Vanegas v. Signet Builders, Inc.

• Decision Date: 19 August 2022
• Docket Number: 21-2644
• Citation: 46 F.4th 636
• Parties: Jose Ageo LUNA VANEGAS, Plaintiff-Appellant, v. SIGNET BUILDERS, INC., Defendant-Appellee.
• Court: U.S. Court of Appeals — Seventh Circuit

46 F.4th 636

Jose Ageo LUNA VANEGAS, Plaintiff-Appellant,
v.
SIGNET BUILDERS, INC., Defendant-Appellee.

No. 21-2644

United States Court of Appeals, Seventh Circuit.

Argued April 13, 2022
Decided August 19, 2022

Jennifer Zimmermann, Erica Sweitzer-Beckman, Attorneys, Legal Action of Wisconsin, Madison, WI, Edward Tuddenham, Attorney, Edward Tuddenham, Paris, Ile de France, for Plaintiff-Appellant.

Edward N. Boehm, Jr., Ann Margaret Pointer, Joshua Henry Viau, Attorneys, Fisher & Phillips, Atlanta, GA, for Defendant-Appellee.

Catherine K. Ruckelshaus, Attorney, National Employment Law Project, New York, NY, for Amicus Curiae Centro de los Derechos del Migrante, Economic Policy Institute, Shriver Center on Poverty Law, National Employment Law Project.

Ross B. Bricker, Attorney, Jenner & Block LLP, Chicago, IL, for Amicus Curiae MARY WILSON.

Sara J. Geenen, Attorney, Previant Law Firm, S.C., Milwaukee, WI, for Amicus Curiae Wisconsin Building Trades Council.

Michael E. Amash, Attorney, Blake & Uhlig, Kansas City, KS, for Amicus Curiae Iowa State Building and Construction Trades Council.

Terance A. Gonsalves, Attorney, Alston & Bird LLP, Atlanta, GA, for Amicus Curiae AG Installers, Inc., Alewelt Concrete, Inc., Altenburg Construction, Inc., Lionheart Construction LLC, Summit Livestock Facilities LLC, D/B/A Summit Engineering and Construction, and Summit Heartland, LLC.

Before Rovner, Wood, and St. Eve, Circuit Judges.

Wood, Circuit Judge.

46 F.4th 639

Signet Builders, Inc., is a nationwide construction company that builds commercial, industrial, and agricultural structures. In 2019, Signet hired Jose Ageo Luna Vanegas to build livestock confinement facilities in Wisconsin and Indiana. Luna Vanegas alleges that he regularly worked more than 40 hours a week, but that Signet refused to pay him the time-and-a-half overtime rate required by the Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA). See 29 U.S.C. § 207(a).

The district court dismissed Luna Vanegas's complaint, holding that his construction work fell under the FLSA's exemption for agricultural work. See 29 U.S.C. § 213(b)(12). But the question whether this is so is a fact-intensive inquiry that rarely can be decided solely on the face of a complaint. Because the facts properly in the record do not demonstrate the applicability of the exemption beyond debate, we reverse.

I

Luna Vanegas, a Mexican citizen, was hired by Signet to work in the United States on an H-2A guestworker visa. The H-2A visa program, which is administered by the United States Department of Labor (DOL or Department), authorizes foreign workers to perform "agricultural" work (a term defined by the statute) in the United States on a temporary basis, if the proposed employer can show that there are too few domestic workers willing and able to do the work needed and that the use of guestworkers will not undercut local workers' wages and working conditions. See 8 U.S.C. § 1101(a)(15)(H)(ii)(a) ; 8 U.S.C. § 1188(a)(1). The program is growing rapidly. In 2010, the Department certified about 79,000 H-2A visas; by 2019, that number swelled to 258,000. U.S. DEP'T OF AGRIC., ECON. INFO. BULL. NO. 226, EXAMINING THE GROWTH IN SEASONAL AGRICULTURAL H-2A LABOR 2 (2021). As the H-2A program has expanded, so have complaints from oversight agencies and advocacy groups that it is plagued with abuse. See, e.g. , U.S. GOV'T ACCOUNTABILITY OFF., GAO-15-154, INCREASED PROTECTIONS NEEDED FOR FOREIGN WORKERS (2015).

Luna Vanegas alleges that he and his fellow workers were victims of that abuse. Because this case was resolved on a motion to dismiss, we accept all well-pleaded factual allegations in Luna Vanegas's complaint as true. See Pavlock v. Holcomb , 35 F.4th 581, 585 (7th Cir. 2022). According to that complaint, Signet was hired as a subcontractor to build livestock structures on farms in Wisconsin and Indiana. Luna Vanegas was assigned to these projects, where his work consisted entirely of construction of buildings that would later house livestock. Although he worked on land belonging to farms, he never had any contact with animals.

Luna Vanegas routinely worked more than 40 hours a week, but Signet did not pay him extra for his overtime hours. See 29 U.S.C. § 207(a). He filed a complaint under the FLSA and then moved for conditional certification of a collective action on behalf of all Signet H-2A workers who, like him, were exclusively assigned to construction work. A wage-theft claim such as Luna Vanegas's is straightforward: the plaintiff states a claim for relief if she alleges that she was owed time-and-a-half for overtime work but did not receive it.

46 F.4th 640

Signet responded with a motion to dismiss under Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 12(b)(6). It did not, however, point to any defect in the initial pleading, nor did it contest the accuracy of the description of its payment practices. Instead, it raised the affirmative defense that Luna Vanegas is an agricultural worker who is exempt from FLSA's overtime protections. See 29 U.S.C. § 213(b)(12).

Before we discuss the merits, the procedure Signet followed deserves a word or two. Rule 8 of the Civil Rules carefully distinguishes between defenses that take the form of denials, covered in subpart (b), and affirmative defenses, addressed in subpart (c)(1). Rule 8(c)(1) states that "[i]n responding to a pleading, a party must affirmatively state any avoidance or affirmative defense ...," and provides a nonexclusive list of such defenses. The defending party must come back with a "responsive pleading" (i.e. , an answer for the defendant, see Rule 7(a)(2)), unless it is raising one of the seven defenses listed in Rule 12(b) as appropriate for a motion. Affirmative defenses do not appear on that list.

It follows from this structure and from the plain language of Rule 8(c)(1) that an affirmative defense must be raised in the answer, not by motion. Vasquez v. Indiana Univ. Health, Inc. , 40 F.4th 582, 588 (7th Cir. 2022). Once the pleadings are closed, any party may move for judgment on the pleadings, pursuant to Rule 12(c). There is a real consequence to this structure: it means that a plaintiff's complaint need not anticipate or refute potential affirmative defenses. The Rule 12(b)(6) motion for failure to state a claim upon which relief can be...