FOR PUBLICATION

UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS

FOR THE NINTH CIRCUIT

LUIS MORALES-GARCIA; BENITO 

PEREZ-REYEZ; CESAR JIMENEZMENDOZA; GABRIELA RENDONVASQUEZ; JUANA VELASCOTORRES, on behalf of themselves and 

all others similarly situated, 

Plaintiffs-Appellants,

 v. 

BETTER PRODUCE, INC.; RED 

BLOSSOM SALES, INC., 

Defendants-Appellees.

No. 22-55119 

D.C. No. 

2:18-cv-05118-

SVW-JPR 

OPINION

Appeal from the United States District Court

for the Central District of California

Stephen V. Wilson, District Judge, Presiding

Argued and Submitted February 10, 2023

Pasadena, California

Filed June 1, 2023

Before: Mary M. Schroeder, Richard C. Tallman, and 

Sandra S. Ikuta, Circuit Judges.

Opinion by Judge Schroeder
2 MORALES-GARCIA V. BETTER PRODUCE, INC.

SUMMARY*

California Labor Code

The panel affirmed the district court’s ruling in favor of 

defendants Red Blossom Sales, Inc. and Better Produce, 

Inc., after a bench trial, in a case that concerns the 

application of a California labor law enacted to protect 

workers whose labor has been outsourced to a labor 

provider.

Under the statute, Cal. Labor Code § 2810.3(a)(1)-(3), 

(6), the outsourcing entity, known as a “client employer,” is 

liable for the laborers’ wages if the laborers’ work is within 

the outsourcers’ “usual course of business.” In this case, the 

plaintiffs are agricultural workers hired by strawberry 

growers (“the Growers”) to pick the fruit that was then 

turned over to Red Blossom and Better Produce (“the 

Marketers”) for distribution. 

The plaintiffs sought to hold the Marketers liable for 

their wages as “client employers.” The Marketers cooled 

and sold the berries principally to large retail grocery 

chains. The Marketers conducted their cooling and 

distribution operations on premises that were close to but 

separate from the farms. In 2018, the Growers stopped 

paying the plaintiffs and later filed for bankruptcy. The 

plaintiffs sued the Growers and the Marketers as joint 

employers under California and federal law. The plaintiffs 

also sued the Marketers as client employers under California 

* This summary constitutes no part of the opinion of the court. It has 

been prepared by court staff for the convenience of the reader.
MORALES-GARCIA V. BETTER PRODUCE, INC. 3

Labor Code § 2810.3. The district court ruled for the 

Marketers on all theories. The plaintiffs appealed only with 

respect to the Marketers’ liability under § 2810.3.

The panel held that the plaintiffs were not performing 

labor within the Marketers’ “usual course of business” as 

defined by the statute. That term is defined as “the regular 

and customary work of a business, performed within or upon 

the premises or worksite of the client employer.” The panel 

held that the district court correctly ruled that by requiring 

the work to take place on the premises of the client employer, 

the legislature required that a client employer exercise some 

element of control over the place where the laborers 

work. Given the particular facts of this case, the panel 

concluded that the plaintiffs’ work took place on the farms 

where the strawberries were grown, not on the premises or 

worksites of the Marketers, and that the Marketers are 

therefore not liable as client employers under § 2810.3.

COUNSEL

Verónica Meléndez (argued), Cecilia Guevara Zamora, and 

Cynthia L. Rice, California Rural Legal Assistance 

Foundation, Sacramento, California, for PlaintiffsAppellants.

Steven B. Katz (argued), Constangy Brooks Smith & 

Prophete LLP, Los Angeles, California; Vincent T. 

Martinez, Twitchell and Rice LLP, Santa Maria, California; 

Todd C. Hunt, Law Office of Todd C. Hunt APC, Westlake, 

Village, California; for Defendant-Appellee Better Produce 

Inc.
4 MORALES-GARCIA V. BETTER PRODUCE, INC.

Effie F. Anastassiou (argued), Anastassiou & Associates, 

Salinas, California; Jason W. Kearnaghan, Nora K. 

Stilestein, and Richard J. Simmons, Sheppard Mullin 

Richter & Hampton LLP, Los Angeles, California; for 

Defendant-Appellee Red Blossom Sales Inc.

George A. Warner, Legal Aid at Work, San Francisco, 

California; Catherine K. Ruckelshaus, National 

Employment Law Project Inc., New York, New York; for 

Amici Curiae Legal Aid at Work and National Employment 

Law Project.

Robert G. Hulteng, Damon M. Ott, and Alvin Arceo, Littler 

Mendelson P.C., for Amici Curiae Western Growers 

Association, Ventura County Agricultural Association, 

Grower-Shipper Association of Santa Barbara and San Luis 

Obispo Counties, Grower-Shipper Association of Central 

California, California Strawberry Commission, and the 

California Fresh Fruit Association.
MORALES-GARCIA V. BETTER PRODUCE, INC. 5

OPINION

SCHROEDER, Circuit Judge:

This appeal concerns the application of a California labor 

law enacted in 2014 to protect workers whose labor has been 

outsourced to a labor provider. Under the statute, the 

outsourcing entity, known as a “client employer,” is liable 

for the laborers’ wages if the laborers’ work is within the 

outsourcers’ “usual course of business.” Cal. Labor Code § 

2810.3(a)(1)-(3), (6). In this case, the Plaintiffs-Appellants 

are agricultural workers hired by strawberry growers (“the 

Growers”) to pick the fruit that was then turned over to the 

Defendants-Appellees Red Blossom Sales, Inc. and Better 

Produce, Inc. (“the Marketers”) for distribution. 

Appellants seek to hold the Marketers liable for their 

wages as “client employers.” The Marketers cooled and sold 

the berries principally to large retail grocery chains. The 

Marketers conducted their cooling and distribution 

operations on premises that were close to but separate from 

the farms. 

In 2018, the Growers stopped paying Appellants and 

later filed for bankruptcy. Appellants sued the Growers and 

the Marketers as joint employers under California and 

federal law. Appellants also sued the Marketers as client 

employers under California Labor Code § 2810.3. The 

district court ruled for the Marketers on all theories. 

Appellants appeal only with respect to the Marketers’ 

liability under § 2810.3. 

We affirm because we hold that Appellants were not 

performing labor within the Marketers’ “usual course of 

business” as defined by the statute. That term is defined as 
6 MORALES-GARCIA V. BETTER PRODUCE, INC.

“the regular and customary work of a business, performed 

within or upon the premises or worksite of the client 

employer.” Cal. Labor Code § 2810.3(a)(6). Given the 

particular facts of this case, we conclude that Appellants’ 

work took place on the farms where the strawberries were 

grown, not on the premises or worksites of the Marketers. 

The Marketers are therefore not liable as client employers 

under California Labor Code § 2810.3. 

I. Statutory Background

The California Legislature enacted § 2810.3 to establish 

a new form of liability for employers, termed “client 

employers,” who obtain workers from third-party 

contractors. The statute defines “client employer” as “a 

business entity, regardless of its form, that obtains or is 

provided workers to perform labor within its usual course of 

business from a labor contractor.” Cal. Labor Code 

§ 2810.3(a)(1)(A). A third-party contractor who supplies 

workers to the client employer is considered a “labor 

contractor” and is defined in the statute as “an individual or 

entity that supplies, either with or without a contract, a client 

employer with workers to perform labor within the client 

employer’s usual course of business.” Id. § 2810.3(a)(3).

The statute’s definitions are central to our analysis. They 

limit the scope of the statute by requiring the workers to 

perform labor “within the client employer’s usual course of 

business.” Id. The statute in turn defines “usual course of 

business” as “the regular and customary work of a business, 

performed within or upon the premises or worksite of the 

client employer.” Id. § 2810.3(a)(6). 

The legislative history of the statute indicates that client 

employer liability was created to address the growing 

business model where a business uses a contractor to supply 
MORALES-GARCIA V. BETTER PRODUCE, INC. 7

workers who are supervised and paid by the contractor, but 

appear to be employees of the business. In a post-hearing 

summary, the California Assembly Committee on Labor and 

Employment described the problem as follows:

We walk into a Marriott and assume that the 

people who greet us at the front desk or who 

clean our rooms each day are employees of 

the venerable brand (as their uniforms 

imply). We greet the technicians sent to our 

home to fix our cable, not even questioning 

whether they work for the media company to 

whom we pay our bills. In short, we assume 

that the companies who invest millions of 

dollars to convince us of the benefits of 

buying products under their retail nameplate 

or to purchase the unique services they offer 

also undertake the operations needed to 

produce them—including acting as the 

employer of all the inter-connected people 

who make their business possible. Those 

assumptions are increasingly wrong[.]

Hearing on AB 1897 Before the Assemb. Comm. on Labor 

and Emp’t, Cal. H. at 2 (Apr. 23, 2014) (quoting DAVID 

WEIL, THE FISSURED WORKPLACE: WHY WORK BECAME SO 

BAD FOR SO MANY AND WHAT CAN BE DONE TO IMPROVE IT 

3-4 (2014)). Section 2810.3 thus makes the client employer 

responsible for paying the workers it uses in its business.

II. Factual Background

Appellants are farmworkers who harvested strawberries 

in Santa Barbara County, California in 2016 and 2017. 

Appellants were hired by three farms that grew the berries: 
8 MORALES-GARCIA V. BETTER PRODUCE, INC.

Higuera Farms, Inc., Big F Company, Inc., and La Cuesta 

Farming Company, Inc. (“the Growers”). The Marketers 

held master leases to the farmlands and subleased them to 

the Growers. 

The Marketers were each licensed by the U.S. 

Department of Agriculture to sell produce as a “commission 

merchant.” Such a license is required for any entity that buys 

or sells more than 2,000 pounds of fresh or frozen fruits and 

vegetables in a given day. See 7 U.S.C. § 499a(b)(5)-(6); 7 

C.F.R. § 46.2(x). The Marketers entered into yearly 

marketing and sublease agreements with the Growers, which 

specified that the land would be used only to grow 

strawberries and that the Marketers retained the exclusive 

right to sell the strawberries to their retail customers. 

Under their agreements with the Marketers, the Growers 

were responsible for preparing and cultivating the land and 

for supervising and controlling the workers. The Marketers 

provided the Growers with packaging materials, 

communicated with them about the quantity of the 

strawberries produced, and had the strawberries placed into 

containers with the Marketers’ labels on them. The 

Marketers retained the right to enter the lands to conduct 

inspections of the strawberries. Red Blossom’s retail 

customers required Red Blossom to conduct additional food 

safety compliance inspections, including random food safety

audits, and to pay for a third-party audit. The Growers 

conducted the actual farming operations and supervised 

Appellants’ work. 

Once the Appellants completed harvesting and packing 

the berries, the Marketers were then responsible for cooling 

and selling them. As commission merchants, the Marketers 

had the sole authority to make decisions regarding the sale 
MORALES-GARCIA V. BETTER PRODUCE, INC. 9

of the strawberries. After deducting their commission fee, 

cooling fee, and the cost of packaging materials, the 

Marketers paid the remaining sale proceeds to the Growers. 

Better Produce also provided financial advances to the 

Growers to cover worker payroll and other operating 

expenses, and these were also deducted from the proceeds of 

the sales. Under the sublease agreements, the Marketers 

retained the right to enter the lands if the Growers filed for 

insolvency, stopped growing the crop, or failed to follow 

“customary practices” for growing the berries. 

This lawsuit arose after the Growers failed to pay the 

wages of the workers who grew and harvested the berries. 

In 2018, the workers filed a class action lawsuit against both 

the Growers and the Marketers, alleging wage and hour 

violations. Plaintiffs’ complaint alleged the Marketers were 

liable as joint employers under federal and California law 

and as client employers under California Labor Code § 

2810.3. While the proceedings were ongoing, the Growers 

filed for bankruptcy. The district court denied the 

Marketers’ motion for summary judgment. The parties 

agreed to bifurcate the trial, with all issues related to the 

Growers’ liability to be tried later by a jury. The Marketers’ 

liability was to be determined first in a bench trial. The twoday bench trial took place in February 2020 and the district 

court entered judgment in favor of the Marketers under Fed. 

R. Civ. P. 54(b). Morales-Garcia v. Higuera Farms, Inc., 

No. 2:18-cv-05118, 2021 WL 6774327, at *45 (C.D. Cal. 

Oct. 15, 2021). 

In a comprehensive order explaining its decision, the 

district court first looked to whether the Marketers were joint 

employers under federal or California law. Plaintiffs’ 

federal claim had asserted that the Marketers employed them 

and failed to pay their wages in violation of the Migrant and 
10 MORALES-GARCIA V. BETTER PRODUCE, INC.

Seasonal Agricultural Worker Protection Act (“AWPA”), 29 

U.S.C. § 1801-1872. Id. at *3-4. The district court analyzed 

the AWPA claim under the U.S. Department of Labor’s 

regulation establishing the “economic reality” test. 29 

C.F.R. § 500.20(h)(5)(iii). It provides: “In determining 

whether or not an employment relationship exists between 

the agricultural employer/association and the agricultural 

worker, the ultimate question to be determined is the 

economic reality—whether the worker is so economically 

dependent upon the agricultural employer/association as to 

be considered its employee.” Id. The regulation also 

contains a non-exhaustive list of factors to guide a court’s 

analysis of whether such economic dependency exists. The 

list includes whether the agricultural employer had the 

power to “direct, control, or supervise the worker(s) or the 

work performed.” Id. § 500.20(h)(5)(iv)(A). 

The district court concluded that Plaintiffs were not 

economically dependent on the Marketers. The court, after 

the bench trial, found that the Marketers did not supervise 

the workers in planting, cultivating, harvesting, or packing 

the strawberries, nor did they control decisions related to 

Plaintiffs’ work assignments. Morales-Garcia, 2021 WL 

6774327, at *12-14. The Marketers were therefore not joint 

employers under federal law. 

In evaluating Plaintiffs’ claim of joint employer liability 

under California law, the court looked to the seminal case, 

Martinez v. Combs, 231 P.3d 259 (Cal. 2010), to conclude 

that Plaintiffs failed to meet their burden. Morales-Garcia, 

2021 WL 6774327 at *27-28, 34. The facts in Martinez were 

similar to the facts here in that the case involved the 

relationship between agricultural workers, a strawberry 

farmer, and strawberry merchants. 231 P.3d at 262-63. The 

farmer subleased land from one of the strawberry merchants 
MORALES-GARCIA V. BETTER PRODUCE, INC. 11

in order to grow and harvest the berries. Id. at 263. The 

California Supreme Court held that the merchants who sold 

the berries were not joint employers of the workers. Id. The 

merchants did not supervise or control the work; the farmer 

had the “exclusive power to hire and fire his workers, to set 

their wages and hours, and to tell them when and where to 

work.” Id. at 282. The district court here similarly 

concluded that the Marketers were not joint employers under 

California law because they did not exercise control over 

Plaintiffs’ wages, hours, or working conditions. MoralesGarcia, 2021 WL 6774327, at *28-34. 

The district court then turned to the California labor 

statute, § 2810.3, to determine whether the Marketers were 

liable as client employers. The court focused on the key 

statutory provision, the definition of “usual course of 

business,” that requires the work performed by Plaintiffs to 

be the “regular and customary work” of the Marketers and 

to take place on the Marketers’ “premises or worksite.” Cal. 

Labor Code § 2810.3(a)(6).1

1 The statute in relevant part reads as follows: 

(a) As used in this section:

(1)(A) “Client employer” means a business entity, 

regardless of its form, that obtains or is provided 

workers to perform labor within its usual course of 

business from a labor contractor. . . 

(3) “Labor contractor” means an individual or entity 

that supplies, either with or without a contract, a client 

employer with workers to perform labor within the 

client employer’s usual course of business. . . 

(6) “Usual course of business” means the regular and 

customary work of a business, performed within or 

upon the premises or worksite of the client employer.
12 MORALES-GARCIA V. BETTER PRODUCE, INC.

Plaintiffs advanced several arguments to support their 

position that their work harvesting the strawberries was part 

of the “regular and customary work” of the Marketers. The 

district court rejected Plaintiffs’ most sweeping argument: 

that harvesting strawberries was within the regular and 

customary work of the Marketers because the berries had to 

be picked in order for the Marketers to conduct their sales 

business. Morales-Garcia, 2021 WL 6774327, at *38-42. 

The court viewed that theory to be too broad because it 

would create liability for every downstream entity dealing 

with the fruit in the course of conducting business, ultimately 

including even the supermarket chains selling the berries to 

customers. Id. Nothing in the language or history of the 

statute suggested such breadth.

The court therefore looked further to examine whether 

the work performed by Plaintiffs was done on the “premises 

or worksite” of the Marketers. In the absence of any 

authoritative ruling by a California appellate court, the 

district court looked to the language of the statute and to its 

purpose. The court examined the legislative history, 

including the example of hotels that use subcontracted 

workers on their premises to perform housekeeping. Id. at 

*42. The court also focused on the legislative intent to 

protect workers from labor violations. Id. The court 

reasoned that in requiring the subcontracted laborers’ work 

to be performed on the client employer’s premises, the 

legislature sought to confer liability on entities that could 

reasonably be expected to prevent labor violations because 

they exercised sufficient control over the premises. Id.

The court thus examined the degree of control the 

Marketers’ exercised over the location of the work, i.e., the 

farms. The court found from the trial record that the 

Growers had sole control over managing the workers and 
MORALES-GARCIA V. BETTER PRODUCE, INC. 13

cultivating the farms, and that the control the Marketers 

exercised over the farms was “consistent with the 

relationship between a sublessor and sublessee.” Id. at *43. 

The court also examined the degree to which the Marketers 

monitored the agricultural operations on the farms and 

concluded it was consistent with the Marketers’ concern for 

quality control and not evidence of control over the farming 

operations themselves. Thus, the district court concluded 

that the Marketers were also not liable as client employers 

under California Labor Code § 2810.3. Id. at *37. 

Plaintiffs-Appellants appeal only this ruling. They 

primarily contend that the district court erred in requiring 

control over the laborers’ work to establish liability under § 

2810.3. They argue such control is relevant only to joint 

employer liability, not liability under the California statute. 

We hold that the district court correctly ruled that by 

requiring the work to take place on the premises of the client 

employer, the legislature required that a client employer 

exercise some element of control over the place where the 

laborers work.

III. Analysis

Plaintiffs-Appellants’ major contention is that the 

district court erred in applying any form of a control test 

when interpreting the statutory requirement that the work 

take place on the client employer’s premises or worksite. 

They correctly point out that the word “control” is not in the 

statute and that a control test was used by the California 

Supreme Court in Martinez, 231 P.3d at 283-87, in an almost 

identical factual situation to hold that strawberry merchants 

were not joint employers of agricultural workers who picked 

the berries. Plaintiffs-Appellants argue that it was error for 

the district court to apply a control test here because in 
14 MORALES-GARCIA V. BETTER PRODUCE, INC.

enacting § 2810.3, the California legislature sought to 

provide for broader liability than discussed in Martinez. 

Plaintiffs-Appellants confuse the control test used in 

Martinez with the control test used by the district court. In 

Martinez, the issue before the California Supreme Court was 

whether merchants of strawberries were liable as joint 

employers for the unpaid wages of the agricultural workers 

who picked the berries. 231 P.3d at 267-68. The workers 

were employed by a farmer who entered into agreements 

with the merchants to sell the berries harvested on the farms. 

Id. at 262-65. The court applied the definition of “employer” 

in the California Industrial Welfare Commission’s wage 

order to determine whether an employment relationship 

existed. Id. at 277. The wage order, No. 9-2001, defined 

employer as “any person . . . who directly or indirectly, or 

through an agent or any other person, employs or exercises 

control over the wages, hours, or working conditions of any 

person.” Id. (citing Cal. Code Regs., tit. 8 § 11090, subd. 

2(G)). 

We have consistently applied a similar control of work 

test to determine whether an employment relationship exists 

under California law. See Salazar v. McDonald’s Corp., 944 

F.3d 1024, 1029-30 (9th Cir. 2019); Alexander v. FedEx 

Ground Package Sys., Inc., 765 F.3d 981, 988-994 (9th Cir. 

2014). The Restatement of Employment Law also adopts a 

control test and states that an individual is an employee if 

“the employer controls the manner and means by which the 

individual renders services[.]” RESTATEMENT OF EMP’T L. § 

1.01(a)(3) (AM. L. INST. 2015). 

The California Supreme Court in Martinez applied the 

control of work test to hold that the merchants were not liable 

because there was no evidence they either directly or 
MORALES-GARCIA V. BETTER PRODUCE, INC. 15

indirectly exercised control over the agricultural workers’ 

wages, hours, or working conditions. 231 P.3d at 283-87. It 

was undisputed that the farmer of the strawberries exercised 

control over the workers and the contracts between the 

merchants and the farmer explicitly gave the merchants no 

authority to direct the work of the farmer’s employees. Id. 

at 287. The court stated that the farmer “operated a single, 

integrated business operation, growing and harvesting 

strawberries[,]” he paid the workers out of the combined 

revenues from the strawberry sales, and he alone “hired and 

fired plaintiffs, trained and supervised them, determined 

their rate and manner of pay . . . , and set their hours[.]” Id. 

at 284. The legal question in Martinez was whether the 

Merchants controlled the workers. The California Supreme 

Court held that they did not.

The district court in this case was concerned with a 

different question in order to decide client employer liability 

under § 2810.3. That question was whether the farms where 

Plaintiffs-Appellants harvested strawberries could be said to 

be the premises of the Marketers. Clearly the Marketers did 

not possess the farmlands, because they were subleased to 

the Growers. The question the district court asked was 

whether the Marketers nevertheless exercised sufficient 

control over the farmlands so as to make the lands their 

“premises.” In short, while Martinez and similar authorities 

were concerned about control of the workers, the district 

court for purposes of § 2810.3 was concerned about control 

of the land.

This is because the key issue under § 2810.3 concerns 

where the Plaintiffs-Appellants did the work of harvesting 

the strawberries. In holding the Marketers did not control 

the premises, the district court was not using the same 

control test that the California Supreme Court used in the 
16 MORALES-GARCIA V. BETTER PRODUCE, INC.

joint employment context in Martinez. We have no basis for 

holding the test the district court used was erroneous. 

Plaintiffs-Appellants also reiterate their arguments that 

the farmlands where they worked were the Marketers’ 

premises because the Marketers held the master leases, and 

their subleases to the Growers contained a restriction that the 

land had to be used for farming. The Marketers also retained 

the right to enter the land and take over farming operations 

if the Growers abandoned growing the crop or filed for 

insolvency. Plaintiffs-Appellants contend that the district 

court incorrectly concluded that the relationship between the 

Marketers and the Growers was representative of a typical 

sublessor and sublesee relationship. Plaintiffs-Appellants 

assert that the Marketers relied on the subleases to “create a 

legal fiction of independence” between themselves and the 

Growers to limit their liability for the workers who harvested 

the strawberries. 

The terms of the sublease and marketing agreements 

reflect, however, that the Marketers and Growers were 

separate business entities. While the Marketers held the 

master leases to the farmlands, they did not have the right to 

exercise control over the farms, or to direct the harvesting 

work performed on them. The agreements gave the Growers 

the right to harvest and receive the net profits from the 

berries. The Growers had the sole authority to control the 

farming of the strawberries and to direct PlaintiffsAppellants in the performance of their work. The Marketers’ 

business of cooling and selling the strawberries was not 

conducted on the farms subleased to the Growers. The 

district court aptly pointed to authority that the contractual 

restrictions on land use and the right to regain possession of 

the land upon abandonment are typical in California 

commercial leases. See Cal. Civ. Code § 1997.210; 10 Cal. 
MORALES-GARCIA V. BETTER PRODUCE, INC. 17

Real Est. § 34:59 (4th ed.). Such restrictions do not 

constitute evidence of control that would render the farms 

the premises of the Marketers. 

Plaintiffs-Appellants argue that even if the farms did not 

constitute the “premises” of the Marketers, the farms were 

“worksites” of the Marketers within the meaning of the 

statute. Plaintiffs-Appellants point to the monitoring 

activities the Marketers’ personnel conducted on the farms 

as grounds for reversing the district court. While it is true 

that the Marketers’ personnel went to the farms to inspect 

the berries for quality control and food safety compliance, 

the Plaintiffs-Appellants were not performing work within 

the Marketers’ “usual course of business.” PlaintiffsAppellants did the work of the Growers, who were solely 

responsible for directing the Plaintiffs-Appellants’ work in 

planting, cultivating, and harvesting the fruit. PlaintiffsAppellants’ position is not consistent with the language of 

the statute.

Nor is it consistent with the legislative purpose. The 

legislature’s intent was to impose liability on entities who 

could reasonably be expected to be able to prevent labor 

violations. See Cal. S. Appropriations Comm. Fiscal 

Summary on AB 1897 at 1 (Aug. 14, 2014). Hence, the 

requirement that the work take place on the premises or 

worksite of the client employer. The Marketers’ quality 

control inspections did not enable them to oversee the 

Growers’ compliance with applicable labor laws. Such 

inspections fulfilled the Marketers’ quality control 

obligations to their customers and to the public. The 

obligation of ensuring food safety is one that retailers have 

long required. See Standards for the Growing, Harvesting, 

Packing, and Holding of Produce for Human Consumption, 

80 Fed. Reg. 74,354, 74,521 (Nov. 27, 2015). The 
18 MORALES-GARCIA V. BETTER PRODUCE, INC.

Marketers’ obligation to ensure the safety of the products 

they sell does not render the farms a “worksite” of the 

Marketers. 

Amici, Legal Aid at Work and National Employment 

Law Project, support Plaintiffs-Appellants with a somewhat 

different take. They stress that “worksites” can include 

locations away from a business’s headquarters, and they 

therefore contend this statute covers the work performed by 

Plaintiffs-Appellants on the farms. 

In support of this position, Amici rely on cases in which 

the employer’s work was performed on premises controlled 

by others. In Mamo Transportation, Inc. v. Williams, 289 

S.W.3d 79 (Ark. 2008), the employer’s business was 

transporting vehicles and was performed on public roadways 

beyond the employer’s control. The Arkansas Supreme 

Court held this did not defeat the existence of an 

employment relationship for purposes of providing 

unemployment insurance. Id. at 85. In McPherson 

Timberlands, Inc. v. Unemployment Insurance Commission, 

714 A.2d 818, 822-23 (Me. 1998), the employer’s business 

was harvesting and marketing timber, and it was liable for 

unemployment taxes even though it entered into contracts 

with individuals to harvest the wood on third parties’ land. 

Amici point out that in today’s world, workers can 

commonly be found on remote premises, including workers’ 

own homes. They suggest that any related work done 

outside of a business’ headquarters can be a “worksite” of 

the business. 

Under California law, labor statutes are remedial statutes 

intended to protect the interests of workers. See Brinker 

Rest. Corp. v. Superior Ct., 273 P.3d 513, 527 (Cal. 2012). 

We look to the text as the best indicator of legislative 
MORALES-GARCIA V. BETTER PRODUCE, INC. 19

purpose. See id. The problem in this case is that the 

Plaintiffs-Appellants are not doing the work of the 

Marketers’ business, but the work of the Growers. Unlike 

the transportation company in Mamo, the Marketers had a 

principal place of business where they conducted their 

operations. And unlike the timber seller in McPherson, the 

Marketers were not also in the business of harvesting the 

product grown on the farms. 

The Marketers’ business was separate in nature as well 

as location from the business of the Growers. The Marketers 

are federally licensed under the Perishable Agricultural 

Commodities Act as “commission merchants.” Such 

licensing ensures stable business practices in getting 

agricultural products from the farms to retail sellers and to 

consumers. See 7 U.S.C. § 499b. It in no way suggests that 

the regular and customary work of the Marketers would 

include growing the crops, or that the farms are worksites of 

the Marketers. The federal license scheme actually 

underscores the difference between the growing and the 

marketing of agricultural products.

Plaintiffs-Appellants and Amici nevertheless point to a 

sentence in the legislative history that refers to abuses in the 

use of off-site as well as on-site labor. This sentence gave 

examples of how the contract labor problem has been 

described. “Some have described the problem as . . . 

[employers] can hire labor suppliers to perform work on-site 

(as with subcontracted janitorial workers) or off-site (as with 

industrial laundry workers cleaning linens for hotels and 

hospitals).” Hearing on AB 1897 Before the Assemb. 

Comm. on Labor and Emp’t, Cal. H. at 4 (Apr. 23, 2014). 

The sentence was about the nature of the problem being 

addressed. It did not define the scope of the statute the 

legislature later enacted, which was narrower, and was 
20 MORALES-GARCIA V. BETTER PRODUCE, INC.

limited to work performed on the “premises or worksite” of 

the client employer. 

California Labor Code § 2810.3 represents the 

legislative intent to address a part of the broad problem of 

contracted labor the legislature had identified. The statute 

expands liability for a company that may use financially 

shaky subcontractors to provide workers to perform the work 

of the company’s business at the company’s place of 

business. It does not go so far as to extend liability for the 

wages of workers performing work elsewhere, even if the 

workers are producing a product necessary to that 

company’s business.

The district court therefore correctly ruled that the 

Marketers, which cooled and distributed the berries from 

their own places of business, were not liable for the wages 

of the Plaintiffs-Appellants, whose work growing the berries 

was done on the farms maintained and operated by the 

Growers. 

AFFIRMED.