Fowler Packing Company, Inc. v. David Lanier

844 F.3d 809, 27 Wage & Hour Cas.2d (BNA) 240, 2016 U.S. App. LEXIS 22627, 2016 WL 7367831
Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit·Decided December 20, 2016·No. 16-16236·Published·Cited by 30 cases

Opinion

OPINION

GOULD, Circuit Judge:

In response to recent state appellate court decisions that exposed employers to significant and unexpected minimum wage liability, California passed Assembly Bill 1513 (AB 1513). This law created a “safe harbor” that gave employers an affirmative defense against the new claims so long as the employer made back payments under certain conditions. AB 1513 allowed the employers to avoid the costs and statutory penalties that they would otherwise face as a result of underpayment litigation. The legislation, however, also included specific “carve-outs” that were crafted such that three or four employers would be precluded from using the safe harbor in then-pending litigation against them. Plaintiffs Fowler Packing Company, Inc. (Fowler) and Gerawan Farming, Inc. (Ger-awan), assert that the legislature added these carve-outs to AB 1513 to obtain the necessary support of a labor union. Plaintiffs brought suit against Defendants, who *812 are California officials, asserting that the carve-outs violated the Bill of Attainder Clause and the Equal Protection Clause of the United States Constitution, as well as Article IV, Section 16 of the California Constitution. The district court dismissed their complaint as to all claims. Plaintiffs appeal the dismissal of their federal constitutional claims only.

We have jurisdiction to review the district court’s order under 28 U.S.C. § 1291. We hold that Plaintiffs’ complaint states a plausible claim for relief under the Equal Protection Clause, but fails to state a plausible claim that AB 1513’s carve-outs amount to a bill of attainder. The panel has previously filed an order on December 9, 2016, stating:

We conclude that the district court correctly dismissed the bill of attainder claim, but erroneously dismissed the equal protection claim. We therefore AFFIRM in part and REVERSE in part, and REMAND the case to the district court for further proceedings with respect to the equal protection claim only. A written opinion giving the court’s reasoning will follow in. due course.
The time for filing any petition for rehearing or petition for rehearing en banc shall be extended and shall not begin to run until the court has filed its written opinion giving its reasoning.

We now in this opinion provide our reasoning and note that the time for filing any petition for rehearing ór rehearing en banc shall run from the filed date of this opinion.

I

Plaintiffs’ complaint asserts the following facts. Fowler and Gerawan are California corporations engaged in the agriculture business that pay some of their employees on a “piece-rate” basis. Piece-rate payment is a system in which employees are compensated according to tasks completed rather than hours worked. Relying on the then-prevailing interpretation of federal minimum wage statutes, Plaintiffs ensured they met California minimum, wage laws by averaging their piece-rate employees’ payment during a fixed period of time and supplementing any deficiency below the applicable state minimum wage. In 2013, two California Court of Appeal decisions, Gonzalez v. Downtown LA Motors, LP, 215 Cal.App.4th 36, 155 Cal.Rptr.3d 18 (2013), and Bluford v. Safeway Stores, Inc., 216 Cal.App.4th 864, 157 Cal.Rptr.3d 212 (2013), held that piece-rate workers must also be paid for each hour of “nonproductive time”—time in which a worker was at work but not completing a task— and for rest, recovery, and meal periods. According to Plaintiffs’ complaint, these decisions exposed many employers, including Plaintiffs, to unanticipated and potentially crippling class litigation.

In response, California enacted Assembly Bill 1513 (AB 1513) on October 10, 2015, which codified the holdings in Gonzalez and Bluford. Cal. Lab. Code § 226.2(a). To protect California businesses from unforeseen liability arising from Gonzalez and Bluford, however, AB 1513 also created a “safe harbor” that provided employers with an affirmative defense against claims alleging failure to pay previously for nonproductive work time. Cal. Lab. Code § 226.2(b). Employers can use the safe harbor so long as they pay, no later than December 15, 2016, any minimum wage deficiencies occurring between July 1, 2012, and December 31, 2015. Cal. Lab. Code § 226.2(b)(1)(A).

But another provision of AB 1513, set forth in Cal. Lab. Code § 226.2(g), makes certain defendants facing nonproductive work time claims ineligible for the safe *813 harbor. One of these “carve-outs” makes a defendant ineligible if facing:

[c]laims based on the failure to provide paid rest or recovery periods or pay for other nonproductive time for which all of the following are true:
(A) The claim was asserted in a court pleading filed prior to March 1, 2014, or was asserted in an amendment to 'a claim that relates back to a court pleading filed prior to March 1, 2014, and the amendment or permission for amendment was filed prior to July 1, 2015.
(B) The claim was asserted against a defendant named with specificity and joined as a defendant, other than as an unnamed (DOE) defendant ... in the pleading referred to in subparagraph (A), or another pleading or amendment filed in the same action prior to January 1, 2015.

Cal. Lab. Code § 226.2(g)(2). Section 226.2(g)(2) makes Gerawan ineligible to assert the safe, harbor as an affirmative defense in a class action suit filed against it by the .General Counsel of the United Farm Workers of America (UFW) on February 3, 2014, Amaro v. Gerawan Farming, Inc., No. 1:14-cv-00147-DAD-SAB (E.D. Cal.). It also would have precluded Delano Farms Company (Delano), another agricultural company that is not a party to this litigation, from asserting the safe harbor as an affirmative defense in a class action suit filed against it by the UFW, in which the plaintiffs filed a motion for leave to add nonproductive time allegations to their complaint on June 22, 2015, Arredondo v. Delano Farms Company, No. 1:09— cv-01247-MJS (E.D. Cal.). 1

Still another carve-out provision precludes the use of the safe harbor as an affirmative defense by a defendant facing:

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Fowler Packing Company, Inc. v. David Lanier, 844 F.3d 809, 27 Wage & Hour Cas.2d (BNA) 240, 2016 U.S. App. LEXIS 22627, 2016 WL 7367831 (9th Cir. 2016).

844 F.3d 809 (Fowler Packing Company, Inc. v. David Lanier) — published by Counsel Stack Legal Research, free access to 12M+ legal documents.

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