Alfaro-Huitron v. WKI Outsourcing Solutions, LLC

347 F. Supp. 3d 635
CourtDistrict Court, D. New Mexico
DecidedSeptember 28, 2018
DocketNo. 2:15-cv-00210-JCH-JHR
StatusPublished

This text of 347 F. Supp. 3d 635 (Alfaro-Huitron v. WKI Outsourcing Solutions, LLC) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering District Court, D. New Mexico primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
Alfaro-Huitron v. WKI Outsourcing Solutions, LLC, 347 F. Supp. 3d 635 (D.N.M. 2018).

Opinion

JUDITH C. HERRERA, UNITED STATES DISTRICT JUDGE

This matter is before the Court on Defendants Cervantes Agribusiness' and Cervantes Enterprises, Inc.'s ("Cervantes Defendants") joint Motion for Summary Judgment [ECF No. 233]. Plaintiffs1 are United States citizens or lawful permanent residents who were given hiring priority *641through the federal H-2A program to provide manual labor on fields and land owned by the Cervantes Defendants during the 2011-2012 harvest seasons. The farm labor contractor who recruited and hired Plaintiffs - Defendants WKI Outsourcing Solutions, LLC ("WKI") and its owner Jaime Campos - never actually furnished Plaintiffs to work for the Cervantes Defendants. Citing a drought, Campos cancelled Plaintiffs' work contracts at the last minute. Plaintiffs allege there was no such unusual drought; the real reason Campos cancelled their contracts was because he realized there were too many qualified U.S. workers, so he would not be able to access foreign laborers from Mexico, which was Defendants' alleged goal all along.

Based on the theory that the Cervantes Defendants and WKI "jointly employed" Plaintiffs, they sued the Cervantes Defendants under the Migrant and Seasonal Agricultural Worker Protection Act, 29 U.S.C. §§ 1801 - 1854 ("AWPA") contending, among other things, that they were equally liable for WKI's cancellation of their work contracts. After carefully considering the motion, briefs, and relevant law, the Court concludes that the Cervantes Defendants' motion should be granted because they did not jointly employ Plaintiffs.

I. FACTUAL BACKGROUND

Most of the facts necessary to resolve the pending motion for summary judgment are set forth in the Court's Memorandum Opinion and Order previously granting summary judgment to the Cervantes Defendants, which are either undisputed or construed in the light most favorable to Plaintiffs as the non-movants. See Mem. Op. and Order 1-11, ECF No. 232 ("Order"). The Court need not repeat those facts herein but adopts them by reference for the purposes of resolving the motion for summary judgment and presents the following additional material facts.

A. The H-2A Program

Under the H-2A program, WKI had to give hiring priority to domestic, or "U.S. workers" like Plaintiffs before petitioning for foreign workers. An employer like WKI could hire foreign guest laborers under the H-2A visa program only if it could certify that "there are not sufficient workers who are able, willing, and qualified" to perform the work and employing foreign workers "will not adversely affect the wages and working conditions of workers in the United States similarly employed" 8 U.S.C § 1188(a)(1). An agricultural employer or its agent works with the State Workforce Agency to recruit U.S. workers on an intrastate and interstate basis. See 20 C.F.R § 655.154(a). If an employer has satisfied the recruitment assurances and other promises identified in 20 C.F.R. § 655.161, then the Secretary of Labor can grant a request to hire temporary foreign agricultural labor. See 8 U.S.C. § 1188. The H-2A regulations require an employer to provide baseline benefits to both domestic and foreign H-2A workers. See 20 C.F.R. § 655.122(a). "By requiring that the employer provide these baseline benefits, the regulations ensure that foreign workers will not be appear more attractive to the employer than domestic workers, thus avoiding any adverse effects for domestic workers." Garcia-Celestino v. Ruiz Harvesting, Inc. , 843 F.3d 1276, 1285 (11th Cir. 2016) (" Garcia-Celestino I ").

"Under the program, employers must submit to the Department of Labor an application commonly referred to as a 'clearance order' detailing the terms and conditions of their prospective workers' employment." Garcia-Celestino v. Ruiz Harvesting, Inc. , 898 F.3d 1110, 1116 (11th Cir. 2018) (" Garcia-Celestino II "). "By *642federal regulation, the clearance order becomes the employees' work contract by default if the employer does not draw up a separate contract for them." Id. (citing 20 C.F.R. § 655.122(q) ).

In this case, WKI used its clearance order to recruit and hire Plaintiffs, and because no separate contract was drawn up, the clearance order served as the work contract between WKI and Plaintiffs.2 Under the terms of the clearance order WKI advertised the jobs with an hourly wage of $9.71 per hour of labor and that rate would have to be paid to all workers who filled the positions, whether or not the employers ultimately hired domestic or foreign H-2A workers. See 20 C.F.R. § 655.122(a).

In this lawsuit, Plaintiffs' basic contention is that Campos and the Defendants, including the Cervantes Defendants, always intended to exploit the H-2A program to access guest laborers from Mexico because they believed they would work harder for less money. When it became apparent that Campos would not be able to provide Mexican workers, he cancelled Plaintiffs' work contracts under the pretense of a drought.

II. PROCEDURAL HISTORY

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347 F. Supp. 3d 635, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/alfaro-huitron-v-wki-outsourcing-solutions-llc-nmd-2018.