Opinion ID: 685663
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: Characterizing the Essence of the Plaintiffs' Action in State Law Terms

Text: 21 Having determined that there is no indication that Congress intended that courts uniformly characterize AWPA claims for state law borrowing purposes, we must examine the factual circumstances and legal theories presented in this case in order to determine an appropriate limitations period. We begin by characterizing the essence of the particular federal statutory claim raised here in state law terms. Felton v. Unisource Corp., 940 F.2d 503, 510 (9th Cir.1991). We then select the state limitations period for the most analogous state law cause of action. Id. at 510-12. In doing so, we accept[ ] the state's interpretation of its own statutes of limitations, but determine[ ] for [ourselves] the nature of the right conferred by the federal statute. Smith v. Cremins, 308 F.2d 187, 189 (9th Cir.1962), overruled on other grounds, Wilson v. Garcia, 471 U.S. 261, 105 S.Ct. 1938, 85 L.Ed.2d 254 (1985). 22 As indicated above, the AWPA is broad enough to encompass more than one state law cause of action. A claim brought exclusively under the recordkeeping provisions of the Act would not easily be analogized to any common law cause of action and, in the absence of a precise state statutory analogue, application of the limitations period contained in state law provisions governing liability created by statute might well be appropriate if otherwise consistent with the policies animating the federal statute. Rivera involved such a claim. See 726 F.2d at 566. Not all claims under the AWPA, however, are of this nature. A claim for failure to pay wages as promised brought exclusively under the Working Arrangements provisions of the AWPA, for example, might be characterized as contractual in nature, see, e.g., Sanchez v. Morrison, 667 F.Supp. 536, 538 (W.D.Mich.1987) (noting the contractual nature of the plaintiffs' AWPA claims), whereas a claim for injuries suffered in an automobile accident brought under the Act's motor vehicle safety provisions might be characterized as sounding in tort, cf. Adams Fruit Co. v. Barrett, 494 U.S. 638, 110 S.Ct. 1384, 108 L.Ed.2d 585 (1990) (holding that AWPA motor vehicle safety provisions provide a remedy for migrant farmworkers injured in an automobile accident while traveling to work in employer's van). Indeed, the court's search for the most appropriate state law cause of action from which to borrow the statute of limitations is a particularly fact-bound inquiry. Dreher, 22 F.3d at 231 n. 4. It is not necessarily the case that all claims brought under the Information and Recordkeeping Requirements provisions will be characterized uniformly. Id. at 232. Accordingly, we must first determine the essence of the particular federal statutory claim presented here and then determine whether the most analogous Arizona state statute adequately protects the federal interests embodied in the AWPA. 23 The present action is difficult to characterize in state law terms because it alleges violations of the Act's Information and Recordkeeping provisions as well as its Working Arrangements provisions. As a review of the plaintiffs' amended complaint demonstrates, however, one need not look far to discover the essence of the plaintiffs' complaint. 24 The complaint provides in relevant part as follows: 25 Plaintiffs were given oral recruitment promises by employees of Taplett North Orchards and Centro de Progreso.... The promises made during recruitment constituted the terms and conditions of Plaintiffs' employment. Those terms were that Plaintiffs would each be paid a contract rate of $11.00 per bin or $3.35 per hour if the contract rate proved insufficient; that they would work a minimum of 40 hours per week for one month of employment; and that they would be provided free transportation to and from Washington along with adequate housing while working.... The Defendants failed [to fulfill these promises]. 26 The complaint then proceeds to allege violations of specific provisions of the AWPA. All but one of these allegations reveal the essentially contractual nature of the action. The plaintiffs make two allegations directly under the Working Arrangements provisions of the Act. They allege that the defendants failed to pay the contract rate of $3.35 per hour, and failed to pay ... their wages when due. Moreover, two of the plaintiffs' allegations under the Information and Recordkeeping provisions of the Act refer expressly to the employers' alleged breach of the oral agreements. First, the plaintiffs allege that the Defendants knowingly provided false or misleading information to the Plaintiffs concerning the wage rate and other terms and conditions of agricultural employment. Second, they allege that [t]he failure of Defendants to pay the contract rate was, in part, a result of the Defendants' failure to make, keep, and preserve accurate records. The only allegation not expressly related to the employers' alleged breach of the oral agreements is the plaintiffs' claim that the employers' failed to provide an itemized written statement of information, as required by the AWPA. Even this claim, however, reflects the plaintiffs' fundamental premise that the employers misrepresented the terms and conditions of employment. Accordingly, on the present facts, we conclude that, in state law terms, the plaintiffs' action is in essence an action for breach of an oral agreement. 27 In Arizona, actions on an oral contract are governed by A.R.S. Sec. 12-543. This provision, applicable by its terms to contract claims not evidenced by a contract in writing, provides a three-year limitations period. See, e.g., Healey v. Coury, 162 Ariz. 349, 353, 783 P.2d 795, 799 (App.1989) (holding that actions on an oral contract must be brought within three years of the accrual of the cause of action). Because the plaintiffs filed their claim in February 1992, within three years of the alleged wrongdoing, we conclude that the plaintiffs' claim was timely filed. Cf. Sanchez v. Overmyer et al., 845 F.Supp. 1178, 1180 (N.D.Ohio 1993) (applying to AWPA claim Ohio's six-year period for an action upon a contract not in writing, express or implied, or upon a liability created by statute); Sanchez v. Morrison, 667 F.Supp. 536, 538 (W.D.Mich.1987) (applying to AWPA claim Michigan's six-year limitations period for breach of contract rather than the three-year period for injury to property or person); Martinez v. Berlekamp Farms, Inc., 635 F.Supp. 1191, 1195 (N.D.Ohio 1986) (suggesting that six-year Ohio limitations period for breach of contract could apply to AWPA claims). 28 We note that it is possible to characterize the plaintiffs' federal action not as a contract action, but as a statutorily modified contract action. But cf. Felton, 940 F.2d at 512 (The conclusion that an ERISA cause of action is most analogous to a statutory claim because ERISA is a statute reflects circular reasoning. Such reasoning sidesteps the Supreme Court's requirement that we look to state law causes of action to determine the appropriate limitation period.); Johnson v. Railway Express Agency, Inc., 421 U.S. 454, 463-64, 95 S.Ct. 1716, 1721, 44 L.Ed.2d 295 (1975) (In borrowing a state period of limitation for application to a federal cause of action, a federal court is relying on the State's wisdom in setting a limit ... on the prosecution of a closely analogous claim.) (emphasis added). If we were to adopt this latter characterization, Arizona case law suggests that the appropriate limitations period would be the one-year period contained in A.R.S. Sec. 12-541(3), the Arizona provision governing liability created by statute. Arizona courts have held that A.R.S. Sec. 12-541(3) applies in a situation where an action did not exist at common law or where a statute creates a new cause of action by altering certain elements of the common law. Murdock v. Balle, 144 Ariz. 136, 139, 696 P.2d 230, 233 (App.1985); cf. Day v. Schenectady Discount Corp., 125 Ariz. 564, 611 P.2d 568 (App.1980). 29 Even if we were predisposed to characterize the action as a statutorily modified contract action, however, we could not apply the provision and remain faithful to our duty ... to assure that the importation of state law will not frustrate or interfere with the implementation of national policies. Occidental Life Ins. Co. v. EEOC, 432 U.S. 355, 367, 97 S.Ct. 2447, 2455, 53 L.Ed.2d 402 (1977). The Supreme Court repeatedly has emphasized that in no circumstance may we choose a state limitations period that would frustrate the policies embraced by the federal enactment, and that it would be inappropriate to conclude that Congress would choose to adopt state rules at odds with the purpose or operation of federal substantive law. DelCostello, 462 U.S. at 161, 103 S.Ct. at 2289; see also Dreher v. Amphitheater Unified Sch. Dist., 22 F.3d 228, 232 (9th Cir.1994) (noting that we apply state limitation periods only if there is no conflict[ ] with underlying federal policies). As detailed below, application of a one-year limitations period would be inconsistent with the purposes of the AWPA in two essential respects. First, it would directly undermine the efficacy of the Act's central enforcement mechanisms. Second, it would be fundamentally at odds with the remedial purposes of the Act. 30 One important component of the AWPA statutory scheme is disclosure. As the House Report on the AWPA bill emphasized, the duty to provide truthful information shall be a duty which runs throughout the period beginning with recruitment and extending until the point that the records required to be maintained need no longer be maintained. H.R.Rep. No. 97-885, 97th Cong., 2d Sess. 16, reprinted in U.S.C.C.A.N. 4547, 4562 (1982). The statute carries forward this purpose in Sec. 1821 (applicable to employers using migrant workers) and Sec. 1831 (applicable to employers using seasonal workers). These provisions not only require that employers provide comprehensive information to workers concerning the terms of their employment, but also that they make, keep, and preserve records for three years [commencing on the last day of the employment relationship] pertaining to hours worked, piecework units earned, wages, pay period earnings, specific sums withheld, and net pay for each worker. The three-year record retention requirement would be eviscerated were the private right of action in Sec. 1854 of the Act limited by a one-year statute of limitations (the one-year limit, of course, would apply not only to aggrieved workers but also to employers seeking to exercise their AWPA right to obtain employment data on workers who previously had worked for other contractors, see Secs. 1821(d) & (e); 1831(c) & (d)). 31 In more general terms, our paramount duty is to effectuate the federal policies embodied in the AWPA statutory scheme. As the DelCostello Court noted, where state provisions are unsatisfactory vehicles for the enforcement of federal law, the court should not arbitrarily apply them, but should look to the purposes of the federal legislation. See 462 U.S. at 161, 103 S.Ct. at 2289. A one-year statute of limitations is inappropriate because migrant and seasonal workers, who often move from state to state to participate in harvests and who may reside in any given state for only a month or two at a time, are particularly unlikely to be able to assert their rights in a short time-frame or to have their interests taken into consideration in state law provisions. 32 There are indications that it was precisely such concerns that motivated Congress to provide migrant and seasonal workers with federal law protection. See House Report at 4550 (noting the failures of the FLCRA and emphasizing the desperate[ ] need for redoubled efforts at enforcement of the protections originally embodied in the FLCRA); id. at 4548 (noting that [e]vidence ... confirms that migrant and seasonal agricultural workers remain today, as in the past, the most abused of all workers in the United States). See also Caro-Galvan v. Curtis Richardson, Inc., 993 F.2d 1500, 1505 (11th Cir.1993) (AWPA is a remedial statute and should be construed broadly to effect its humanitarian purpose.); Sanchez v. Morrison, 667 F.Supp. 536, 538 (W.D.Mich.1987) (noting the broad remedial purposes of the AWPA in deciding to borrow Michigan's six-year limitations period for breach of contract rather than the three-year period for injury to property or person). 33 Accordingly, we conclude that the appellants' claims are in essence contractual in nature and that the Arizona three-year limitations period for actions on an oral contract applies in this case. Moreover, even assuming arguendo that the plaintiffs' claims are best characterized as statutorily modified contract claims, we would decline to borrow the one-year limitations period contained in A.R.S. Sec. 12-541(3) in light of the three-year record retention requirements of the AWPA and its remedial and humanitarian purposes. Because we reverse the judgment of the district court on this basis, we do not address any of the other claims raised by the appellants.