Eduardo Reyes-Trujillo, Gerardo Santiago-Hernandez, Miguel Angel Martinez-Barragan, Santos Bruno-Cruz, Pablo Mateo-Velazquez, and Andres Ponciano-Serna, Plaintiffs, v. Four Star Greenhouse, Inc. and Thomas Smith, Defendants., 513 F. Supp. 3d 761

Summary

HOLDINGS: [1]-Plaintiffs, migrant workers from Mexico who came to the U.S. in 2017 and 2018 on H-2A agricultural visas, sufficiently established that defendant corporation was their joint employer under the FLSA; [2]-Individual corporate officers, like the individual defendant here, may also be held liable for violations under the FLSA by a corporation. At this stage, plaintiffs' allegations were sufficient to establish that he possessed sufficient ownership and control over the corporation to qualify as plaintiffs' "employer" under the FLSA; [3]-Among other matters, the court held that because plaintiffs had sufficiently alleged that defendants were their joint employers under FLSA, defendants were jointly and severally liable with a labor contractor for compliance with all applicable provisions of the Act. Defendants' were therefore liable for the contractor's willful FLSA violations.