Opinion ID: 6346803
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: california forced labor class

Text: We first consider CoreCivic’s assertion that Owino failed to present “[s]ignificant proof” of a class-wide policy of forced labor, thus defeating commonality. Wal-Mart Stores, Inc. v. Dukes, 564 U.S. 338, 353 (2011). To support the California Forced Labor class, Owino provided the declarations of four detainees, all from one facility, but this was not the extent or the focus of Owino’s “significant proof,” nor was it the focus of the district court’s decision. OWINO V. CORECIVIC 11 Rather, Owino centered his argument, and the district court centered its holding, on the text of CoreCivic’s corporate policies. The sanitation policy requires detainees to remove trash, wash windows, sweep and mop, “thoroughly” scrub toilet bowls, sinks, and showers, and undertake sundry other cleaning responsibilities across the facility. On their face, these policies appear to go beyond those minimal tidying responsibilities laid out in the ICE Standards. The discipline policy further makes clear that detainees are subject to a range of punishments, including disciplinary segregation, for refusal to “clean assigned living area” or “obey a staff member/officer’s order.” The persuasive weight of the text of these policies is augmented by the statements of ICE detainees themselves, who declared that they were in fact required to clean common areas—without payment and under threat of punishment—in line with the policies. Further, one of CoreCivic’s own senior managers testified that CoreCivic facilities do not have the ability to opt out of these companywide, “standard policies.” Commonality is necessarily established where there is a class-wide policy to which all class members are subjected. Parsons v. Ryan, 754 F.3d 657, 678 (9th Cir. 2014). And while “the mere existence of a facially defective written policy—without any evidence that it was implemented in an unlawful manner—does not constitute ‘[s]ignificant proof’ that a class of employees were [sic] subject to an unlawful practice,” Davidson v. O’Reilly Auto Enters., LLC, 968 F.3d 955, 968 (9th Cir. 2020) (internal citation omitted), Owino relied on the written policies as well as the testimony of former ICE detainees and CoreCivic’s own manager. Although the company “may wish to distance itself from [its employee’s] statements,” here the “admissions were 12 OWINO V. CORECIVIC material and [are] properly before us.” Abdullah v. U.S. Sec. Assocs., 731 F.3d 952, 966 (9th Cir. 2013). In view of the highly deferential abuse of discretion standard and the full scope of evidence in the record, we reject CoreCivic’s claim that Owino failed to provide “significant proof” of the class-wide policy necessary to satisfy the commonality requirement.
We next consider CoreCivic’s claim that Owino failed to establish that common questions predominate over individual ones, thus defeating predominance. The predominance inquiry tests “whether proposed classes are sufficiently cohesive to warrant adjudication by representation.” Tyson Foods, Inc. v. Bouaphakeo, 577 U.S. 442, 453 (2016) (quoting Amchem Products, Inc. v. Windsor, 521 U.S. 591, 623 (1997)). Here, they are. As the district court noted, the California Forced Labor class members “share a large number of common attributes, including that they are immigrants who are or were involuntarily detained in [CoreCivic’s] facilities and subjected to common sanitation and disciplinary policies.” The claims of these class members all depend on common questions of law and fact—whether CoreCivic utilized threats of discipline to compel detainees to clean its California facilities in violation of state and federal human trafficking statutes. This is a quintessential “common question” as defined by the Supreme Court: “the same evidence will suffice for each member to make a prima facie showing [or] the issue is susceptible to generalized, classwide proof.” Tyson Foods, 577 U.S. at 453 (citation omitted). OWINO V. CORECIVIC 13 In other words, the question is appropriate for class-wide resolution because either CoreCivic’s company-wide policies and practices violated the law and the rights of the class members, or they didn’t. See Parsons, 754 F.3d at 678 (holding that the “policies and practices to which all members of the class are subjected . . . are the ‘glue’ that holds together the putative class . . . either each of the policies and practices is unlawful as to every inmate or it is not”); see also Gonzalez v. U.S. Immigr. & Customs Enf’t, 975 F.3d 788, 808 (9th Cir. 2020). CoreCivic argues against predominance largely by attempting to reframe the inquiry, asserting that the district court should have asked whether each class member actually has a viable California TVPA claim. However, this is not the applicable test. In Tyson Foods, the Supreme Court instructs that [t]he predominance inquiry asks whether the common, aggregation-enabling, issues in the case are more prevalent or important than the non-common, aggregation-defeating, individual issues. When one or more of the central issues in the action are common to the class and can be said to predominate, the action may be considered proper under Rule 23(b)(3) even though other important matters will have to be tried separately, such as damages or some affirmative defenses peculiar to some individual class members. 577 U.S. at 453 (internal citations and quotation marks omitted); see also Olean Wholesale Grocery Coop., Inc. v. Bumble Bee Foods, 31 F.4th 651, 681–82 (9th Cir. 2022) (en banc). 14 OWINO V. CORECIVIC
Finally, we consider CoreCivic’s argument that the district court should have narrowed the proposed California Forced Labor class based on the statute of limitations. While Owino seeks to include all ICE detainees held at a CoreCivic facility in California between January 1, 2006, and the present, CoreCivic argues that because the California TVPA has a seven-year statute of limitations, no detainee who was released before May 31, 2010, can bring a claim. See Cal. Civ. Code § 52.5(c). The district court ruled that such a finding was premature at the class certification stage: “If discovery indicates that the class period should be limited, the Court will entertain a motion to that effect; however, at this stage in the litigation and on the record before it, the Court is not inclined to narrow the class period.” We agree with the district court that narrowing the class based on statute of limitations is not required at the certification stage. Along with our sister circuits, we have held this in the context of the predominance inquiry. See, e.g., Williams v. Sinclair, 529 F.2d 1383, 1388 (9th Cir. 1975) (“The existence of a statute of limitations issue does not compel a finding that individual issues predominate over common ones.”); see also In re Monumental Life Ins. Co., 365 F.3d 408, 420–21 (5th Cir. 2004); Waste Mgmt. Holdings, Inc. v. Mowbray, 208 F.3d 288, 296 (1st Cir. 2000). We now clarify that this principle is applicable to certification more broadly. After all, “[e]ven after a certification order is entered, the judge remains free to modify it in the light of subsequent developments in the litigation.” Gen. Tel. Co. of the Sw. v. Falcon, 457 U.S. 147, 160 (1982). CoreCivic cites no case law to the contrary. We therefore hold that the district court did not abuse its OWINO V. CORECIVIC 15 discretion in declining to narrow the California Forced Labor class.