On June 5, 2005, attorneys with the Legal Aid Justice Center, the Southern Poverty Law Center and the Virginia Justice Center for Farm and Immigrant Workers filed a class action lawsuit on behalf of a group of over 1500 migrant workers in the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Georgia against their former employer, Eller and Sons Trees, Inc. Plaintiffs, who were from Guatemala, Honduras, and Mexico, were admitted to the U.S. under the H-2B temporary farm worker program. The plaintiffs alleged that they planted trees and performed other forestry related work for the defendant, but that the defendant took advantage of them by grossly underpaying them in violation of the Migrant and Seasonal Agricultural Worker Protection Act (AWPA) and the Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA). The case was assigned to Judge Clarence Cooper.

The District Court granted class certification on September 28, 2006. Leon-Granados v. Eller and Sons Trees, Inc., 2006 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 73781 (N.D. Ga. Sept. 28, 2006). That same day, Judge Cooper issued a discovery order and held that the applicable statute of limitations for the AWPA claims was six years. Leon-Granados v. Eller and Sons Trees, Inc., 452 F.Supp.2d 1282 (N.D. Ga. 2006). Defendants appealed the class certification order. The Eleventh Circuit affirmed the order granting class certification. De Leon-Granados v. Eller and Sons Trees, Inc. 2007 WL 2456206 (11th Cir. Aug. 31, 2007).

While the case was on appeal, discovery continued, as the District Court refused defendants' request to stay the case proceedings. On November 15, 2007, plaintiffs moved for partial summary judgment on one of their multiple claims under FLSA--their claim for reimbursement of passport, visa and travel expenses incurred in coming to work for Defendants--as well as on their claim of non-compliance with the AWPA. On October 7, 2008, the court granted Plaintiffs' partial summary judgment motion for the FLSA claim. De Leon-Granados v. Eller & Sons Trees, Inc., 581 F. Supp. 2d 1295, 1313 (N.D. Ga. 2008). The court found that Eller and Sons failed to reimburse their guest workers for travel and visa expenses incurred when they came to the United States to work for the company, failed to provide them all the hours of work they were promised in their H-2B work contracts, and failed to maintain accurate records of the hours they worked. Plaintiffs were awarded $57,001.28 in damages (after court granted plaintiffs' motion to correct summary judgment order). However, the Court was unable to rule on the AWPA claim. The defendants had moved to strike the plaintiffs' expert witness, a veteran wage and hour investigator who had reviewed the defendants' records. Without that testimony, the Court could not rule on the AWPA claim, so it would have to wait until the motion was resolved.

On October 30, 2008, the defendants withdrew their motion to strike the plaintiffs' expert witness. They then moved for an interlocutory appeal on November 4, 2008.

The interlocutory appeal was fought over until September 14, 2009 when the Court denied the appeal because (1) it "would not materially advance the ultimate termination of this litigation," and (2) final judgment would likely follow a damages hearing, and the defendants could just appeal then. 2009 WL 10696537. In the same order, the Court granted the plaintiffs' motion for partial summary judgement on the AWPA claim, holding that the defendants' payroll had failed to meet the AWPA requirements. It found that, following testimony by the plaintiffs' expert witness, there was no genuine issue of material fact that the defendants had kept inaccurate records and were sometimes intentionally underreporting workers' hours to evade wage payment obligations.

The plaintiffs submitted an amended complaint on July 22, 2010, clarifying requested damages. They then moved for statutory damages on August 6, 2010.

The defendant filed for bankruptcy on September 23, 2010, but the Court ordered on November 4, 2010 that litigation would proceed anyway. The parties proceeded with negotiations in the U.S. Bankruptcy Court for the District of Montana until June 4, 2012 when that court issued an order that the parties had come to a settlement agreement.

Back in the district court, on September 28, 2012, Judge Cooper granted the plaintiffs' motion for statutory damages pursuant to the AWPA claim. Finding that the defendants were clearly aware of the requirements but willfully ignored them, that these were far more than "mere technical violations," and that each class member would be receiving only a small amount, he awarded statutory damages to the plaintiff class near to the maximum allowable: $499,858.74. 2012 WL 13065433. On October 29, 2012, he then issued a final judgment for the plaintiffs, granting full damages in excess of $11 million.

Dan Dalton - 11/16/2007
Jennifer Bronson - 12/13/2013
Jack Kanarek - 04/17/2021


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