Court Opinion

ID: 9486153
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-05 11:39:26.763442+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:51:33.251909
License: Public Domain

KING, Circuit Judge,
dissenting:
I concur in the majority’s interpretation of 29 U.S.C. § 1816 (repealed 1986). However, because I believe that the record contains substantial evidence in support of the Secretary of Labor’s determination that Garcia knowingly hired or recruited aliens not authorized to work in the United States, I respectfully dissent.

*283
Statutory Interpretation

The threshold issue in this case is whether we must accept the Secretary’s interpretation of 29 U.S.C. § 1816 (repealed 1986) and its accompanying regulations. The Secretary argues that a farm labor contractor violates § 1816(a) if he knows or should reasonably know that he is hiring or recruiting aliens not authorized to work in this country. Section 1816(a) by its own terms appears to make actual knowledge that one is hiring unauthorized aliens an element of a violation. Section 1816(b) provides that a farm labor contractor can comply with § 1816(a) by examining and relying in good faith on certain prescribed documents evidencing that a prospective employee is entitled to work in this country. As the majority correctly points out, however, § 1816(b) does not purport to be the only way for a farm labor contractor to comply with § 1816(a). The Secretary argues that a presumption of knowledge should arise if a farm labor contractor is found to be employing unauthorized aliens in an area in which illegal immigration of agricultural workers is widespread, and that this presumption should be rebuttable only by compliance with § 1816(b) and its companion regulation, 29 C.F.R. § 500.59 (repealed) (prescribing the documents a farm labor contractor may use to verify employment status).
I agree with the majority that, in a proceeding brought under § 1816, the burden of proving actual knowledge remains on the government at all times. In the first place, this reading is consistent with the plain language of the statute, while the Secretary’s interpretation is not. The case is analogous to Contract Courier Servs., Inc. v. Research and Special Programs Admin., 924 F.2d 112 (7th Cir.1991). That ease also involved a statute that proscribed certain conduct if done “knowingly.” Id. at 113. The Department of Transportation, however, promulgated a regulation that included “should have known” within the meaning of “knew,” and enforced its regulation against Contract Courier Services. Id. The Seventh Circuit reversed, holding that the statute prohibited the Department of Transportation from “obliterating] any distinction between knowledge and ignorance.” Id. at 114. The court also observed that “knew” and “should have known” may be equated if some rule of law penalizes a person’s failure to make inquiry. Id. No such rule existed in that ease, however, and no such rule has been called to our attention in the instant case. This is the key distinction between the instant case and Counterman v. United States Dep't of Labor, 776 F.2d 1247, 1248-49 (5th Cir.1985), in which we emphasized that a regulation specifically imposed an affirmative duty of inquiry on farm labor contractors and that Counterman had not complied with that regulation. The regulation implementing § 1816(b) did not impose such an affirmative duty.
The successor statute to § 1816 also sheds some light on the proper interplay between §§ 1816(a) and (b). Section 1816 was replaced by 8 U.S.C. § 1324a of the Immigration Reform and Control Act (IRCA). IRCA, much like § 1816 before it, generally prohibits an employer from knowingly hiring an unauthorized alien. 8 U.S.C. § 1324a(a)(l)(A). Good faith compliance with the prescribed verification procedures is an “affirmative defense” to a charge that one has hired or recruited unauthorized aliens. 8 U.S.C. § 1324a(a)(3).1 The legislative history explains how the IRCA affirmative defense works as follows. If an employer proves that he checked the required documents and retained the attested verification forms, he has established a “rebuttable presumption” that he did so in “good faith.” At this point the burden shifts to the government to prove lack of good faith.
It should be noted that this is not an absolute defense, and the government could rebut the presumption by offering proof that the documents did not reasonably appear on their face to be genuine, that the verification process was pretextual, or that the employer ... colluded with the employee in falsifying documents, etc.
*284Of course, even if the employer does not seek to establish an affirmative defense, the burden of proving a violation of the hiring, recruitment, or referral prohibition always remains on the government — by a preponderance of the evidence in the case of civil penalties and beyond a reasonable doubt in the case of criminal penalties.
H.R.Rep. No. 99-682(1), 99th Cong., 2d Sess. 57 (1986), reprinted in 1986 U.S.C.C.A.N. 5649, 5661. The close similarity between the scheme set forth in IRCA for most employers and that set forth in § 1816 for farm labor contractors strongly suggests that they should operate the same way. Thus, as the majority concludes, the' burden of proving that Garcia had actual knowledge that he was hiring unauthorized aliens remained at all times on the government.

Substantial Evidence

I disagree with the majority’s conclusion that there is no substantial evidence in the record to support the Secretary’s finding that Garcia knowingly hired unauthorized aliens. The majority concedes that evidence exists to suppoi’t a finding that Garcia hired illegal aliens. What the records lacks, according to the majority, is substantial evidence that he did so knowingly. I turn first to the evidence that Garcia hired illegal aliens because the sheer volume of that evidence, in my view, raises an inference that he did so knowingly. Under the substantial evidence standard, the Secretary was entitled to draw that inference, and under the applicable standard of appellate review, we should defer to her decision to do so.
Two witnesses testified at the hearing before the AL J that they were Mexican citizens not authorized to work in this country and that they had worked for Garcia. Texas Employment Commission Agent Eli Vera also testified that he repeatedly found unauthorized aliens working for Garcia (up to four or five on any given day) and that he informed Garcia, of his discoveries on multiple occasions.
The exact number of unauthorized aliens that Garcia actually hired during the period in question is more difficult to discern. By stipulation, several government exhibits were admitted into evidence. One exhibit was a collection of some forty 1-213 forms, all dated April 11, 1985, many of which listed Garcia as the employer of deportable aliens. Another was a list of names of aliens deported during the period of the investigation totalling some 1800 names in all. The person who compiled the list testified that the list included the names of only those deported aliens whose 1-213 forms listed Garcia as their employer. A second list showed the names of those unauthorized aliens whose names appeared on the first list more than once — almost 300 names. The majority gives slight credence to these exhibits because the government did not offer evidence to explain how the agents who prepared the 1-213 forms determined that Garcia was the employer of the particular alien being deported. Admittedly, this evidence would carry far more weight if it were supported by the independent investigation of a border patrol agent than if it were merely the product of a brief interrogation of an illegal alien just prior to deportation. Without such support, it is difficult to attach a great deal of weight to the Secretary’s documentary evidence. Nevertheless, I believe that a reasonable mind could accept the documentary evidence as adequate to support the conclusion that Garcia employed numerous unauthorized aliens, and that he in fact employed many of them on more than one occasion. These conclusions in turn permit the inference that Garcia employed unauthorized aliens knowingly.2
Thus, on the whole, I believe that substantial evidence supports the Secretary’s finding in this case. The substantial evidence standard, it is well known, is a very low standard indeed. It requires evidence that amounts to more than a mere scintilla, but less than a preponderance. Additionally, under the substantial evidence standard we may not reweigh the evidence, nor may we try the *285issues de novo. Conflicts in the evidence are for the Secretary to resolve, not the courts. Spellman v. Shalala, 1 F.3d 357, 360 (5th Cir.1993). In any event, the conflict in the evidence in the instant case is not great. Garcia denied any knowledge of the fact that he was employing unauthorized aliens, a denial belied by the evidence that he actually employed such aliens in droves. If the government’s evidence is accepted that Garcia employed some 1800 unauthorized aliens during the period in question, this amounts to some 36% of his total work force during that time. The Secretary was entitled to trust the documentary evidence as circumstantial evidence of Garcia’s knowledge over Garcia’s self-serving denial. The Secretary was also entitled to discount Vera’s testimony that Garcia lacked such knowledge. Even if-we take Vera’s credibility for granted, he could not have had direct knowledge of Garcia’s mental state, and in fact he testified only that he had no reason to believe that Garcia had ever knowingly or intentionally employed any illegal aliens. The Secretary could reasonably have resolved the conflict in the evidence against Garcia.
As the majority notes, the disagreement between the ALJ and the Secretary does not modify in any way the substantial evidence standard. See Universal Camera Corp. v. NLRB, 340 U.S. 474, 496, 71 S.Ct. 456, 469, 95 L.Ed. 456 (1951). Although Garcia’s credibility was certainly a factor in. the ALJ’s decision that the Secretary could not lightly dismiss, she was entitled to discount it in light of the conflict between Garcia’s testimony and the “obvious inferences from the remainder of the record.” Delchamps, Inc. v. NLRB, 588 F.2d 476, 480 (5th Cir.1979). The Secretary is not bound to accept an ALJ’s credibility determination over conflicting evidence, particularly when the ALJ relies on “testimony given by an interested witness, relating to his own motives.” Russell-Newman Mfg. Co. v. NLRB, 407 F.2d 247, 249 (5th Cir.1969). Thus, the ALJ’s credibility determination as to Garcia was not binding on the Secretary in the instant case. The ALJ’s credibility determination as to Vera was certainly not binding; Vera’s testimony, after all, was necessarily limited to his own beliefs about Garcia’s knowledge.
Because a reasonable mind could accept the evidence presented by the government as adequate to support the conclusion reached by the Secretary, her findings should be affirmed. Selders v. Sullivan, 914 F.2d 614, 617 (5th Cir.1990).

. Interestingly, farm labor contractors are given special treatment under IRCA. Compliance with the prescribed verification procedures is now mandatory for such employers. 8 U.S.C. §§ 1324a(a)(l)(B)(ii), 1324a(b).

. Many courts, it may be noted, accept "willful ignorance” as the equivalent of knowledge. See, e.g., Garcia v. Donovan, 101 Lab.Cas. V 34,574, 1984 WL 3169 (CCH) (M.D.Fla.1984) (interpreting § 1816). See generally Robin Charlow, Willful Ignorance and Criminal Culpability, 70 Tex.L.Rev. 1351 (1992).