eisenlohr–Moul, Freeman Mathis & Gary, LLP, Atlanta, GA, Hubert C. Lovein, Jr., W. Warren Plowden, Jr., Jones Cork & Miller, LLP, Macon, GA, Rick D. Collum, The Collum Law Firm, PC, Moultrie, GA, for Defendants–Appellees.

Appeal from the United States District Court for the Middle District of Georgia. D.C. Docket No. 7:12–cv–00028–HL.

Before MARCUS and EDMONDSON, Circuit Judges, and VINSON,^* District Judge.

MARCUS, Circuit Judge:

Plaintiffs Melissa Simpson and Sabrina Roberts appeal the dismissal of a putative class action suit brought under the Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations (RICO) Act, 18 U.S.C. §§ 1961–68. In this case, we must determine whether these two former employees of a poultry processing plant owned by Sanderson Farms, Inc. have stated a civil RICO claim under the pleading standard articulated by the Supreme Court in Bell Atlantic Corp. v. Twombly, 550 U.S. 544, 127 S.Ct. 1955, 167 L.Ed.2d 929 (2007), and Ashcroft v. Iqbal, 556 U.S. 662, 129 S.Ct. 1937, 173 L.Ed.2d 868 (2009). More precisely, we examine today whether the plaintiffs have alleged enough facts plausibly to establish two things: first, that they were actually injured; and, second, that the claimed predicate RICO violations were a proximate cause of the injury. The plaintiffs have attempted to show injury in the form of depressed wages. They further claim that the defendants proximately caused depressed wages by falsely attesting—in violation of 18 U.S.C. § 1546—that their illegal employees presented genuine work-authorization and identification documents. The district court dismissed the amended complaint for failing plausibly to show proximate cause.

The essential problem with the amended complaint is that it offers virtually no real evidence to plausibly suggest either injury or proximate cause. The only wage data even mentioned in the amended complaint show that the plaintiffs actually received increasing wages at the plant. In attempting to plead injury nonetheless, the plaintiffs have presented only a conclusory market model that is stated at a very high order of abstraction. That model does not permit the plausible inference of injury, nor does it plausibly establish that the defendants' alleged violations of § 1546 directly caused the plaintiffs' wages to become depressed. Accordingly, we affirm.

I.

It is by now clear that to state a prima facie civil RICO claim under 18 U.S.C. § 1964(c), a plaintiff must establish “three essential elements”: first, that the defendant committed a pattern of RICO predicate acts under 18 U.S.C. § 1962; second, that the plaintiff suffered injury to business or property; and, finally, that the defendant's racketeering activity proximately caused the injury. Avirgan v. Hull, 932 F.2d 1572, 1577 (11th Cir.1991); see Holmes v. Secs. Investor Prot. Corp., 503 U.S. 258, 265–68, 112 S.Ct. 1311, 117 L.Ed.2d 532 (1992).

We review de novo the dismissal of a civil RICO complaint pursuant to Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 12(b)(6). See Ironworkers Local Union 68 v. AstraZeneca Pharm., LP, 634 F.3d 1352, 1359 (11th Cir.2011). At this stage in the proceedings, we accept as true the facts as the plaintiffs have alleged them. Id. Additionally, “[w]e may affirm the district court's judgment on any ground that appears in the record, whether or not that ground was relied upon or even considered by the court below.” Powers v. United States, 996 F.2d 1121, 1123–24 (11th Cir.1993).

The facts as pled and the procedural history are straightforward. Plaintiffs Simpson and Roberts formerly worked at a poultry processing plant in Moultrie, Georgia. Defendant Sanderson Farms, Inc. owns the Moultrie plant, which employs over 1,500 workers and is one of the largest employers in Colquitt County. Simpson worked at the plant from 2008 to 2010, while Roberts worked there from 2009 to 2010. The plaintiffs were legally authorized to work in the relevant period, and both provided hourly-paid, unskilled labor. The amended complaint does not describe the plaintiffs' actual duties at the Moultrie plant, nor does it begin to explain what constitutes “unskilled” labor.

On February 16, 2012, the plaintiffs filed a putative class action suit under the federal and Georgia RICO statutes.¹ The plaintiffs named one corporate and seven individual defendants (collectively, “defendants” or “Sanderson”): Sanderson Farms, Inc., a Mississippi corporation; Jennifer Harrison Buster, Sanderson Farms' corporate human resources manager; Perry Hauser, the complex manager of Sanderson Farms' poultry processing plant in Moultrie, Georgia; Jeff Black, the plant's assistant manager; Demishia Croft, the plant's human resources manager; Aristides Carral–Gomez, a human resources employee; Janie Perales, a human resourcesemployee; and Karina Fondon, a human resources employee.

In their first complaint, the plaintiffs alleged that Sanderson committed patterns of three substantive RICO predicate acts: violations of 8 U.S.C. § 1324(a)(3)(A) (knowingly hiring unauthorized aliens who have been brought illegally into the United States); violations of 18 U.S.C. § 1028(a)(7) (knowingly transferring, possessing, or using, without lawful authority, another person's means of identification in order to engage in unlawful activity); and violations of 18 U.S.C. § 1546 (fraud and misuse of visas, permits, and other documents). The first complaint also alleged conspiracies under 18 U.S.C. § 1962(d) and 18 U.S.C. § 1028(f). See18 U.S.C. § 1962(d) (“It shall be unlawful for any person to conspire to violate any of the provisions of subsection (a), (b), or (c) of this section.”); id. § 1028(f) (“Any person who attempts or conspires to commit any offense under [§ 1028] shall be subject to the same penalties as those prescribed for the offense....”).

According to the complaint, this pattern of racketeering activity allowed Sanderson, since 2008, to pay depressed wages to all genuinely work-authorized employees at its chicken processing plant. Finally, the plaintiffs claimed in the first complaint that each pattern of predicate acts was a “substantial and direct factor in causing the depressed wages.” Compl. ¶ 80.

On September 13, 2012, the district court dismissed the first complaint without prejudice. See Simpson v. Sanderson Farms, Inc., 7:12–CV–28, 2012 WL 4049435, at *16 (M.D.Ga. Sept. 13, 2012). The court determined that the plaintiffs had sufficiently pled the § 1546 predicate acts but had not adequately shown violations of § 1324(a)(3)(A) or § 1028(a)(7). Id. at *3–11. Without explaining its reasoning, the court also found that the plaintiffs had sufficiently alleged that they suffered injury. Id. at *15. Nevertheless, the court dismissed the first complaint in its entirety, concluding that the plaintiffs had failed adequately to plead—as they were required to do—that the surviving predicate acts (§ 1546 violations) proximately caused their alleged injury (depressed wages). Id.

On October 5, 2012, the plaintiffs filed a new five-count amended complaint, again alleging racketeering charges grounded in both the federal and Georgia RICO laws. Notably, they did not re-allege predicate violations of § 1324(a)(3)(A) or § 1028(a)(7), and accordingly no claims arising from those predicate acts are now before us. The amended complaint also omitted all prior allegations of a § 1962(d) conspiracy to violate § 1324(a)(3)(A) and a § 1028(f) conspiracy to violate § 1028(a)(7). Instead, to establish a pattern of racketeering activity, the plaintiffs exclusively invoked § 1546.

Section 1546(a) provides in relevant part:

Whoever knowingly makes under oath, or as permitted under penalty of perjury under section 1746 of title 28, United States Code, knowingly subscribes as true, any false statement with respect to a material fact in any application, affidavit, or other document required by the immigration laws or regulations prescribed thereunder, ... [s]hall be fined under this title or imprisoned....

18 U.S.C. § 1546(a). Section 1546(b) additionally provides:

Whoever uses—

(1) an identification document, knowing (or having reason to know) that the document was not issued lawfully for the use of the possessor,

(2) an identification document knowing (or having reason to know) that the document is false, or

(3) a false attestation,

for the purpose of satisfying a requirement of section 274A(b) of the Immigration and Nationality Act, shall be fined under this title, imprisoned not more than 5 years, or both.

Id. § 1546(b).

At this stage, the plaintiffs' theory of the case is very simple: since 2008, Sanderson has allegedly used the vehicle of § 1546 violations to hire “likely more than 300” unskilled, illegal employees at the Moultrie plant. Am. Compl. ¶ 2. The plaintiffs essentially say that, in the course of completing I–9 forms for illegal workers, the defendants have accepted and certified obviously fake identification documents. This misconduct has allegedly depressed the wages that Sanderson has paid to all genuinely work-authorized, hourly-paid, unskilled employees at the Moultrie plant.

Although the amended complaint states—more than ten times—that Sanderson pays depressed wages, the plaintiffs have not pled any data or facts that actually evince a decrease in wages over time. In...