The state of Washington filed this lawsuit in the Superior Court of the State of Washington for Pierce County on September 20, 2017. The state sued The GEO Group, Inc., the for-profit corporation that operated the Northwest Detention Center. It claimed that GEO’s policy of paying immigrant detainees involved in the federal Voluntary Work Program only $1 per day for their labor violated the Washington Minimum Wage Act (MWA), which set the minimum wage at $11 per hour. The state sought injunctive and declaratory relief. On October 9, 2017, the defendant removed this case to the U.S. District Court for the Western District of Washington. The case was assigned to Judge Robert J. Bryan.
On October 16, 2017, GEO moved to dismiss the complaint for failure to state a claim. GEO alleged that federal law, which allowed for immigrant detainees to be paid $1 per day, superseded the MWA, a state law. The defendant also alleged that immigrant detainees did not count as employees under the MWA. On December 6, 2017, the court denied the defendant’s motion to dismiss. 283 F. Supp. 3d 967 (W.D. Wash. 2017). The court reasoned that federal law did not necessarily conflict with the MWA, so it might not preempt it. The court also reasoned that immigrant detainees may be employees under the MWA because the statute stated only that state detainees were not employees; it said nothing about federal detainees.
On December 20, 2017, the defendant answered the state’s complaint with several counterclaims and affirmative defenses. GEO claimed that the state would be unjustly enriched if detainees were paid minimum wage, as detainees’ costs of living were paid for by the detention center. So, in the event of any award to the plaintiff, GEO sought an offset for services that it provided to detainees. It also sought declaratory and injunctive relief. Washington filed a motion to dismiss or strike most of the counterclaims and affirmative defenses on January 10, 2018. On February 28, 2018, the court granted the motion to dismiss in part and denied it in part. The court dismissed the defendant’s unjust enrichment claim and struck several of its affirmative defenses. The court did not dismiss the defendant’s claims for declaratory and injunctive relief. 2018 WL 1083826
On March 20, 2018, GEO filed a motion to either dismiss the case for failure to join required government parties or, alternatively, to join those government parties. GEO had a contract with the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) and U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), a subagency within DHS, that controlled how it managed the detention center, and it alleged that paying minimum wage when the standard for ICE’s Voluntary Work Program was $1 per day would violate that contract. Because they had a stake in the case’s outcome, GEO alleged that DHS and ICE needed to be joined as parties. On April 26, 2018, the court denied this motion in its entirety and held that DHS and ICE were not necessary parties because the contract did not directly conflict with the MWA. The court also reasoned that DHS and ICE were not interested in getting involved in the case, which they must have known about because GEO was contractually obligated to have informed them of the litigation. 2018 WL 1963792
On November 8, 2018, GEO filed a motion for summary judgment on the plaintiff's first cause of action, arguing that the application of the MWA to the operation of a federal detention facility was forbidden by the Supremacy Clause's intergovernmental immunity doctrine. On December 10, 2018, Judge Bryan denied summary judgment because the doctrine of intergovernmental immunity does not shield GEO from application of the MWA. 2018 WL 6448778
On May 13, 2019, Judge Bryan granted partial summary judgment, dismissing GEO's affirmative defenses of laches, unclean hands, and failure to join necessary parties. 2019 WL 2084463
On July 2, 2019, GEO filed a motion for summary judgment, arguing it should have derivative sovereign immunity, since the federal government directed GEO to only pay detainees $1/day. That same day, the state filed a motion for partial summary judgment on the MWA claim and GEO's preemption defense. On August, 6, 2019, Judge Bryan entered an order denying GEO's motion and granting the plaintiff's motion only as to the preemption defense. 2019 WL 3565105
On January 21, 2020, Judge Bryan set a jury trial date for April 13, 2020 and as of March 29, 2020, the case is still ongoing.
Rebecca Strauss - 05/24/2018
Caitlin Kierum - 03/29/2020
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