Araiza-Calzada v. Webb's Seafood, Inc.

49 F. Supp. 3d 1001, 2014 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 127021, 2014 WL 4452228
CourtDistrict Court, N.D. Florida
DecidedSeptember 10, 2014
DocketCase No. 5:13-cv-15-RS-CJK
StatusPublished
Cited by2 cases

This text of 49 F. Supp. 3d 1001 (Araiza-Calzada v. Webb's Seafood, Inc.) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering District Court, N.D. Florida primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
Araiza-Calzada v. Webb's Seafood, Inc., 49 F. Supp. 3d 1001, 2014 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 127021, 2014 WL 4452228 (N.D. Fla. 2014).

Opinion

ORDER

RICHARD SMOAK, District Judge.

Before me are .Plaintiffs Motion for Summary Judgment (Doc. 118) and Defendant’s Motion for Summary Judgment (Doc. 121).

I. BACKGROUND

The issue before me is a matter of first impression. I must decide whether oyster shuckers fall under the definition of “agricultural employment” under the Migrant and Seasonal Agricultural Worker Protection Act, 29 U.S.C. § 1801 et seq. (“AWPA”).

Defendant Webb’s Seafood (“Webb’s”) operates an oyster packing and processing facility in Youngstown, Florida. Plaintiffs (“Plaintiffs”) are Mexican guestworkers who came to work for Webb’s as oyster shuckers under the H-2B Visa program. The Plaintiffs brought suit against Webb alleging violations of the Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA), the Florida Constitution, the AWPA, as well as breach of contract. All of the monetary claims have settled, and the only claim remaining is a request for declaratory judgment that oyster shuckers are entitled to AWPA protections.

II. FACTS

The facts are undisputed. The parties, in a 82-page Stipulated Joint Statement of Facts (Doc. 112) and a 27 page Expert Report (Doc. 115), have thoroughly described the operations of Webb’s Seafood and the oyster shucking process. I summarize the pertinent facts below.

a. Webb’s Seafood

Webb’s Seafood is a small business in Youngstown, Florida, that processes oysters purchased from other sources. It resells processed oysters to customers such as restaurants, grocery stores, and wholesalers. The oysters come from the Gulf of Mexico in Florida, Louisiana, and Texas. Webb’s purchases Florida oysters direct from harvesters and purchases the Texas and Louisiana oysters from wholesale seafood companies. All oysters that Webb’s processes are naturally bred and wild caught and are not considered aquaculture products.

After experiencing a labor shortage, Webb’s explored the possibility of hiring guest workers through the federal H2-B program. The Department of Labor approved Webb’s application for the program and approved Webb’s plan to hire 28 workers at $9.20 per hour as oyster shuckers. Webb’s recruited the ten Plaintiff-employees directly through a longtime employee, Juan Calzada. The Plaintiffs were approved for non-agricultural work visas and came to the United States from Mexico. They worked for several months in the spring and summer of 2011. After returning to Mexico, they all reapplied for a second certification period and returned to Webb’s in fall 2011.

In the fall of 2011, red tide dramatically reduced the supply of oysters in Texas. Webb’s was unable to provide full time hours to its shuckers, and terminated some of its H2-B workers, who were at-will employees. Eight of the ten original plaintiffs were among those terminated.

b. Oysters

The eastern oyster, Crassostrea virgini-ca, occurs naturally and is found in coastal [1003]*1003estuaries through the U.S. Gulf of Mexico. Oysters naturally colonize, grow, and form substantial topographical features called reefs. Reefs can sustain biodiverse ecosystems, which in turn lead to increased oyster production, which in turn supports an active oyster fishery.

Oysters grow on these reefs where there are proper climate and water conditions and available nutrition. Young oysters— spat—need to set on substrate, which includes sediment, hard bottom, structures underlying the waters, and associated biological communities. Once oysters have set, they can grow to 1 inch within as little as six weeks and generally reach harvest size (3 inches) in about 18-24 months. Oysters between 1-3 inches are known as “seed” oysters. Harvest size oysters are known as “sack” oysters. Oyster reefs include spat, seed, and sack oysters, as well as “culch”—hard material such as shells or rocks placed on the water bottom to create or enhance a hard surface.

When harvesting, harvesters keep only the sack oysters and return the remaining spat, seed, and cultch to the reef. Because harvesting can damage substrate, periodic and managed “clutching” is required to support sustainable reefs. Cultching involves actively adding cultch to existing oyster reefs. The extent to which maintenance and clutching is required varies by region and state.

Oysters in Florida are harvested through hand-tonging, by which fishermen use tongs to harvest oysters from reefs and then separate out sack oysters on board. Mechanical dredging is more commonly used to harvest oysters in Louisiana and Texas; oysters are likewise brought on board and separated after being dredged.

Oyster harvesting and production are regulated at the state level, but must comply with guidelines published by the Food and Drug Administration’s National Shellfish Sanitation Program. Oyster temperature conditions are closely monitored throughout the process in order to reduce the risk of disease. Shortly after harvesting, oysters must be refrigerated.

When Webb’s purchases Texas and Louisiana oysters, they arrive refrigerated. When it purchases Florida oysters, the oysters have already been culled, washed, graded, bagged, and tagged. Webb’s maintains a separate facility in Eastpoint, Florida to receive oysters, refrigerate them, and transport them to its Youngstown facility for processing.

c. Processing and Shucking

Oysters are refrigerated at Webb’s until they are ready to processed, although sometimes the processing happens immediately. Oysters are either processed as fully shucked oysters (essentially lumps of oyster meat) or as frozen half shell oysters (oysters with their top shell removed).

First, oysters are moved on conveyer belt and sprayed with water and sent in a single layer to a hot water tank.

Second, the oysters go through a “heat-shock” process. Heat shocking is a process in which oysters are subject to controlled, temporary exposure to hot water in order to weaken their muscles and make them easier for shuckers to open. The process must be highly controlled in order to avoid cooking or killing the oysters. The process is designed not to alter any physical or organoleptic characteristics of the shellfish.

During the heat-shock process, oysters are placed in hot water (around 145-152 degrees Fahrenheit) for short periods (less than 5 minutes). The exact times and temperatures vary according to oyster size and grade.

[1004]*1004Third, after some time, the oysters pass in a single layer on another conveyor belt where they begin cooling and are delivered to the shucking table.

Fourth, in the Shucking Room, oyster shuckers (such as the Plaintiffs) manually open the oyster shells using a knife, extract the meat from the oyster, and place the meat into buckets full of ice slush. For frozen half-shell oysters, the shuckers remove only the tops hell and place the half-shell on a different conveyor belt.

Fifth, the oysters are weighed, inspected, and packed into cold storage.

Sixth, the finished product is distributed in refrigerated trucks.

III. PROCEDURE

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Related

Cordova v. R & A Oysters, Inc.
101 F. Supp. 3d 1192 (S.D. Alabama, 2015)
Bojorquez-Moreno v. Shores & Ruark Seafood Co.
92 F. Supp. 3d 459 (E.D. Virginia, 2015)

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Bluebook (online)
49 F. Supp. 3d 1001, 2014 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 127021, 2014 WL 4452228, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/araiza-calzada-v-webbs-seafood-inc-flnd-2014.