Capron v. Massachusetts Attorney General ( 2019 )

United States Court of Appeals
For the First Circuit
No. 17-2140
ERIN CAPRON; JEFFREY PENEDO; CULTURAL CARE, INC., d/b/a Cultural
Care Au Pair,
Plaintiffs, Appellants,
v.
OFFICE OF THE ATTORNEY GENERAL OF THE COMMONWEALTH OF
MASSACHUSETTS; MAURA T. HEALEY, in her capacity as Attorney
General of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts,
Defendants, Appellees.
APPEAL FROM THE UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT
FOR THE DISTRICT OF MASSACHUSETTS
[Hon. Indira Talwani, U.S. District Judge]
Before
Torruella, Lynch, and Barron,
Circuit Judges.
Joan A. Lukey, with whom Justin J. Wolosz and Choate Hall &
Stewart LLP were on brief, for appellants.
Ryan P. McManus, Donna A. Mizrahi, and Hemenway & Barnes LLP
on brief for Host Families, amici curiae.
Faith Kalman Reyes and Verdi & Ogletree PLLC on brief for the
Alliance for International Exchange, amicus curiae.
Michael Shih, Attorney, Appellate Staff, Civil Division, U.S.
Department of Justice, Joseph H. Hunt, Assistant Attorney General,
Andrew E. Lelling, United States Attorney, and Alisa B. Klein,
Attorney, Appellate Staff, Civil Division, on brief for the United
States, amicus curiae.
Robert E. Toone, Assistant Attorney General, with whom Maura
T. Healey, Attorney General of Massachusetts, and Elizabeth A.
Kaplan, Assistant Attorney General, were on brief, for appellees.
Audrey R. Richardson, Greater Boston Legal Services,
Catherine Fisher, Marley Brumme, Meredith B. Stewart, Gillian B.
Gillers, Southern Poverty Law Center, Benjamin Richard Botts,
Centro de los Derechos del Migrante, Inc., Rocío Alejandra Avila,
and National Domestic Workers Alliance, on brief for Worker
Organizations, amici curiae.
Dawn L. Smalls, Byron Pacheco, Sean P. Rodriguez, Juan P.
Valdivieso, Boies Schiller Flexner LLP, David Seligman, and
Towards Justice, on brief for Sarah Carolina Azuela Rascon and All
Other Similarly Situated Current and Former Au Pairs, amici curiae.
December 2, 2019
BARRON, Circuit Judge. This appeal concerns the
relationship between the wage and hour rights that Massachusetts
confers on in-home childcare services providers and the operation
of a federal program that promotes international cultural
exchange. The United States Department of State ("DOS")
administers this federal program, which we will refer to as the
"Au Pair Program." Through it, foreign nationals may obtain a
special type of visa and then be placed with host families in the
United States, so that the foreign nationals may provide in-home
childcare services to the host families while they also pursue
their post-secondary school studies.
The issue that we must resolve in this appeal arises in
connection with a lawsuit that was filed on August 31, 2016 in the
United States District Court for the District of Massachusetts
against the Attorney General of Massachusetts ("Attorney
General"). The plaintiffs are Cultural Care, a DOS-approved
private placement agency based in Massachusetts, as well as Erin
Capron and Jeffrey Penedo, who each reside in Massachusetts and
with whose families Cultural Care has in the past placed foreign
national visa holders through the Au Pair Program.
The plaintiffs contend that the Au Pair Program
impliedly preempts Massachusetts from requiring host families to
comply with its wage and hour laws as employers of the visa holders
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who provide them childcare services through that program. The
plaintiffs seek declaratory and injunctive relief.
The Attorney General moved to dismiss the plaintiffs'
complaint. The District Court granted the motion on August 1,
2017. The next day, the District Court ordered the plaintiffs'
case dismissed. The District Court also denied the plaintiffs'
motion for reconsideration of the order of dismissal or, in the
alternative, for leave to amend the complaint.
The plaintiffs timely appealed both the order of
dismissal and the denial of the motion for reconsideration or, in
the alternative, for leave to amend the complaint. We now affirm.1
I.
We first describe the relevant federal and state bodies
of law. We start with the federal measures. We then turn to the
state law measures.
A.
The federal measures consist of authorizing legislation
and implementing regulations. We consider each type of federal
measure in turn.
1
Our conclusion accords with the only other precedent to
address the issue. See Beltran v. InterExchange, Inc., 176 F.
Supp. 3d 1066, 1083–84 (D. Colo. 2016).
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1.
Nearly sixty years ago, Congress enacted the Fulbright-
Hays Act. See Pub. L. No. 87-256 § 102, 75 Stat. 527 (1961)
(codified at 22 U.S.C. § 2452). That statute authorized a series
of "educational" and "cultural exchanges." Id. The preamble to
the statute describes Congress's purposes in authorizing these
cultural exchanges as follows:
[T]o enable the Government of the United
States to increase mutual understanding
between the people of the United States and
the people of other countries by means of
educational and cultural exchange; to
strengthen the ties which unite us with other
nations by demonstrating the educational and
cultural interests, developments, and
achievements of the people of the United
States and other nations, and the
contributions being made toward a peaceful and
more fruitful life for people throughout the
world; to promote international cooperation
for educational and cultural advancement; and
thus to assist in the development of friendly,
sympathetic, and peaceful relations between
the United States and the other countries of
the world.
22 U.S.C. § 2451.
The Fulbright-Hays Act provided funding for a series of
cultural exchange programs to bring foreign nationals to this
country and also created the J-Visa. See Pub. L. No. 87-256 § 109
(codified at 8 U.S.C. § 1101(a)(15)(J)). The provision of the
statute that creates the J-Visa states that, to qualify for it, a
person must be:
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an alien having a residence in a foreign
country which he has no intention of
abandoning who is a bona fide student,
scholar, trainee, teacher, professor,
research assistant, specialist or leader in a
field of specialized knowledge or skill, or
other person of similar description, who is
coming temporarily to the United States as a
participant in a program . . . for the purpose
of teaching, instructing or lecturing,
studying, observing, conducting research,
consulting, demonstrating special skills or
receiving training.
8 U.S.C. § 1101(a)(15)(J).
The DOS is currently responsible for implementing the
provisions of the Fulbright-Hays Act that we have just described.
See 22 C.F.R. § 62.1. The DOS does so through regulations that
govern different types of "exchange visitor programs." See id.§§ 62.3, 62.4; Exchange Visitor Program -- Au Pairs, 74 Fed. Reg.
15,844 (Apr. 8, 2009) (to be codified at 22 C.F.R. pt. 62). The
"Exchange Visitor Program" regulations authorize the DOS to
designate only certain types of exchange programs as "exchange
visitor programs." See, e.g., 22 C.F.R. § 62.24(b) (authorizing
designation of "exchange visitor programs in the Teacher
category"); id. § 62.31 (authorizing designation of "au pair
exchange program[s]").2
2 The "participants" in a DOS-designated exchange visitor
program are also called "exchange visitors" in the regulations.
22 C.F.R. §§ 62.1(b), 62.2 (defining "Exchange Visitors").
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Participants in these "exchange visitor programs" can
receive "J-1" visas. 8 C.F.R. § 214.1(a)(2) (designating visas
provided pursuant to 8 U.S.C. § 1101(a)(15)(J) as "J-1" visas). A
J-1 visa is a nonimmigrant visa that permits a foreign national to
come to the United States for "teaching, instructing or lecturing,
studying, observing, conducting research, consulting,
demonstrating special skills, or receiving training." 8 U.S.C.
§ 1101(a)(15)(J); 8 C.F.R. § 214.1(a)(2). Persons who possess J-1
visas "may be employed" in the United States only through "exchange
visitor programs." 8 C.F.R. § 274a.12(b)(11).
The DOS "Exchange Visitor Program" regulations provide
that exchange visitor programs are "conduct[ed]" by "sponsors[.]"
22 C.F.R. §§ 62.3, 62.31(c). The sponsors are private placement
agencies, such as the one that is a plaintiff in this case:
Cultural Care.
The "Exchange Visitor Program" regulations authorize
the DOS to "designate" the private placement programs "conducted"
by these sponsors as "exchange visitor programs." Id. §§ 62.3,
62.31 (a)-(c). The DOS's designation authorizes the sponsor to
"select[]" foreign nationals to be "participants" in its exchange
visitor program, which in turn permits the participants to be
placed in employment settings in this country pursuant to their
J-1 visas. See id. § 62.31(c)-(d).
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Sponsors "must remain in compliance with all local,
state, and federal laws, and professional requirements necessary
to carry out the activities for which [they are] designated,
including accreditation and licensure, if applicable." Id.
§ 62.9(c). Regardless of the nature of the DOS-designated exchange
visitor program, the sponsor must, among other things, appoint
"Responsible Officers." Id. § 62.11(a).
If the exchange visitor program has "an employment
component," the "Responsible Officers" must have "a detailed
knowledge of federal, state and local laws pertaining to
employment." Id. Sponsors of exchange visitor programs that have
an employment component must provide "clear information and
materials" to program participants, including information on
"employee rights and laws, including workman's compensation." Id.
§ 62.10(b)(9).
The DOS "Exchange Visitor Program" regulations do not
purport to regulate directly those for whom the participants in
these exchange visitor programs work after the sponsors have placed
them in a job. See id. § 62.31. The regulations -- with limited
exceptions not relevant here -- directly regulate only the sponsors
themselves. Id. The only sanctions that the regulations set forth
that the DOS may impose on a sponsor are for its failure to meet
one of its obligations under the regulations. Those sanctions --
again, with limited exceptions not relevant here -- only concern
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the ability of the sponsors to retain or renew the DOS's
designation of the placement programs that they run as ones that
qualify as "exchange visitor program[s]." Id. §§ 62.31(n), 62.50.
2.
The DOS's "Exchange Visitor Program" regulations contain
subsections that "govern" each type of exchange visitor program
that the regulations encompass. See §§ 62.20-.32. The program
types include ones for summer workers, au pairs, academics,
teachers, and camp counselors. See id. The section of the DOS
"Exchange Visitor Program" regulations at issue governs exchange
visitor programs for "au pair participants." Id. § 62.31(a).
These programs are also known as "au pair exchange program[s]."
Id. § 62.31(c).
In 1986, the United States Information Agency ("USIA"),
which was -- until 1999 -- responsible for the implementation of
the Fulbright-Hays Act, established au pair exchange programs on
a two-year, pilot basis. See Exchange Visitor Program, 59 Fed.
Reg. 64,296 (Dec. 14, 1994) (to be codified at 22 C.F.R. pt. 514)
(describing the 1986 program); see also Foreign Affairs Reform and
Restructuring Act of 1998, Pub. L. No. 105-277, div. G, §§ 1311-
1314, 112 Stat. 2681, 2681-776 (codified at 22 U.S.C. §§ 6531-
6533) (dissolving the USIA and transferring implementation of the
Fulbright-Hays Act to DOS). This two-year pilot, the USIA later
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observed, had "rather non-specific program guidelines." See 59
Fed. Reg. at 64,296, 64,299 (describing the preexisting program).
After the two-year trial period ended, the USIA decided
not to designate the au pair exchange programs permanently due to
a concern that "the programs were outside the Agency's statutory
authority to oversee educational and cultural exchange
activities." Id. Nevertheless, because of the substantial
interest in the program, Congress enacted "special legislation" to
"obligat[e]" the USIA to continue the programs. Id. Congress
also directed the United States General Accounting Office ("GAO")
to examine them. See U.S. Gov't Accountability Office, GAO-90-
61, U.S. Information Agency: Inappropriate Uses of Educational and
Cultural Exchange Visas 19 (1990).
A GAO report, issued in 1990, determined that the pilot
au pair exchange programs were not consistent with the intent of
the Fulbright-Hays Act. Id. The report questioned whether the au
pair exchange programs were properly designated as employment or
cultural programs -- and thus the report questioned which federal
agency should run the programs. Id. The GAO report noted the
concern expressed by the United States Department of Labor ("DOL")
that the "au pair program violates the spirit of the J-visa
statute" because "a 40-hour week constitutes full-time employment,
and, as such . . . [t]hese [foreign] workers would normally have
to receive certification from the [DOL] that enough qualified U.S.
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workers were not available and that the wages and working
conditions attached to job offers would not adversely affect
similarly employed U.S. workers." Id. Thus, the GAO report
concluded, "[a]s currently structured, au pair programs would
normally be subject to [DOL] administrative review and
certification." Id. at 20.
Notwithstanding the concerns raised in the GAO report,
Congress directed the USIA, pursuant to a new statute, to continue
to implement the au pair exchange programs "until [they] could be
transferred to a more appropriate federal agency." 59 Fed. Reg.
at 64,296-97; see Eisenhower Exchange Fellowship Act of 1990, Pub.
L. No. 101-454, 104 Stat. 1063. In 1994, Congress passed the
Technical Amendments to the State Basic Authorities Act, Public
Law 103-415, which authorized the USIA "to promulgate regulations
specifically governing the au pair programs." 59 Fed. Reg. at
64,297.
In 1994, the USIA promulgated interim final regulations
"to govern the au pair programs [in ways that are] consistent with
the provisions of the Fulbright-Hays Act." Id. Those interim
final regulations established the first iteration of what we refer
to as the "Au Pair Program." Id.
The 1994 interim final regulations stated that "[a]u
pair programs permit foreign nationals to enter the United States
for a period of one year for the purpose of residing with an
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American host family while participating directly in the home life
of the family and providing limited childcare services." Id. at
64,296. They also contained a provision entitled "Stipend and
hours," which obliged sponsors to "require that au pair
participants . . . are compensated" -- presumably by their host
families, though the provision does not specify who must pay the
participants for the childcare services that they provide -- "at
a rate of not less than $155.00 per week." Id. at 64,300. The
provision obliged sponsors to require that participants would
receive weekly compensation at least equal to the wage due to them
under the FLSA if the participants had provided the full amount of
childcare services that they were permitted under the program to
provide to their host family in a given week, regardless of whether
the participants actually had done so. In this way, the provision
ensured that compensation for the participants would comply with
the FLSA in the event that the DOL would deem the participants
"employees" within the meaning of that statute. Id. at 64,298
(amending 22 C.F.R. § 514.31, though 22 C.F.R. § 514.31 has since
been redesignated).
In 1995, the USIA revised that provision to oblige
sponsors to "require that au pair participants . . . [a]re
compensated at a rate of not less than $115.00 per week." Exchange
Visitor Program, 60 Fed. Reg. 8547, 8553 (Feb. 15, 1995) (to be
codified at 22 C.F.R. pt. 514). Once again, the USIA did so in a
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manner that was intended to ensure that participants would not be
paid less than the FLSA-prescribed minimum wage for domestic
workers who qualified as "employees." Id. at 8551.
The USIA then revised this provision once more in 1997.
The USIA did so this time in response, in part, to a formal
determination by the DOL that au pair participants are "employees"
within the meaning of the FLSA and thus that "au pair participants
are covered under the provisions of the [FLSA] and therefore must
receive federal minimum wage." Exchange Visitor Program, 62 Fed.
Reg. 34,632, 34,633 (Jun. 27, 1997) (to be codified at 22 C.F.R.
pt. 514).
The USIA at that time revised the "Stipend and hours"
provision to instead be titled "Wages and hours." Id. at 34,634.
That provision was also revised at that time to state that
"[s]ponsors shall require that au pair participants . . . [a]re
compensated at a weekly rate based upon 45 hours per week and paid
in conformance with the requirements of the [FLSA] as interpreted
and implemented by the [DOL]." Id.3 Congress then permanently
3
The plaintiffs assert that the District Court incorrectly
"suggested that the federal government has [since] 'abandoned'"
the formula establishing an au pair's minimum wage requirements
set out in the 1997 regulations, which was a formula based on the
federal minimum wage multiplied by a presumed 45-hour work week
minus a deduction for the costs of room and board. But, the
District Court merely accurately described how the text of the
regulations had changed over time.
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authorized the Au Pair Program. See An Act to Provide Permanent
Authority for the Administration of Au Pair Programs, Pub. L. No.
105-48, 111 Stat. 1165 (1997).
The DOS now promulgates the au pair exchange program
regulations. Compare id. with 22 C.F.R. § 62.31(j)(1). The
current DOS version of the regulations describes the "objectives"
of this type of exchange visitor program as "afford[ing]" to
"foreign nationals" the "opportunity to live with an American host
family and participate directly in the home life of the host
family" while providing "up to" 45 hours a week of childcare
services to the host family and also pursuing a post-secondary
education. 22 C.F.R. § 62.31(a)-(b). The current version of these
regulations also includes a "Wages and hours" provision that
mirrors the one in the 1997 version of the USIA's au pair exchange
program regulations. That provision states: "Sponsors shall
require that au pair participants [a]re compensated at a weekly
rate based upon 45 hours of child care services per week and paid
in conformance with the requirements of the [FLSA] as interpreted
and implemented by the [DOL.]" Id. § 62.31(j)(1).
The current version of the regulations that govern au
pair exchange programs authorizes the DOS to designate a "bona
fide program[]" of this type as an "exchange visitor program" if
it "satisf[ies]" the specified "objectives" and if the "sponsor"
meets certain "eligibility" requirements, as well as the
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regulations' "Wages and hours" requirements. Id. § 62.31(b)-(c),
(j). Sponsors that fail to meet those requirements or that fail
to "[e]nforce and monitor host family's compliance with the stipend
and hours requirements" may face "immediate program revocation
procedures." Id. § 62.31(n). The DOS au pair exchange program
regulations do not provide that an au pair exchange program
participant may enforce against a sponsor -- let alone against a
host family -- the only sanctions that the regulations specify.
See generally id. § 62.31.
3.
The au pair exchange program regulations, through their
"Wages and hours" provision, cross-reference the FLSA's
"requirements." 22 C.F.R. § 62.31(j)(1). We thus briefly review
the obligations that the FLSA and the DOL's regulations that
implement the FLSA impose on the employers of domestic workers, as
those "requirements" serve as the reference point under the Au
Pair Program for calculating the weekly compensation that sponsors
must require that au pair participants receive.
Under the FLSA, "employer[s] shall pay to each of [their]
employees" a minimum hourly wage that is currently set at $7.25
per hour. 29 U.S.C. § 206(a). In 1974, Congress amended the FLSA
so that it would apply to domestic workers and their employers.
Fair Labor Standards Amendments of 1974, Pub. L. No. 93-259, 88
Stat. 55 (codified as amended in scattered sections of 29 U.S.C.).
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This amendment imposed a new requirement on employers of domestic
workers to pay the federally mandated minimum wage. Id. However,
the amendments exempt live-in domestic workers from the provisions
that require employers pay to employees time-and-a-half for
overtime. See 29 U.S.C. § 213(b)(21).
In implementing these amendments in 1975, the DOL
promulgated regulations that imposed certain recordkeeping
obligations on employers of domestic workers and that permitted
those employers to deduct the costs of the domestic worker's room
and board from the domestic worker's pay. Extension to Domestic
Service Employees, 40 Fed. Reg. 7404 (Feb. 20, 1975) (to be
codified at 29 C.F.R. pt. 552). Employers were to calculate such
deductions either by using a fixed credit that totaled $36 per
week or by deducting their actual costs for room and board,
provided that the employers kept records to support those itemized
deductions. Id. at 7406. The current version of these DOL
regulations permit employers of domestic workers to take
deductions either by using a fixed credit amount that is tied to
a percentage of the federal minimum wage or by deducting their
actual, itemized costs, if the itemized deductions are supported
by adequate records. 29 C.F.R. § 552.100(c)-(d).
The FLSA contains a savings clause. 29 U.S.C. § 218(a).
It provides that "[n]o provision of this chapter or of any order
thereunder shall excuse noncompliance with any Federal or State
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law or municipal ordinance establishing a minimum wage higher than
the minimum wage established under this chapter." Id.B.
We now turn to the state law measures. Like the federal
ones, they consist of a mix of statutory and regulatory provisions.
1.
We start with the Massachusetts Fair Wage Law. It
requires that all "employer[s]" pay a minimum wage set, as of
January 1, 2019, at $12 per hour, except in certain circumstances
that are not relevant here. Mass. Gen. Laws ch. 151, § 1. A
different section of the Massachusetts Fair Wage Law requires that
"employer[s]" pay "employee[s]" at a rate of time-and-a-half for
all hours that the "employee[s]" work in a week beyond 40 hours.
Id. § 1A.
2.
We next describe the Massachusetts Domestic Workers Bill
of Rights Act ("DWBORA"). Enacted in 2014, it sets forth workplace
protections -- including concerning wages and hours -- for
"domestic workers." 2014 Mass. Acts ch. 148, § 3 (codified at
Mass. Gen. Laws ch. 149, §§ 190-191). The DWBORA defines
"domestic worker[s]" to include, in relevant part, "individual[s]
or employee[s]" providing "nanny services" and "other household
services for members of households . . . in private homes." Mass.
Gen. Laws ch. 149, § 190(a).
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The DWBORA also authorizes the Attorney General to
promulgate regulations to implement its provisions, which the
Attorney General has done. Id. § 190(o); see 940 Mass. Code Regs.
32.00-.06. We now describe the Attorney General regulations that
are relevant to this appeal.
Whenever a domestic worker clocks more than 40 hours of
"working time" in a given week, the Attorney General's regulations
require that he or she be "compensated at the overtime rate for
all hours worked over 40 per week pursuant to [the Massachusetts
Fair Wage Law]." 940 Mass. Code Regs. 32.03(3). One of the
regulations that implements the DWBORA defines "working time" as
"[c]ompensable time that includes all time during which a domestic
worker is required to be on the employer's premises or to be on
duty." Id. 32.02. This definition also defines "working time" to
include "meal periods, rest periods, and sleep periods
unless . . . a domestic worker is free to leave the employer's
premises and use the time for the domestic worker's sole use and
benefit and is completely relieved of all work-related duties."
Id. The regulation provides, however, that employers and domestic
workers may enter into an advance written agreement that excludes
"meal periods, rest periods, and sleep periods." Id.
Other regulations that implement the DWBORA concern the
deductions that an employer may take from a domestic worker's wages
for the costs of that domestic worker's food and lodging. These
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regulations limit these deductions to $1.25 for breakfast, $2.25
for lunch, $2.25 for dinner, and to $35 per week for a single-
occupancy room. Id. 32.03(5)(b)-(c). These deductions must be
agreed to, in advance and in writing, by the domestic worker.
Id. 32.03(5)(a).
Finally, the regulations that implement the DWBORA
impose recordkeeping requirements on the employers of domestic
workers. For example, the employers of domestic workers must keep
and retain for a period of three years records concerning the
domestic workers' wages and hours, the rate of their pay, the costs
for their meals and lodging, and various workplace policies, such
as benefits afforded, required notice of termination, and job
responsibilities. See id. 32.04(2)-(3). In addition, the
employers of domestic workers must keep time sheets that reflect
the compensable working time of the domestic worker for each day
over a two-week period and provide the domestic worker an
opportunity to review and contest that accounting of hours. Id.
32.04(4).
3.
The parties agree that the Attorney General considers au
pair exchange program participants to be "domestic workers" and
their host families to be "employers" within the meaning of the
DWBORA. The parties also agree that au pair participants are
"employees" within the meaning of the Massachusetts Fair Wage Law.
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II.
The parties ask us to resolve two preliminary issues.
They concern, respectively, the scope and the nature of the
plaintiffs' preemption claims.
The "scope" issue arises because, although the
complaint's prayer for relief does not mention the Massachusetts
Fair Wage Law, the plaintiffs contend that their preemption
claims -- and thus their request for injunctive and declaratory
relief -- encompass that law. The Attorney General contends,
however, that the plaintiffs' preemption challenge is confined to
the DWBORA and its implementing regulations, because the prayer
for relief set forth in the plaintiffs' complaint refers only to
those specific state law measures. Our review of this issue is de
novo. Carter v. Ford Motor Co., 561 F.3d 562, 565 (6th Cir. 2009).
"A plaintiff's failure to seek a remedy in its complaint
does not necessarily forgo that remedy." Town of Portsmouth v.
Lewis, 813 F.3d 54, 61 (1st Cir. 2016). Thus, "a district court
need not dismiss a cause of action upon which relief is plausible,
even if that relief was not sought in the complaint." Id.The plaintiffs' complaint expressly alleges that the
requirement that au pair participants comply with the
Massachusetts minimum wage, as prescribed by the Massachusetts
Fair Wage Law, "contradicts existing [DOS] requirements" about
"the federal minimum wage, which [the DOS] has chosen to use in
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calculating the amount of the [au pair's] weekly stipend." In
addition, the District Court's opinion addressed whether the
Massachusetts Fair Wage Law was preempted insofar as it applied to
au pair participants. In fact, at each stage of this litigation,
the Attorney General has argued that the Massachusetts Fair Wage
Law's minimum wage requirement applies to au pair participants.
Thus, there is no unfair surprise to the Attorney General in our
consideration of whether the DOS regulations preempt the
Massachusetts minimum wage that the Massachusetts Fair Wage Law
generally establishes for those who qualify as "domestic workers"
under the DWBORA, insofar as that minimum wage requirement applies
to the host families as the employers of au pair participants.
See Lewis, 813 F.3d at 61 (explaining that complaints should
generally be read broadly, except when it would be likely to
prejudice a defendant).
The "nature" issue arises because the plaintiffs contend
that they need only establish that the challenged state "laws are
invalid" as applied to the "Au Pair Program." The plaintiffs
argue that they need not show that "no set of circumstances exists"
under which the challenged laws would be valid in any application.
Even though the plaintiffs' preemption challenges are facial in
nature, we agree with the plaintiffs. See John Doe No. 1 v. Reed,
561 U.S. 186, 194 (2010) (explaining that the particular label of
the claim -- facial versus as applied -- "is not what matters" and
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that "[t]he important point" is that the plaintiffs must "satisfy
our standards for a facial challenge to the extent of [the] reach"
of their claims). In fact, we do not understand the defendants to
contend otherwise or the District Court to have ruled otherwise.4
III.
We now turn to the heart of the dispute: are the state
law measures at issue -- in whole or in part -- preempted, insofar
as they protect au pair participants by imposing obligations on
their host families as their employers that may be enforced against
those host families?5 The Supremacy Clause provides that federal
4 This case does arise in the pre-enforcement context, but
the preemption claims involve "purely legal questions, where the
matter can be resolved solely on the basis of the state and federal
statutes at issue," Labor Relations Div. of Constr. Indus. of
Mass., Inc. v. Healey, 844 F.3d 318, 327 (1st Cir. 2016)(quoting
Wis. Cent., Ltd. v. Shannon, 539 F.3d 751, 759 (7th Cir. 2008)).
There also is no question that Massachusetts intends to enforce
the challenged state law measures to protect au pair participants
insofar as they are denied the protection that those measures
afford their employers. See id.5 The plaintiffs allege in their complaint that, in the spring
of 2015, the Office of the Attorney General of Massachusetts
("OAG") "suggested that Sponsors should be considered non-exempt
'placement agencies' -- and therefore potentially also employers
-- under the [DWBORA] and the MA regulations. The meeting
terminated without clarity as to whether the MA OAG ultimately
would, or would not, interpret the MA Act as applying to [Cultural
Care]." The plaintiffs asked the District Court to conclude that
the state law measures were preempted and could not be enforced
against Cultural Care or Cultural Care's host families. In so
doing, the plaintiffs did not develop an argument in support of
those preemption claims that depends on the state law measures
being enforced against Cultural Care, as a sponsor, and instead
focused their argument on why the state law measures were preempted
- 22 -
law "shall be the supreme Law of the Land . . . any Thing in the
Constitution or Laws of any State to the Contrary notwithstanding."
U.S. Const. art. VI, cl. 2. This Clause gives Congress "the power
to preempt state law," which Congress may exercise either expressly
or impliedly. Arizona v. United States, 567 U.S. 387, 399 (2012).
A federal agency, however, also may preempt state law through its
regulations, and a federal agency, too, may do so either expressly
insofar as they could be enforced against the host families as
employers of au pair participants. The District Court in rejecting
the plaintiffs' preemption claims did not address, specifically,
whether the DWBORA and its regulations -- or the state's minimum
wage -- could be enforced against sponsors and not just the host
families themselves.
On appeal, the plaintiffs refer to the "Au Pair Program"
but, once again, do not develop an argument for preemption that
depends on the application of the state law measures to sponsors
rather than to host families. Instead, in their briefing to us,
the plaintiffs refer only to the obligations that the state law
provisions at issue would impose on host families, in consequence
of the childcare services that au pair participants provide to
them through the Au Pair Program. We thus do not have the distinct
question before us on appeal whether the DWBORA and its
implementing regulations or the Fair Wage Law, as applied to
sponsors in particular, are preempted by the federal regulations
that govern sponsors of au pair exchange visitor programs. Nor is
it clear that such a challenge to the enforceability of those
measures against the sponsors would be ripe. See Labor Relations
Div., 844 F.3d at 327 (finding a preemption challenge unripe where
the nature of and legal basis for the state law enforcement action
was uncertain). We emphasize, though, that it is clear that
Cultural Care, even though it is a sponsor rather than a host
family, would be directly impacted by an application of the
relevant state law provisions to host families, in light of
Cultural Care's allegations about the impact that such application
to host families would have on Cultural Care's ability to find
host families with which to place au pair participants and the
host family plaintiffs' allegations about their intention to serve
as host families in the future.
- 23 -
or impliedly. See Fidelity Fed. Sav. & Loan Ass'n v. de la Cuesta,
458 U.S. 141, 153 (1982).
The plaintiffs assert only implied preemption. There
are two types -- field preemption and conflict preemption, which
itself comes in two varieties: obstacle preemption and
impossibility preemption. We begin with the plaintiffs' field
preemption claim. We then consider their conflict preemption
claims, which concern only obstacle preemption.
The burden to prove preemption is on the plaintiffs.
See United States v. Lahey Clinic Hosp., Inc., 399 F.3d 1, 9 (1st
Cir. 2005). That is so even if the presumption against preemption
that often applies to implied preemption claims does not apply
here. Lusnak v. Bank of Am., N.A., 883 F.3d 1185, 1191 (9th Cir.),
cert. denied, 139 S. Ct. 567 (2018).
A.
States may not regulate "conduct in a field that
Congress, acting within its proper authority, has determined must
be regulated by its exclusive governance." Arizona, 567 U.S. at399 (citing Gade v. Nat'l Solid Waste Mgmt. Ass'n, 505 U.S. 88,
115 (1992)(Souter, J. dissenting). Thus, unlike conflict
preemption, field preemption ousts state law measures even if no
evidence shows that they would conflict with the federal regulatory
scheme either by frustrating its purposes and objectives, see Hines
v. Davidowitz, 312 U.S. 52, 67 (1941), or by imposing obligations
- 24 -
that it would be impossible for the regulated party to comply with
and also comply with the obligations that the federal regulatory
scheme imposes, see Wyeth v. Levine, 555 U.S. 555, 589-90 (2009).
The federal government's intent to preempt a field instead "can be
inferred from [1] a framework of regulation 'so pervasive
. . . that'" it leaves "'no room for the States to supplement it'
or [2] where there is a 'federal interest . . . so dominant that
the federal system will be assumed to preclude enforcement of state
laws on the same subject.'" Arizona, 567 U.S. at 399 (quoting
Rice v. Santa Fe Elevator Corp., 331 U.S. 218, 230 (1947)).
The plaintiffs contend that the detailed and
comprehensive nature of the DOS au pair exchange program
regulations warrants the inference that the DOS intended to
exclusively govern a field of state regulation that encompasses
the Massachusetts wage and hour measures, insofar as these measures
may be enforced to protect the rights of au pair participants
against their host families as their employers. The plaintiffs
further contend that the dominance of the federal interests that
the Au Pair Program implicates -- namely, the federal foreign
affairs interest in regulating immigration and the federal foreign
- 25 -
affairs interest in managing foreign relations -- supports this
same inference.6
We review de novo the District Court's finding that there
is no field preemption. See Bower v. Egyptair Airlines Co., 731
F.3d 85, 92 (1st Cir. 2013). We conclude that the District Court
did not err in rejecting the plaintiffs' field preemption claim.
1.
In De Canas v. Bica, the United States Supreme Court
considered a claim that "Congress, in enacting the [Immigration
and Nationality Act ("INA")], intended to oust state authority to
regulate" the employment of undocumented aliens "in a manner
consistent with pertinent federal laws" due to the comprehensive
and detailed nature of that federal statute. 424 U.S. 351, 357
(1976). The Court applied the presumption against preemption, see
id. at 360-61, notwithstanding that the INA represented an exercise
6 The plaintiffs also make a textual argument for finding
field preemption based on the DOS "Exchange Visitor Program"
regulations as a whole, which specifically require sponsors of
certain other types of exchange visitor programs -- but not of au
pair exchange programs -- to ensure that those who employ
participants in those programs comply with state wage and hour
laws. The plaintiffs contend that we thus must infer -- by
negative implication -- that the DOS did intend to preempt a field
that would encompass state wage and hour laws that protect au pair
participants. As the plaintiffs make this same argument in a more
developed fashion in support of their claim of obstacle preemption,
see Crosby v. Nat'l Foreign Trade Council, 530 U.S. 363, 372 n.6
(2000) ("[w]e recognize, of course, that the categories of
preemption are not "rigidly distinct"), we explain our reasons for
rejecting the argument in that portion of our opinion, see infra
Section III.B.2.
- 26 -
of the federal government's power over immigration and thus
implicated the federal government's power over foreign affairs,
see id. at 353.
De Canas explained that the Court had "never held that
every state enactment which in any way deals with aliens is a
regulation of immigration and thus per se pre-empted by this
constitutional power, whether latent or exercised." Id. at 355.
De Canas added that the state laws at issue were not deciding "who
should or should not be admitted into the country and the
conditions under which a legal entrant may remain," as they merely
concerned the power to employ undocumented aliens already in the
country. Id.
The Court also explained that the state law measures --
which regulated employment -- concerned a quintessentially local
area of regulation. See id. at 356-57. This fact, the Court
determined, also counseled against inferring that Congress
intended to preempt the relevant field through the INA. Id.
With the presumption against preemption in place, the
Court then held that "[t]he comprehensiveness" of the INA, "without
more[,]" was not sufficient to establish the "clear and manifest"
congressional intent to oust state law that is required to overcome
the presumption against preemption. Id. at 357, 359. Accordingly,
the Court rejected the claim of field preemption, id., concluding
that the "nature and complexity" of the federal subject matter
- 27 -
made the "detailed statutory scheme . . . likely and appropriate,
completely apart from any questions of pre-emptive intent," id. at
359-60 (quoting New York Dep't of Social Servs. v. Dublino, 413
U.S. 405, 415 (1973)).
The plaintiffs do not dispute that the presumption
against preemption that De Canas applied would be especially
difficult to overcome here. The details of the federal program in
this case are set forth in federal regulations, not a federal
statute. See Hillsborough Cty. v. Automated Med. Labs., Inc., 471
U.S. 707, 717-18 (1985) (justifying a reluctance to infer
preemptive intent from the comprehensiveness of regulations based
in part on the "variety of means, including regulations, preambles,
interpretive statements, and responses to comments" through which
an agency can "make their intentions clear if they intend for their
regulations to be exclusive").
In fact, we do not understand the plaintiffs to argue
that, insofar as the presumption against preemption does apply,
their field preemption claim can succeed. The plaintiffs contend,
however, that the presumption against preemption on which De Canas
relied does not apply.
The plaintiffs rely on Buckman Co. v. Plaintiffs' Legal
Committee, 531 U.S. 341, 347 (2001), for that assertion. They
contend that the assertedly preemptive federal measures here
operate in fields that are "inherently federal in character," id.,- 28 -
foreign relations and immigration, and thus that, under Buckman,
the presumption against field preemption that the Supreme Court
applied in De Canas does not apply. But, Buckman -- which
concerned conflict, not field preemption, id. at 348 -- explained
that the presumption against preemption did not apply there because
the "federal enactments [were] a critical element" in the state
law claim in that case. See id. at 353. The state employment
laws that the plaintiffs seek to preempt here, however, are
generally applicable to all domestic workers. Thus, they are not
predicated on the existence of the federal au pair exchange program
regulations. See Mass. Gen. Laws ch. 149, §§ 190-191; 940 Mass.
Code Regs. 32.00 et seq.7
7 The DOS, we note, in its amicus filing, invokes Wachovia
Bank, N.A. v. Burke, 414 F.3d 305, 314 (2d Cir. 2005), to argue
that there is no presumption against preemption if federal
authority has occupied the field "for an extended period of time."
But, Wachovia, which concerned the preemptive effect of the federal
regulation of national banks, did not purport to hold that the
presumption against preemption has no application to a federal
regulatory scheme merely because it implicates, in some manner, a
"field[] of regulation that ha[s] been substantially occupied by
federal authority for an extended period of time." 414 F.3d at314 (citing Flagg v. Yonkers Sav. & Loan Ass'n, 396 F.3d 178, 183
(2d Cir. 2005)). Nor, in light of De Canas, do we see how Wachovia
could be read to stand for such a proposition. We note, too, that
Wachovia addresses the application of the presumption against
preemption only in connection with the question of whether Congress
intended to authorize the federal agency charged with regulating
national banks to preempt state laws that purported to regulate
such banks and not with respect to the question of whether the
federal agency itself had intended to do so. There was no dispute
in that case -- as there plainly is here -- concerning the intent
of the federal agency with respect to preemption.
- 29 -
Even if we were to agree that the presumption against
field preemption does not apply, the plaintiffs would still bear
the burden of proving that the Au Pair Program does preempt the
relevant field. And, as we will next explain, we find unpersuasive
the plaintiffs' arguments as to why there is affirmative evidence
of a field preemptive intent here.
2.
The plaintiffs emphasize that the DOS regulations that
establish the Au Pair Program are detailed and comprehensive. But,
we do not see why, especially in light of the reasoning in De
Canas, that fact alone justifies the inference that the federal
government intended the Au Pair Program to preempt a field that
would encompass the state law measures at issue. As in De Canas,
we conclude that here, too, a "detailed [federal] scheme [is]. . .
likely and appropriate, completely apart from any questions of
pre-emptive intent." 424 U.S. at 360 (quoting Dublino, 413 U.S.
at 415).
The regulations set forth detailed requirements that the
DOS may enforce through sanctions. The regulations are directed
at the sponsors, however, and the sanctions that the DOS may
enforce apply to them, not the host families themselves. The
sanctions also merely limit or end -- save for exceptions not
relevant here -- the ability of the sponsors to continue to conduct
DOS-approved au pair exchange programs. Thus, the DOS's decision
- 30 -
to promulgate detailed and comprehensive regulations, given that
they govern and sanction sponsors, does not support an inference
that the DOS thereby intended to oust state employment laws that
define, as part of a generally applicable regulatory scheme, the
rights and duties of au pair participants and host families with
respect to each other in their employment relationship. For, De
Canas makes clear, the mere fact that a state law implicates the
interests of persons who are the subject of federal regulation,
even with respect to immigration, does not alone provide a basis
for inferring that the federal regulatory scheme was intended to
preempt a field that encompasses such a state law, at least when
it concerns a matter of such quintessentially local concern as
employment. Cf. id. at 360-61, (explaining that federalism
concerns "require[] us not to find withdrawal from the States of
power to regulate where the activity regulated was a merely
peripheral concern of the (federal regulation)" (quoting San Diego
Unions v. Garmon, 359 U.S. 236, 243 (1959)) (second alteration in
the original)).8
8 In support of this aspect of their field preemption
challenge, the plaintiffs also invoke the conclusion in ASSE Int'l,
Inc. v. Kerry, 803 F.3d 1059, 1070–71 (9th Cir. 2015), that the
Exchange Visitor Program regulations, generally, are
"comprehensive." That case does not address, however, the question
of preemption. Rather, it concerns only whether there was
sufficient law to apply to permit review under the Administrative
Procedure Act, 5 U.S.C. §§ 551, 706, of the DOS's compliance with
those regulations. Furthermore, the Exchange Visitor Program
- 31 -
The plaintiffs also point to the fact that the Au Pair
Program implicates the federal government's power over foreign
affairs, both with respect to immigration and foreign relations.
The plaintiffs contend that this feature of the Au Pair Program
also requires us to presume an intent to preempt the relevant
field. But, we do not agree.
Insofar as the Au Pair Program implicates the federal
power over immigration, the Court's ruling in De Canas stands in
the way of the plaintiffs' contention that, in consequence, we
must presume an intent to preempt the relevant field. The Court
made clear in De Canas that the fact that a state law applies to
aliens does not alone justify a presumption that the federal
government intended for the INA to preempt such a law. See id. at
355. Moreover, the state law employment measures at issue in De
Canas applied only if the employees were undocumented aliens, see
id. at 356, and thus, in that respect, more directly implicated
the federal power to regulate immigration (and thus foreign
affairs) than do the generally applicable state law wage and hour
measures that are at issue here. In addition, these state law
regulations at issue in ASSE Int'l did not include those governing
au pair participants. Moreover, consistent with our analysis, the
Ninth Circuit pointedly observed there that "[f]or program
sponsors, the regulations have the force of law, and there are
real consequences for failing to abide by them." Id. at 1070-71
(emphasis added).
- 32 -
measures do not purport -- as the ones at issue in De Canas did,
id. at 364, -- to preclude the foreign nationals affected by them
from being employed. They merely establish the wage and hour
rights that the foreign nationals affected by the federal
regulatory scheme enjoy if they are employed.
The plaintiffs separately contend that, because the Au
Pair Program implicates the distinct federal interest in promoting
international cultural exchange, it implicates "a 'federal
interest . . . so dominant that the federal system will be assumed
to preclude enforcement of state laws on the same subject.'"
Arizona, 567 U.S. at 399 (quoting Rice, 331 U.S. at 230). If the
states were allowed "to apply their own laws to the Au Pair
Program," the plaintiffs assert, then those states' laws "would
inevitably interfere with the federal government's exclusive power
to determine what regulations will best achieve its foreign
relations goals."
But, the plaintiffs do not account for the disjuncture
between the sponsor-based focus of the DOS regulations and the
employment-based focus of the state law measures. Nor is there
precedent that indicates that a federal program that represents an
exercise of the federal power to manage foreign relations -- even
if only through a program to promote international cultural
exchange -- must be presumed, for that reason alone, to preempt a
state law that merely implicates that power. See Am. Ins. Ass'n
- 33 -
v. Garamendi, 539 U.S. 396, 419 n.11 (2003) (explaining that, where
a state is "act[ing] within . . . its 'traditional competence,'"
it might well make sense to require some evidence of an actual
conflict between the federal and state laws in order to find
preemption on an implicit basis even when the federal law
implicates the federal interest in foreign affairs (quoting
Zschernig v. Miller, 389 U.S. 429, 459 (1968) (Harlan, J.,
concurring))).9
This case also is not one in which it would make sense
to adopt such a pro-field-preemption presumption. The plaintiffs
themselves emphasize that Congress intended for the Au Pair Program
to "promote international cooperation" and to "assist in the
development of friendly, sympathetic, and peaceful relations
between the United States and the other countries of the world."
22 U.S.C. § 2451. It is hardly evident that a federal foreign
affairs interest in creating a "friendly" and "cooperative" spirit
with other nations is advanced by a program of cultural exchange
that, by design, would authorize foreign nationals to be paid less
9 The plaintiffs also point out that, although the au pair
regulations require that au pair participants be between the ages
of 18 and 26, Massachusetts age discrimination laws "prohibit age
discrimination against any person over the age of 40." See 40
Mass. Gen. Laws ch. 149, § 24A. But, the fact that the federal
scheme might conflict with, and thus preempt, specific sections of
Massachusetts law unrelated to a domestic worker's wage and hour
rights provides no support for the assertion that the entire field
of state wage and hour laws is preempted with respect to their
application to host families as employers of au pair participants.
- 34 -
than Americans performing similar work. We thus conclude, like
the District Court, that the plaintiffs have failed to meet their
burden to show that the federal government intended to preempt a
field that would encompass the state law measures that they
challenge.
B.
We now consider the plaintiffs' conflict preemption
claims, which concern only obstacle preemption.10 As we have noted,
the burden to establish this form of preemption is on the
plaintiffs, whether or not the presumption against preemption
applies.
The notion that underlies obstacle preemption is that
the federal government would want a federal measure to be
preemptive of any state law that "stands as an obstacle to the
accomplishment and execution of the full purposes and objectives"
of that federal measure, Hines, 312 U.S. at 67; see also Geier v.
Am. Honda Motor Co., 529 U.S. 861, 873 (2000). Thus, the
plaintiffs do not, as they did in arguing for field preemption,
ask us to infer an intent on the part of the federal government to
10The plaintiffs make no argument concerning the other
variant of conflict preemption -- known as impossibility
preemption -- because they do not dispute that it is possible for
sponsors, au pair participants, and host families alike to comply
with each of the state law measures at issue while also complying
with each of the federal ones.
- 35 -
oust a whole field of state regulation merely from the detailed
and comprehensive nature of the au pair exchange program
regulations. Nor do they ask us to infer such an intent from the
fact that the Au Pair Program implicates the federal foreign
affairs power over immigration or foreign relations. Instead,
they ask us to draw the requisite inference of an intent to oust
the state wage and hour laws at issue from what they contend are
the specific purposes and objectives that underlie that federal
program.
The plaintiffs contend in that regard as follows. The
plaintiffs argue that, to accomplish the underlying objective of
promoting international cultural exchange, Congress and the DOS
sought, in establishing the Au Pair Program, to: (1) encourage a
diverse array of American families throughout the United States to
host au pair participants, (2) encourage foreign nationals to seek
out placements with host families in all parts of the country, and
(3) ensure that the relationship between host families and au pair
participants would be marked by true cultural exchange. The
plaintiffs contend that it follows from these asserted underlying
purposes and objectives that we must infer (1) that the DOS
intended to set a uniform, nationwide ceiling on the obligations
that could be imposed by states on host families with respect to
the wage and hour rights of au pair participants; (2) that, in
service of this end, the federal government intended to establish
- 36 -
a nationwide, uniform ceiling on the recordkeeping and
administrative burdens that could be imposed on host families with
respect to au pair participants who provide in-home childcare
services to them; and (3) that the obligations set forth in the
DOS au pair exchange program regulations on sponsors themselves
constitute that ceiling.
The plaintiffs then tie up their argument for finding
obstacle preemption this way. They contend that the enforcement
of each of the challenged Massachusetts measures necessarily would
frustrate the federal objective of establishing such a nationally
uniform system of compensation. The enforcement of each such
measure, they argue, necessarily would exceed the regulatory
ceiling that the Au Pair Program established by imposing an
independent and additional state obligation on host families not
imposed by the Au Pair Program itself.11
11In setting forth this contention, the plaintiffs go into
considerable detail about the claimed burdensome impact of these
Massachusetts measures on host family obligations with respect to
compensation, recordkeeping, and administration. But, we
understand the plaintiffs to be pointing to these alleged burdens
merely to provide support for the actual premise of their obstacle
preemption claims: that the purpose of the DOS and Congress was to
establish a nationally uniform compensation and hours ceiling --
pegged in substantial part to the minimum requirements of the FLSA
-- that would preempt the wage and hour rights that states might
confer on the au pair participants themselves to enforce against
their host families. See infra Section III.B.3.a. We do not
understand the plaintiffs to be making an argument that these
particular state law measures may be deemed preemptive only because
they are especially burdensome, such that other state wage and
- 37 -
We begin by reviewing the relevant precedents in this
area and how they bear on the plaintiffs' argument that there
should be no presumption against finding that the state law
measures in this case would pose an obstacle to the accomplishment
of the Au Pair Program's purposes and objectives. We then explain
why, reviewing the issue de novo, see Bower, 731 F.3d at 92, we
conclude that the plaintiffs have not met their burden to establish
obstacle preemption here, even if the presumption against
preemption does not apply.
1.
The plaintiffs contend, in essence, that the relevant
DOS regulations set not only a federal regulatory floor on au pair
participant wage and hour protections but also, implicitly, a
federal regulatory ceiling that limits the wage and hour
protections that states may provide to au pair participants. A
similar floor-ceiling issue arises with some frequency in disputes
over obstacle preemption. It often does so, however, in settings
that do not implicate immigration or foreign relations. It thus
often arises in settings in which the presumption against
preemption -- and thus a presumption against construing the federal
hour measures that would impose less burdensome but still
independent and additional obligations on host families would not
be preempted.
- 38 -
regulatory floor also to be a ceiling on state regulation-- more
clearly applies.
Here, however, the plaintiffs contend that no such
presumption against preemption applies, given the nature of the
federal interests implicated by the Au Pair Program. The
plaintiffs rely on Boyle v. United Technologies Corp., which they
contend holds that the evidence of "[t]he conflict with federal
policy need not be as sharp" when the federal government is
operating in a field of unique federal interest, such as the
plaintiffs contend that the fields of foreign relations and
immigration implicated by the Au Pair Program are. 487 U.S. 500,
507 (1988). The plaintiffs further contend that, in the absence
of such a presumption against preemption, we must conclude that
the state law measures would frustrate the federal objective of
establishing a nationally uniform compensation scheme for au pair
participants.
But, even if Boyle could be read to suggest that the
evidence of the ceiling-setting intention here need not be clear,
the plaintiffs still bear the burden of demonstrating that there
is a conflict between the state law measures and the Au Pair
Program by showing that the former would frustrate the purposes
and objectives of the latter. Moreover, the plaintiffs do not
dispute that, to meet that burden, they must identify affirmative
evidence that Congress or the DOS had a ceiling-setting -- and
- 39 -
thus obstacle-preemption-creating -- intent. See Arizona, 567
U.S. at 400, 414 (describing the presumption against preemption in
a case involving preemption based on federal immigration law and
finding one provision "likely would survive preemption -- at least
absent some showing that it has other consequences that
are adverse to federal law and its objectives").
As we will next explain, the plaintiffs' arguments about
the text of the relevant federal statutes and the DOS
regulations, as well as their underlying history, fails to
identify the needed affirmative evidence. Thus, we conclude that
a finding of the requisite ceiling-setting intent would
necessarily rest on the kind of unfounded speculation about the
federal government's implicit intentions that may not ground a
finding of obstacle preemption. See Chamber of Commerce of
U.S. v. Whiting, 563 U.S. 582, 607 (2011) (plurality opinion).12
12We note that two relatively recent cases, Geier, 529 U.S.
861, and Williamson v. Mazda Motor of Am., Inc., 562 U.S. 323 (2011),
wholly apart from their apparent reliance on the presumption
against preemption, are instructive in fleshing out the kind of
inquiry that courts must undertake to determine whether a federal
agency regulation that clearly sets a regulatory floor for private
conduct should nonetheless be construed to have impliedly also set
a federal regulatory ceiling for the regulation of that private
conduct by the states. In Geier, for example, the Court found
that, in requiring automobile manufacturers to install passive
restraints, such as airbags, in their vehicles, the United States
Department of Transportation ("DOT") had deliberately provided the
manufacturers with a range of choices to encourage technological
development. Geier, 529 U.S. at 874-79. Thus, the Court found
that the DOT had impliedly established not only a choice-
- 40 -
2.
We have already explained why the federal statutory
provisions that authorize the Au Pair Program do not, by terms,
demonstrate that the federal government impliedly intended to
establish a nationally uniform compensation scheme. See supra
Section III.A.2. Nor do the plaintiffs develop an argument that
those provisions themselves, independent of the DOS regulations
that implement the Au Pair Program, show that the federal
government intended to establish the kind of ceiling that would
create the conflict that would warrant a finding of obstacle
restricting regulatory floor on the manufacturers, but also a
choice-preserving regulatory ceiling on what states could mandate
manufacturers must do with respect to installing passive
restraints. Id. Therefore, the Court held, a state tort law that
imposed a duty on the manufacturers to install a specific type of
passive restraint was preempted because its enforcement would
frustrate the implicit federal objective of preserving the choice
of manufacturers to comply with the federal regulation by a means
other than the installation of that type of passive restraint. Id.
at 882.
In Williamson, which concerned a related DOT regulation,
however, the Court came to the opposite conclusion. There,
the DOT's seatbelt regulation once again left manufacturers with
a choice -- this time as to what type of seatbelt to install.
Moreover, as in Geier, the state law at issue "would restrict that
choice" by requiring additional safety measures. Williamson, 562
U.S. at 332. But, Williamson ruled that, because the DOT, in the
federal regulation at issue, was concerned only with safety and
not with providing manufacturers with a choice as to
what seatbelt to install, the state law requirement under review
was not preempted. Id. Moreover, Williamson explained, although
the state law requirement that was being challenged would impose
costs on the manufacturers above those that they would incur by
complying with the federal regulation's floor, that fact alone
provided no basis for finding a preemption-creating conflict
between state and federal law. Id. at 335.
- 41 -
preemption. We thus follow the parties in focusing our attention
on the DOS regulations that define the parameters of the Au Pair
Program. See CSX Transp., Inc. v. Easterwood, 507 U.S. 658, 664
(1993).
To show the requisite ceiling-setting intent, the
plaintiffs focus chiefly on the provision of the au pair exchange
program regulations that is entitled "Wages and hours." 22 C.F.R.
§ 62.31(j). The provision states: "Sponsors shall require that au
pair participants: (1) Are compensated at a weekly rate based upon
45 hours of child care services per week and paid in conformance
with the requirements of the [FLSA] as interpreted and implemented
by the [DOL]." Id. That provision further states, with respect
to hours, that sponsors "shall require" that "au pair participants
. . . do not provide more than 10 hours of child care per day, or
more than 45 hours of child care in any one week." Id.§62.31(j)(2).
The plaintiffs emphasize that the provision sets the
amount of compensation that sponsors shall require that au pair
participants receive each week. It sets that amount, the
plaintiffs note, on the assumption that au pair participants will
provide the full 45 hours of childcare services a week that the Au
Pair Program permits them to provide, regardless of whether the au
pair participants provide it. The plaintiffs contend that the
provision in this way reveals that the DOS intended to establish
- 42 -
a compensation system that is not intended to pay au pair
participants for the actual number of hours that they work. It is
proper to infer, the plaintiffs thus argue, that the DOS did not
intend for au pair participants to be able to require their host
families to pay them the minimum wage that a state might require
for each actual hour of work, if the resulting wage for the week
would exceed the weekly compensation amount set forth in the DOS
regulations themselves for 45 hours of such work. Rather, the
plaintiffs assert, the text of this provision shows, albeit
implicitly, that the DOS intended to set an independent, nationally
uniform compensation scheme that would preempt a more generous one
that a state might establish, even if the state law scheme took
the form of a generally applicable wage and hour law.
But, the text of this provision imposes the obligation
to require that au pair participants receive a certain amount of
weekly compensation only on the sponsors. No obligation, enforced
by the DOS, is imposed on the host families themselves. The
obligation that DOS may enforce against the sponsors is defined,
moreover, in terms that make it hard to draw the ceiling-setting
inference that the plaintiffs ask us to make.
An au pair participant is clearly paid "in conformance
with" the FLSA minimum wage for a domestic worker who provides 45
hours a week in childcare services, so long as that participant
receives not less than that minimum amount of weekly compensation.
- 43 -
Indeed, the plaintiffs concede that this text does not forbid au
pair participants from being paid more. Thus, the plaintiffs
acknowledge, for example, that, in accord with this provision, a
host family may voluntarily pay an au pair participant more than
the minimum wage required by the FLSA for that amount of work
without creating any conflict with this provision. But, if a
sponsor would meet its obligation -- which is the obligation that
the regulations empower the DOS to enforce -- in the event a host
family chooses to be that generous, then we fail to see what in
the provision's text indicates that a host family may not be
required to pay that higher wage in order to comply with a state
wage and hour law. After all, a sponsor would be no less able to
fulfill its obligation to ensure that au pair participants are
paid "in conformance with" the FLSA -- given that it merely sets
a non-preemptive floor -- in that circumstance.13
13We note, too, that the current "Wage and hour" provision
replaced the "Stipend and hours" provisions of the 1994 and 1995
regulations. See supra Section I.A.2. Each of those prior
versions of the au pair exchange program regulations,
respectively, obliged sponsors to require that au pair
participants "are compensated not less than" $155 or $115. 59 Fed.
Reg. at 64,300; 60 Fed. Reg. at 8553 (emphasis added). That "not
less than" formulation sounds in floor-setting, not
ceiling-setting, terms. 59 Fed. Reg. at 64,300; 60 Fed. Reg. at
8553. Yet, the plaintiffs do not contend that the agency later
meant to shift course when it changed the language to oblige
sponsors to require that au pair participants received
compensation pegged to a calculation based on "conformance with"
- 44 -
The au pair exchange program regulations do contain a
section that purports to describe the "objectives" of the Au Pair
Program. See 22 C.F.R. § 62.31(a)-(b). But, this provision does
not refer to a federal governmental interest in setting a uniform
national standard for either au pair participant wages or for host
family recordkeeping requirements. Id. Nor do the plaintiffs
contend otherwise, as they do not argue that the "objectives"
provision itself supports their position about what the implicit
objectives of the Au Pair Program are.
The "objectives" section does state that "[a]u pair
participants provide up to forty-five hours of child care services
per week and pursue not less than six semester hours of academic
credit . . . during their year of program participation." Id. §
62.31(a). But, neither the "objectives" section nor any other
provision of the DOS regulations refers -- at least in any express
way -- to an agency interest in capping, based on the FLSA minimum
wage, the costs of a host family that chooses to have an au pair
participant provide the full amount of childcare services that the
Au Pair Program allows. Nor do the Au Pair Program regulations
reference state wage and hour laws, which is not surprising given
the lack of any indication that the agency anticipated at the time
the FLSA's "requirements" rather than to a fixed, minimum dollar
amount.
- 45 -
of the regulations' promulgation that state wage and hour laws
would apply to domestic workers. See infra Section III.B.3.a.
Thus, the fact that a state wage and hour law might increase host
family costs beyond what they would be in the absence of such a
law is not, in and of itself, evidence that demonstrates that such
a law would impede the accomplishment of the federal objective
reflected in the text of the DOS regulations. Cf. Williamson, 562
U.S. at 332.
From all one can tell from the text of these provisions,
in other words, the Au Pair Program operates parallel to, rather
than in place of, state employment laws that concern wages and
hours and that protect domestic workers generally, at least with
respect to the obligations that such state law wage and hour
measures impose on host families to do more than what the FLSA
itself requires. Thus, the text of au pair exchange program
regulations themselves does not supply the affirmative evidence
that the state measures at issue will frustrate the federal
scheme's objectives that the plaintiffs need to identify if they
are to meet their burden to show obstacle preemption.
The plaintiffs ask us, however, to consider the Au Pair
Program in light of the DOS "Exchange Visitor Program" Regulations
as a whole. They point out that the regulations that govern
certain other exchange visitor programs expressly require sponsors
to ensure that program participants are paid "the higher of . . .
- 46 -
[t]he applicable Federal, State or Local Minimum Wage," 22 C.F.R.
§ 62.32(i)(1)(i).14 They note that, by contrast, the section of
the "Exchange Visitor Program" regulations that governs the au
pair exchange programs does not. See id. § 62.31(j). The
plaintiffs contend that this relative silence gives rise to an
inference of a ceiling-setting intent on the part of the DOS by
negative implication.
But, these other regulatory measures are themselves
sponsor focused, and the plaintiffs do not suggest that, just
because sponsors must ensure that the participants in those
programs must comply with those state laws, those participants are
barred from enforcing those state laws directly against their
employers, insofar as their employers fail to comply with them.15
In addition, the regulatory provisions that impose the obligation
14 The summer work-travel regulations, 22 C.F.R.
§ 62.32(i)(1)(i), the teacher program, id. § 62.24(f)(5), and the
camp counselor program, id. § 62.30(f), include references to the
applicability of state and local wage laws or state that exchange
visitors should be paid like their American counterparts.
15 Consistent with this conclusion, the plaintiffs do not
dispute that au pair participants are "employees" under the FLSA,
as the DOL determined them to be in 1997 and as the au pair exchange
program regulations have long accepted. 62 Fed. Reg. at 34,633.
Nor do the plaintiffs appear to dispute that, if an au pair
participant could show that she had worked a given number of hours
in a week, then she would appear to have the independent statutory
right as an "employee" under the FLSA to seek compensation for
that amount of work from her host family as her "employer" if she
had not in fact been paid the required wage. The plaintiffs appear
to accept this fact, moreover, notwithstanding that the Au Pair
Program itself does not confer that right on the participants.
- 47 -
on the sponsors of those other programs are silent with respect to
whether the DOS understood that the participants in them would be
preempted from enforcing state wage and hour laws against their
employers unless their sponsors were obliged to ensure that those
employers complied with those laws. See, e.g., Exchange Visitor
Program -- Summer Work Travel, 76 Fed. Reg. 23,177, 23,177-78 (Apr.
26, 2011) (to be codified at 22 C.F.R. pt. 62). In consequence,
the fact that the DOS did not impose that same obligation on Au
Pair Program sponsors does not show by negative implication that
the DOS must have intended for the Au Pair Program to impose such
a preemptive bar.
There is, moreover, textual evidence in other provisions
of the DOS "Exchange Visitor Program" regulations that appears to
be at odds with the inference that the plaintiffs ask us to draw
from the relative silence of the regulations that govern the Au
Pair Program. The plaintiffs do not dispute that au pair
participants are "employees" within the meaning of the FLSA. The
plaintiffs thus appear to accept that the Au Pair Program does
have an "employment component[.]" Id. § 62.11(a). The general
provisions of the "Exchange Visitor Program" regulations, however,
expressly contemplate that state laws that regulate employment --
and thus that regulate an employee's wages and hours -- will
independently protect participants in exchange visitor programs
that have an "employment component." Id.; see id. § 62.10(b)(9)
- 48 -
(providing that sponsors must also provide "clear information and
materials" to program participants, including information
pertaining to "employee rights and laws, including workman's
compensation").
The plaintiffs' only response is that, at least with
respect to participants in the au pair exchange program, this
general "employment component" provision must be referring merely
to employee rights and laws other than state wage and hour laws.
But, the ordinary meaning of the phrase "pertaining to employment,"
see id. § 62.11(a), would not appear to exclude wages and hour
laws. The provision also applies, by terms, to any exchange
visitor program with an "employment component." The plain text of
the "employment component" provision thus provides no support for
reading in the plaintiffs' preferred implicit limitation -- let
alone for reading in that au-pair-exchange-program-based
limitation and then also drawing the negative inference from
relative silence that the plaintiffs ask us to draw.
Such a limitation on that "employment component"
provision also is not compelled by the fact that sponsors of some
exchange visitor programs must ensure that employers comply with
state wage and hour laws. It would be odd to construe the more
onerous directive that requires sponsors of certain visitor
exchange programs to ensure employer compliance with state wage
and hour laws to limit the scope of the less onerous directive
- 49 -
that requires all sponsors merely to have detailed knowledge of
such laws and to convey information about them to program
participants. Per the regulations, moreover, sponsors clearly
must have detailed knowledge of some state employment laws --
including concerning workman's compensation -- that the
regulations do not require them to ensure that employers follow.
See id. §§ 62.11, 62.10(b)(9).
We do not mean to challenge the plaintiffs' assertion
that the au pair exchange program regulations do not themselves
oblige sponsors (let alone host families) to require that au pair
participants receive the minimum wage that a state would require
that they be paid. The regulations plainly do not. But, the fact
that the regulations do not themselves impose on host families an
obligation to comply with state wage and hour laws that the DOS
may enforce against them does not supply the needed affirmative
evidence that the regulations were intended to preempt the
enforcement of such a state law obligation against those families.
Finally, we find it significant that, although the DOS's
au pair exchange program regulations make no reference to state
wage and hour laws, they do refer to the expressly non-preemptive
FLSA. It is conspicuous -- insofar as the DOS is said to have the
asserted preemptive intent -- that, in cross-referencing the
FLSA's expressly non-preemptive requirements, the provision says
nothing similarly express to indicate that the au pair exchange
- 50 -
program regulations preempt independently conferred wage and hour
rights that the FLSA does not itself preempt.
In sum, the text of the au pair exchange program
regulations and the "Exchange Visitor Program" regulations more
generally do not supply the requisite affirmative evidence that
the state law measures would pose an obstacle to the accomplishment
of the purposes and objectives of the Au Pair Program. In fact,
the text of the regulations reflects the DOS's intention to ensure
that the regulations would accommodate the DOL's determination
that au pair participants are employees who are entitled to be
protected by an independent wage and hour law that is not itself
preemptive. The regulations also reflect the fact that the DOS
contemplated that state employment laws would protect exchange
visitor program participants from their employers. Thus, if there
is a basis for concluding that the relevant DOS provisions preempt
wage and hour laws that the FLSA does not itself preempt, that
conclusion must find support somewhere other than in the text of
the DOS regulations themselves.
3.
The plaintiffs argue that the regulatory history lends
the necessary support that, as we have explained, the regulatory
text fails to supply. The plaintiffs point specifically, however,
only to a few brief passages from the agency commentary that
accompanied the 1994 and 1995 precursors to the current section of
- 51 -
the DOS regulations, which at the time had been promulgated by the
USIA. We do not disagree that this history may be relevant to our
inquiry into agency intent. See Geier, 529 U.S. at 884-85 (finding
regulations to have a preemptive effect without clear text to that
effect based on the regulatory history). But, we conclude that,
when considered in context, that history does not provide the
affirmative evidence that the plaintiffs must identify to meet
their burden to show obstacle preemption.
a.
The plaintiffs first point to a passage from the
commentary that accompanies the USIA's 1994 Interim Final au pair
exchange program regulations. That passage refers to the need for
there to be "uniform compensation" for au pair participants. 59
Fed. Reg. at 64,298. The plaintiffs contend that this reference
shows, quite clearly, that the agency did intend to establish the
nationally uniform compensation system on which their obstacle
preemption claims are premised. But, the context shows otherwise.
The agency commentary indicates that a central concern
for the agency at that time was whether "an employer/employee
relationship [was] established between the au pair and the host
family" -- and thus whether the FLSA applied to that relationship.
See id. The commentary shows that the agency thought that the au
pair-host family relationship presented an analogous relationship
to that of domestic workers and their employers under the FLSA.
- 52 -
The commentary further shows that the agency was inclined to
"defer[] to more appropriate authorities" as to the nature of that
relationship rather than to make its own independent judgment.
Id. Nevertheless, the commentary goes on to explain, the agency
had decided to base the weekly "Stipend" amount that sponsors would
have to ensure that au pair participants received on the FLSA's
wage and hour requirements for live-in domestic workers, assuming
the au pair participants provided 45 hours of childcare services
in that week, as if those FLSA requirements did apply of their own
accord. See id. at 64,298-300.
It is at this point in the commentary that the reference
to "uniform compensation" appears. The reference arose because,
even after having decided to peg the stipend to an amount that
would ensure compliance with the FLSA's floor -- insofar as the
FLSA turned out to govern of its own force the au pair
participant-host family relationship -- the agency still faced a
choice. The agency needed to determine how high to set that FLSA-
compliant weekly compensation amount.
The USIA noted in the accompanying commentary that this
choice arose due to a DOL rule that implemented the 1975 FLSA
amendments that governed domestic workers. Id. at 64,298. That
DOL rule permitted employers of live-in domestic workers to deduct
from those workers' wages either a fixed credit in the amount of
$36 per week for their room and board costs or their actual room
- 53 -
and board costs on an itemized basis, so long as employers who
chose the latter option kept records to support those itemized
deductions. 40 Fed. Reg. at 7406 (DOL regulation setting maximum
deductions).
Given that DOL rule, if the agency pegged the weekly
stipend amount to a wage due a domestic worker for 45 hours of
labor under the FLSA that was based on the $36 fixed credit that
the DOL permitted employers to take, then the resulting
compensation amount -- to be FLSA compliant -- would have to be a
fixed and thus uniform dollar amount for every family of at least
-- "not less than" -- $155 a week. 59 Fed. Reg. at 64,298. But,
if the agency instead pegged the amount to the itemized deductions
that host families were permitted to claim under the DOL's
implementing regulations, then that amount (though still FLSA-
compliant) would not only potentially be much lower, it also would,
necessarily, not be uniform across families. For, in that event,
that amount necessarily could vary from family to family (even
within a state) with the amount of the legitimate itemized
deductions that each host family might choose to claim. Id.
The USIA, having considered both approaches, explained
in the commentary that it had decided to "adopt[] the $36 credit
approach . . . in order to ensure that all au pair participants
receive uniform compensation." Id. Thus, the context for the
- 54 -
reference to "uniform compensation" on which the plaintiffs rely
shows the following.
The USIA made the reference to its interest in uniform
compensation only in the course of attempting to explain why,
having decided to peg the weekly compensation amount that sponsors
would have to ensure to an amount that would "not [be] less than"
the FLSA floor, it had chosen as between two possible
FLSA-compliant amounts the one that was uniform (because pegged to
the fixed credit) rather than the one that was variable (because,
pegged to the itemized option). Accordingly, the reference to
"uniform compensation" does not provide the needed affirmative
evidence that the agency had an independent interest in ensuring
the kind of nationwide uniformity in au pair participant
compensation that would necessitate the imposition of a ceiling on
the compensation that host families could be required by a state
to pay an au pair participant.
In fact, no mention is even made of any state wage and
hour laws, even though there is extensive discussion in the agency
commentary of the expressly floor-setting -- rather than ceiling-
setting -- FLSA. Nor is the absence of any such reference so
surprising that we must assume that the agency failed to mention
such state wage and hour measures only because it understood that
they would be preempted.
- 55 -
The regulations then -- just like the DOS regulations
now -- purported only to define the obligations of the sponsors of
au pair exchange programs. It is hard to leap from the fact that
a sponsor was not obliged to ensure that host families comply with
those wage and hour laws to the conclusion that host families
themselves were not obliged to do so, such that au pair employee
participants could not enforce the rights that they otherwise would
have under such laws against their host family employers. In fact,
it is not clear that the agency was even aware at the time that
state wage and hour laws protected the rights of domestic workers.
Against that uncertain state law landscape, it would have made
sense for the agency to have been concerned only with defining the
sponsors' obligation as to the federal minimum wage, which the
accompanying agency commentary makes clear that the agency was
aware at the time might protect au pair participants.
b.
The plaintiffs' other evidence from the regulatory
history comes from the commentary that accompanies the 1995
revisions to the Au Pair Program regulations. The plaintiffs
point, first, to a portion of this commentary in which the agency
states: "the programmatic need for a uniform wage remains." 60
Fed. Reg. at 8551. The plaintiffs then point to a portion of the
commentary in which the agency describes a possible future revision
by the DOL of its domestic worker regulations concerning room-and-
- 56 -
board costs deductions by employers of domestic workers. Id.
That portion notes that, once made, that revision would "eliminate
the need for host families to keep individualized records." Id.
But, when considered in context, these passages do not provide the
basis for drawing the inference with respect to obstacle preemption
that the text of the regulations themselves fail to supply.
With respect to the agency's statement that "the
programmatic need for a uniform wage remains," the context shows
that host families had contended that the $155 stipend amount in
the 1994 regulations was too high. Id. The host families were of
that view because they contended that, in using the $36 fixed
credit to generate the $155 amount, the USIA was relying on an
outdated -- and thus artificially low -- means of estimating the
actual room and board costs of host families as of 1995. Id. The
host families thus had argued that the agency should permit host
families to deduct their actual room and board costs on an itemized
basis, as was permitted by that same DOL regulation, in order to
account for inflation over the last decades. Id.
The agency found this contention persuasive, in part,
but then added: "however, the programmatic need for a uniform wage
remains." Id. For that reason, the agency opted for a new stipend
amount -- $115 a week -- that would be lower than the prior one
but still tied to a fixed dollar amount rather than to one that
would vary with a particular host family's itemized deductions.
- 57 -
Id. That revised approach would permit host families to claim
itemized deductions but only up to an amount $40 greater than the
$36 fixed credit amount, assuming that host families documented
the up-to-$40-worth of itemized deductions with the records that
the DOL rule required for deductions claimed on such an itemized
basis. Id.
Thus, once again, the passage that refers to uniformity
as an agency interest appears in a specific context. That context
reveals that the reference to uniformity reflects the agency's
continued interest in setting the compensation amount that
sponsors would be required to ensure was paid at an amount at least
equal to the FLSA minimum but still uniform for all host families
(because pegged to a fixed dollar amount greater than the FLSA's
$36 fixed credit deduction option) rather than as low as the FLSA
minimum but potentially variable, even within a state, as to each
host family (because pegged to the FLSA's itemized deductions
option). In context, then, the reference does not concern the
distinct issue on which the obstacle preemption inquiry turns:
whether the federal agency, in establishing this uniform floor for
the amount that a sponsor must ensure that an au pair participant
is compensated, intended also to set a nationally uniform wage
ceiling, to ensure uniformity across states, that would preclude
au pair participants from enforcing state wage and hour laws
against their host families.
- 58 -
The commentary also supplies important context for the
reference to the elimination of recordkeeping burdens that appears
in the accompanying agency commentary to this iteration of the
USIA regulations. The agency explained in that commentary that it
set the new stipend amount $40 lower than it had set it in the
1994 interim final regulations. The agency explained that it had
done so because the DOL had by then proposed a domestic worker
regulation that would raise the cap on the fixed credit that
employers of domestic workers could claim for room and board costs
to an as-yet unknown amount. Id. Thus, the agency explained, the
DOL's proposed revision to its domestic worker rule would -- once
finalized -- substantially increase the fixed credit amount while
still providing an option for claiming itemized deductions for
room and board costs if supported by adequate records.16 Id.; see
16 We note that the regulatory history references a
"programmatic need for a uniform wage." 60 Fed. Reg. at 8551
(emphasis added). It appears that the "programmatic need" for
uniformity was a need that the agency was attributing to the
privately conducted "programs," rather than to the agency itself,
presumably because the "programs" had an interest in opposing
itemized deductions. A duty to ensure that au pair participants
received a fixed-dollar-amount-based stipend each week, after all,
is more easily satisfied than is a duty to ensure that the
participants receive a stipend amount from their host families
that would depend on the legitimacy of the itemized deductions
that individual host families claimed. See id. This understanding
comports with the agency's explanation that, in the end, it chose
to balance the "programmatic need" for uniformity with the needs
of host families, who favored a variable stipend based on itemized
deductions. Id. In this way, too, then, the passage from the
agency commentary on which the plaintiffs rely appears to provide
- 59 -
also Application of the Fair Labor Standards Act to Domestic
Service, 58 Fed. Reg. 69,310 (Dec. 30, 1993) (to be codified at 29
C.F.R. pt. 552) (proposed DOL rule permitting a fixed credit amount
tied to the federal hourly minimum wage and deduction of actual
costs supported by adequate records). The agency then noted that,
once the DOL did so revise that fixed credit cap, the need for
host families to keep records to claim deductions above the $36
fixed credit would thereby be eliminated. Id.Given this context, the reference to the elimination of
the need to undertake recordkeeping burdens fails to indicate that
the agency intended to eliminate the imposition of independently
imposed recordkeeping burdens on host families. In fact, as we
have explained, the 1995 regulations affirmatively permitted host
families to claim some itemized deductions under the DOL domestic
workers rule in a way that the 1994 interim final regulations --
due to the higher compensation floor that had been set -- did not.
But, the 1995 regulations permitted families to claim the itemized
deductions without suggesting that, in doing so, they would not
have to comply with the recordkeeping requirements for taking such
itemized deductions that the DOL regulation imposed of its own
little support for concluding that the agency's interest in
uniformity reflected an interest in establishing a nationally
uniform compensation ceiling applicable in every state rather than
merely a compensation floor that would not depend on the deductions
claimed by particular families within any state.
- 60 -
accord. 40 Fed. Reg. at 7406 (1975 DOL regulations);
Administrative Changes, 44 Fed. Reg. 6715 (Feb. 2, 1979) (to be
codified at 29 C.F.R. pt. 552) (1979 amendments). To the contrary,
the agency noted that this approach "will ensure adherence to
federal law," 60 Fed. Reg. at 8551, which further reflects the
agency's understanding that the FLSA's (non-preemptive) minimum
wage and attendant recordkeeping requirements would apply as
independent legal obligations to which host families may be subject
separate and apart from any obligation that the USIA's au pair
exchange program regulations imposed on them.
Moreover, as we shall next see, the agency ultimately
opted to require sponsors to ensure that au pair participants
received weekly compensation based on a calculation that would be
"in conformance with the requirements of" the FLSA. 22 C.F.R.
§ 62.31(j)(1); 62 Fed. Reg. at 34,634. Significantly, the agency
did so at a time when those FLSA "requirements" contemplated that
employers could deduct from the wages of domestic workers the
actual costs of room and board on an itemized basis only if such
deductions were backed up with adequate supporting records. See
29 C.F.R. § 552.100(c)-(d); Application of the Fair Labor
Standards Act to Domestic Service, 60 Fed. Reg. 46,766, 46,768
(Sept. 8, 1995) (to be codified at 29 C.F.R. pt. 552).
It is worth noting, too, that, in the commentary
accompanying the 1995 regulations, the USIA explained for the first
- 61 -
time that it had been "specifically advised" by the DOL that au
pairs were "employees" of their host families and thus subject to
the FLSA. 60 Fed. Reg. at 8550. The USIA also explained in that
same commentary that it would defer to the DOL on that issue. Id.
Yet, in providing the DOL's analysis that supported that
conclusion, the USIA did not refer to any potential conflict
between the imposition of the FLSA's obligations on host families
and any USIA interest, such as the goal of cultural exchange. See
id. at 8550-51. Nor did the USIA express reservations about the
DOL's characterization of the au pair participant-host family
relationship as an employee-employer relationship. Nor, finally,
did the USIA assert that, even though the FLSA's requirements are
not preemptive of state wage and hour laws, the USIA's regulations
keyed to those very same requirements were. See id.
If anything, then, the accompanying agency commentary
indicates that the regulations were crafted to accommodate the
fact that an independent wage and hour law -- the FLSA -- might
treat the relationship between au pair participant and host family
to be one between employee and employer and thus give independent
rights to the former that could be enforced against the latter.
But, that independent federal wage and hour law itself sets only
a floor for the compensation and record keeping requirements that
states may exceed through their own wage and hour laws. It is
thus hard to see how either the USIA's 1995 au pair exchange
- 62 -
program regulations or the agency commentary to them provides the
requisite support for the conclusion that the agency must have
implicitly intended to establish a preemptive ceiling on wage and
hour requirements that no state could exceed; no such state law
measures were even mentioned in either the regulations themselves
or the accompanying agency commentary. It is especially hard to
see how those materials provide such support, insofar as the state
law obligations would be imposed on host families as the employers
of au pair participants, given that the regulations, by their
terms, purported to impose obligations that the DOS could enforce
only on the sponsors.
c.
The one last piece of the regulatory history that the
parties discuss -- the USIA's 1997 revision to the au pair exchange
program regulations -- supports the same conclusion. That revision
introduced, for the first time, the language on au pair participant
compensation that appears in the current version of the DOS's au
pair exchange program regulations. See 60 Fed. Reg. at 46,768.
The language refers to such compensation as a "wage" --
and thus calls to mind an employment relation -- and pegs the
amount not to a fixed-dollar number but to a calculation based on
the "requirements" of the FLSA, which, of course, are themselves
expressly not preemptive. Id. The USIA explained in the
commentary to the 1997 version of the regulations that accompany
- 63 -
these provisions, moreover, that, as of that time, the DOL had
"determin[ed]" that au pair participants were "employees" under
the FLSA and thus that they "must" be compensated in accordance
with its terms. 62 Fed. Reg. at 34,633. The 1997 commentary goes
on to explain that the USIA had thus decided -- as it had long
suggested that it would -- to defer to the DOL's final view of
that question. Id.
Given this context, it is notable that the accompanying
agency commentary says not a word about either the need for
"uniform" compensation or the elimination of recordkeeping
burdens. See id. at 34,632-33. Once the USIA had decided to defer
to the DOL's final determination that au pair participants had to
be treated as "employees" under the FLSA, it would appear, the
USIA's only interest was in obliging sponsors to ensure that au
pair participants got at least what protection they would be due
under the FLSA, whatever its "requirements" were. Id. But that
federal interest may be fully accomplished by merely setting a
FLSA-pegged weekly compensation floor that sponsors must require
that host families meet --- and a floor that could vary based on
the itemized deductions, if backed by supporting records, that a
given host family might claim for room and board costs. The
fulfillment of that federal interest would not require the agency
to make that floor also do double duty as a ceiling that no state
could exceed in setting the obligations of host families, as a
- 64 -
species of employer, with respect to those whom they employed to
provide in-home childcare services.
Nor is there anything anomalous about concluding that
the USIA had no interest in making that floor do such double duty.
As discussed above, it is not clear whether the USIA was even aware
that any state law measures protecting the wage and hour rights of
domestic workers existed. See supra Section III.B.3.a. A federal
agency would have acted quite sensibly, therefore, in obliging
sponsors of this type of exchange visitor program to be responsible
for requiring compliance only with clearly established federal
statutory wage and hour standards, while leaving the employer-
host-families responsible for ensuring that they complied with any
generally applicable state wage and hour law requirements that
might emerge. Thus, contrary to the plaintiffs' contention, the
fact that there is no history of federal agency attempts to oblige
sponsors to require host family compliance with state wage and
hour laws hardly supplies a supportable basis for concluding that
the agency must have intended to preempt the participants
themselves from enforcing such state law measures against their
host families.
C.
The plaintiffs separately point to what they claimed
would be the adverse practical impact on the Au Pair Program of
the application of the state law measures to host families. The
- 65 -
plaintiffs contend that, if those measures were applicable to host
families as the employers of au pair participants, then the
enforcement of those measures would make participation in the
program for host families so costly that it would preclude "many,
and probably most" families from doing so. The plaintiffs also
contend that such application of the Massachusetts measures would
formalize what they portray as a more informal host-family-au pair
participant relationship in ways that the federal government could
not possibly have intended.
This line of argument rests in part on the disputed claim
that, under Massachusetts law, domestic workers must be
compensated for sleep and meal periods even if they are completely
relieved of job duties and free to leave the premises. See 940
Mass. Code Regs. 32.02 (defining "working time"). But, we have no
reason here to disregard the Attorney General's assertion about
the proper construction of state law, given the lack of clarity in
the relevant provisions. See Amerijet Int'l, Inc. v. Miami-Dade
Cty., 627 F. App'x 744, 749 (11th Cir. 2015) ("In evaluating the
[Appellant's] facial challenge, we must consider the county's
authoritative constructions of the ordinance, including its own
implementation and interpretation of it." (alteration in
original)(quoting Forsyth Cty. v. Nationalist Movement, 505 U.S.
123, 131 (1992))).
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Moreover, the plaintiffs' assertions that the
Massachusetts measures would preclude large numbers of families
from participating in the Au Pair Program are cast in conspicuously
speculative terms ("many, probably most"). (Emphasis added). The
Massachusetts wage and hours measures are generally applicable to
domestic workers, whether they participate in the au pair exchange
program or not. The plaintiffs' complaint provides no basis for
surmising, however, that families who otherwise would have become
host families in order to obtain needed in-home childcare services
would opt in large numbers to forgo obtaining such services
altogether in order to avoid the costs imposed by the DWBORA and
the Massachusetts Fair Wage Law. Yet, if such families would not
opt to forgo all such services, then the plaintiffs have failed to
explain why those families would opt out of the Au Pair Program,
for there is simply no way for such families to obtain such
services from anyone -- au pair participants or not -- in
Massachusetts without incurring the costs imposed by the DWBORA
and the Massachusetts Fair Wage Law.
The plaintiffs' assertions about the impact of the
administrative burdens and recordkeeping obligations imposed by
the Massachusetts measures suffer from similar problems. The
assertions do not, for example, take account of the fact that
similar (though not identical) burdens and recordkeeping
requirements are already imposed by the FLSA on host families.
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Compare 29 C.F.R. §§ 552.100, 552.110, with Mass Gen. Laws ch.
151, § 15, and Mass Gen. Laws ch. 149, § 190(l). But see Mass.
Gen. Laws ch. 149 § 190(l)(v)-(ix) (requiring that host families
keep records of various employment policies, such as job
responsibilities and procedures regarding termination). The
assertions thus fail to show why the differential recordkeeping
burdens would be so transformative as to require the conclusion
that they would prevent the Au Pair Program from serving its goal
of promoting international cultural exchange.
This impact-based line of argument, however, ultimately
suffers from a more serious flaw, which we conclude is
determinative. In asking us to infer a ceiling-setting agency
intent on the basis of only speculative predictions about the
future effects on host family participation of the application of
state laws, the plaintiffs are necessarily asking us to engage in
precisely the sort of "freewheeling judicial inquiry" into the
intention of the federal agency that we are supposed to avoid in
evaluating an obstacle preemption claim. Whiting, 563 U.S. at
607; see Boyle, 487 U.S. at 507 n.3 (requiring at least evidence
of a "significant conflict"). This is not a case, we emphasize,
in which there is an extensive regulatory history replete with
agency commentary that provides support for drawing the inference
that the agency had deliberately intended to set both a floor with
which the private actors would have to comply and a ceiling on the
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additional regulatory burdens that a state could impose on them.
Compare Geier, 529 U.S. at 875-78, 885-86, with id. at 910-11(Stevens, J., dissenting) ("[T]he Court identifies no case in which
we have upheld a regulatory claim of frustration-of-purposes
implied conflict pre-emption based on nothing more than an ex post
administrative litigating position and inferences from regulatory
history and final commentary." (second emphasis added)). Rather,
neither the text nor the regulatory history affirmatively
indicates that the federal government made such a deliberate,
ceiling-setting choice, and, other provisions indicate the
opposite. In such circumstance, speculation about future impacts
supplied by the plaintiffs themselves cannot satisfy their burden
to show the requisite -- implicit -- preemptive intent.
IV.
We recognize that the DOS, as reflected in its amicus
filing, reads its current regulations -- as well as the regulatory
history that we have just reviewed -- differently than we do. We
thus consider the contentions that the DOS makes, too. Geier, 529
U.S. at 883; Williamson, 562 U.S. at 335-36; see also Kisor v.
Wilkie, 139 S. Ct. 2400, 2418 n.6 (2019) (reaffirming courts’
ability to defer to "agency interpretations advanced for the first
time in legal briefs" where there is "no reason to suspect that
the interpretation [did] not reflect the agency's fair and
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considered judgment on the matter in question" (quoting Auer v.
Robbins, 519 U.S. 452, 462 (1997))).
In doing so, however, we are mindful that we may not
defer to an "agency's conclusion that state law is preempted."
Wyeth, 555 U.S. at 576. Instead, we must attend to the
"thoroughness, consistency, and persuasiveness" of the agency's
explanation of how state law affects the federal regulatory scheme
that the agency administers. Id. at 577. And here, as we will
explain, the DOS's explanation, even if not in conflict with any
previously articulated and well-considered DOS explanation, fails
to warrant a finding of either field or obstacle preemption.
Like the plaintiffs, the DOS points to the fact that the
"Exchange Visitor Program" regulations for certain other exchange
visitor programs, unlike those for the Au Pair Program, explicitly
reference state and local minimum wage laws. See 22 C.F.R.
§ 62.32(i)(1)(i). The DOS contends that this aspect of the
regulations shows that when the DOS "intends to require payment in
accordance with state and local law for [other exchange visitor
program] participants the Department say[s] so expressly[.]" But,
as we have noted, by terms, the "Exchange Visitor Program"
regulations address only the obligations that sponsors must meet
in order to avoid the sanctions that the DOS may impose on them
under the regulations. The regulations do not, by terms, purport
to define the obligations of the employers themselves that those
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whom they employ may enforce against them. See supra Section
III.A.2.
The DOS does not attempt to account for this disjuncture
between the Au Pair Program's focus on the obligations of sponsors
and the state wage and hour measures' focus on the obligations of
the employers to the domestic workers whom they employ. The DOS
merely asserts that, because sponsors of au pair exchange programs
are not required to ensure that employers comply with state wage
and hour laws, while the sponsors of other exchange visitor
programs are so required, the participants in au pair exchange
programs may not independently ensure that their employers do
comply with those state laws. There is no indication, however,
that the participants in those other exchange visitor programs
would be prevented from enforcing their state law wage and hour
rights against their employers unless the sponsors of those
programs were required to show that the employers of those
participants complied with them. The DOS thus fails to provide a
persuasive explanation for drawing the negative inference that,
because au pair exchange programs are not required to ensure such
compliance, au pair participants may not enforce state wage and
hour rights against their employers.
The DOS also asserts that the federal obligations on
sponsors to require that au pairs are paid "in conformance with
the requirements of the FLSA" based on the au pair having worked
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45 hours in a week should be understood to be a preemptive ceiling
on what the au pair participant may claim as a wage from her host
family. But, as we have explained, that language simply does not
by terms establish such a ceiling. See supra Section III.B.2.
The DOS separately contends that the regulations that
govern the Au Pair Program should be construed to be preemptive in
the same way that the federal statute that authorized the President
of the United States to impose sanctions on Burma that was at issue
in Crosby v. National Foreign Trade Council, 530 U.S. 363, 380
(2000), was construed to be. The DOS contends that the
regulations, like the federal Act in Crosby, are "drawn not only
to bar what they prohibit but to allow what they permit." Id.But, in Crosby, as the Court expressly recognized, Congress's
purpose was clear -- to give the President full discretion in
regard to trade with "Burma." Id. at 374-76. It is not similarly
clear that, in setting the compensation obligation of a sponsor of
an au pair exchange program -- enforceable only by the DOS against
that sponsor -- the regulatory scheme's purpose was to set not
only the minimum amount that the sponsor must ensure that au pair
participants must receive but also a ceiling on what a state may
require a host family to pay that au pair participant. In fact,
the wages and hours obligation that the DOS imposes on sponsors is
pegged to the requirements of a federal statute that itself makes
clear that the floor that it sets for the wage that employers must
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pay is not also a ceiling on what states may require them to pay.
See 29 U.S.C. § 218.
Turning to the DOS's discussion of the regulatory
history, the DOS points only to the very same passages in the
agency commentary that we have already reviewed. The DOS does not
purport to examine the context within which the passages appear.
Instead, it seizes on certain phrases in isolation. As we have
explained, though, considered in context, the passages that the
DOS invokes show that the agency intended to establish a uniform
rather than variable compensation floor -- pegged to the FLSA
minimum -- that sponsors would be obliged to ensure was met. See
supra Section III.B.3.a. The agency interest in ensuring that
kind of uniformity, however, accords with the agency having merely
established a floor for sponsors to meet. The DOS thus fails to
explain why these references affirmatively indicate that the
agency also had the requisite ceiling-setting intent.
There is, moreover, regulatory text that appears to
point directly against the DOS's view. Specifically, DOS appears
to acknowledge that the au pair regulations include an "employment
component," and that the general "Exchange Visitor Program"
regulations' requirement that sponsors who "work with programs
with an employment component" must have "Responsible Officers" who
have "a detailed knowledge of federal, state, and local laws
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pertaining to employment" applies to the Au Pair Program. See 22
C.F.R. § 62.11(a).
To respond to this seemingly problematic language, the
DOS contends that state wage and hour laws only apply to "Exchange
Visitor Programs" that have additional, specific regulations
regarding state laws on top of the general regulations, such as
the summer work-travel program. According to the DOS's
construction of the regulations, the general "Exchange Visitor
Program" regulations' requirement that sponsors have "Responsible
Officers" who understand all state laws that are relevant to their
programs applies to the Au Pair Program only "with respect to
matters" beyond wage and hour laws, such as state negligence laws.
But, insofar as this assertion by the DOS depends on our granting
the negative inference that the plaintiffs ask us to draw from the
requirement that sponsors of other exchange visitor program ensure
that employers of the participants in those programs do comply
with such laws, we have already explained why such an inference is
unwarranted. See supra Section III.B.2. And, insofar as this
assertion does not depend on that premise, it cannot be squared
with the plain text of the regulations, for reasons that we have
already explained. See id.
Thus, while we do owe respectful deference to the DOS's
own view of its regulations, the portions of the regulatory text
and the passages in the underlying regulatory history that the DOS
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invokes to support the assertions that it makes about them simply
do not support those assertions. And, of course, an agency's mere
"conclusion that state law is pre-empted" is not one to which we
may defer. Wyeth, 555 U.S. at 576-77.
There is one last set of materials to which the DOS --
and, in passing, the plaintiffs -- point: a series of agency
guidance documents and fact sheets concerning changes to the
federal minimum wage that were issued by the USIA and the DOS
between 1997 and 2007. The DOS does not contend that we owe such
material any deference. But, the DOS does contend that these
materials show that the Au Pair Program regulations were long
understood by the agency itself to oust state minimum wage laws.
We do not agree.
The 1997 agency documents merely clarify that federal
changes to minimum wage laws affect the stipend and wage calculated
in the 1995 regulations. Thus, these guidance documents serve
only to reinforce the conclusion -- already evident from the text
-- that the DOS regulations apply only to sponsoring organizations
and that Au Pair Program participants' actual entitlement to wages
that they may enforce against their host families comes from the
FLSA -- not the DOS regulations. In particular, the documents
warn host families that if they fail to "abide by the . . . au
pair stipend increases" they are "in violation of federally-
mandated minimum wage law," not DOS regulations. These documents
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thus show, at most, that state wage and hour laws were not
considered, not that they were considered and preempted.
The 2007 fact sheet does refer to a fixed-dollar amount
for the minimum weekly compensation in explaining the impact of
the raised federal minimum wage on the Au Pair Program. That is
so even though the au pair exchange program regulations would
appear to permit that minimum to vary based on the actual costs
host families incurred. Relying on this apparent discrepancy, the
DOS and the plaintiffs -- though, again, only in passing -- argue
that these guidance documents indicate that the agency had imposed
a national, uniform system for au pair compensation.
But, the 2007 guidance is itself directed only at
sponsors. At most, it would suggest that sponsors were obliged to
enforce a weekly amount of compensation that was higher than what
the FLSA and its regulations would require that the au pair
participants be paid. We thus do not see how that one guidance
document, insofar as it even comports with the text of the DOS
regulations themselves, could supply the basis for inferring an
intent from the Au Pair Program to transform the non-preemptive
FLSA floor on the wage and hour rights that au pair participants
have vis-a-vis their host family employers into a preemptive
federal ceiling on those rights.
In fact, if we are considering past agency practice, the
DOS acknowledges that, when litigation first arose to enforce a
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state wage and hour measure for the benefit of au pair participants
in 2015, a DOS spokesperson publicly stated that au pair exchange
program sponsors must "comply with all other applicable federal,
state, and local laws, including any state minimum wage
requirements." Lydia DePillis, Au Pairs Provide Cheap Child Care.
Maybe Illegally Cheap., Wash. Post, Mar. 20, 2015. With regard to
communicating these requirements to au pair sponsor agencies,
moreover, the DOS spokesman went on to say: "The Department has
been communicating with au pair sponsors to confirm that they are
aware of their obligations under the regulations -- including with
respect to host family requirements -- and will continue to do
so." Id.17
We recognize that the DOS asserts that it is not "clear"
that the agency's public response at that time represented a
considered view. We do not suggest otherwise. But, insofar as
the agency means to invoke other aspects of its past practice that
it concedes do not represent the kind of considered agency view
17
Although a 2014 version of a State Department informational
pamphlet, the Wilberforce Pamphlet, stated that all recipients of
nonimmigrant visas “have the right to be paid the higher amount"
of the federal or state minimum wages, the State Department took
out that statement when it revised the pamphlet in 2016. Compare
U.S. Dep’t of State, 2014 Wilberforce Pamphlet 7 (2014),
https://internationalservices.ncsu.edu/files/2015/03
/Wilberforce-Pamphlet.pdf, with U.S. Dep’t of State, 2016
Wilberforce Pamphlet (2016), https://j1visa.state.gov/wp-
content/uploads/2017/01/Wilberforce_Pamphlet_October2016.pdf.
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that merits deference to demonstrate how unthinkable it has always
been that the Au Pair Program could function if state wage and
hours laws could be enforced against host families, this aspect of
the agency's past history at least suggests that the supposedly
unthinkable was thought.
The regulatory history does suggest that the au pair
exchange program regulations were promulgated at a time when it
may not have been evident that there were independently enforceable
wage and hour protections for domestic workers beyond those
established by the FLSA itself. See supra Section III.B.3.a.
State laws providing such protections are never mentioned by the
agency. But, the fact that the agency may not have had those state
laws in view does not permit us to conclude that the agency must
therefore have preempted them, at least given the sponsor-
targeting, floor-setting words that the agency chose to use in the
regulations and what the history underlying those words reveals
about the agency's focus. For, while we may assume that the DOS
would be free to preempt such state laws now by revising the
regulations, it may not simply ascribe to them, retrospectively,
a ceiling-setting character that neither the text, nor the
regulatory history, nor even past practice demonstrates that they
have had.
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V.
We come, then, to the plaintiffs' fallback grounds for
challenging the District Court's ruling. They contend that,
insofar as we find the Massachusetts state laws not to be
preempted, the District Court erred in denying their motion under
Rule 59(e) for reconsideration of the District Court's decision on
the motion to dismiss or, in the alternative, for leave to amend
their complaint pursuant to Rule 15(a). We review denials of both
motions for abuse of discretion. United States ex rel. Ge v.
Takeda Pharm. Co., 737 F.3d 116, 127 (1st Cir. 2013). We find
none.
The plaintiffs can succeed on a Rule 59(e) motion for
reconsideration -- relief for which, we have noted, is "granted
sparingly," -- only if they can show that "the original judgment
evidenced a manifest error of law, if there is newly discovered
evidence, or in certain other narrow situations." Biltcliffe v.
CitiMortgage, Inc., 772 F.3d 925, 930 (1st Cir. 2014) (internal
quotations omitted). Starting with the first of the motions, we
note that the plaintiffs premised it on the availability of what
they deemed "new evidence," which included, among other things, an
affidavit from Stanley Colvin, a former DOS official, and letters
from current members of Congress.
The plaintiffs contend that, in rejecting the motion, it
was "unreasonable" for the District Court to decline to consider
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the Colvin affidavit, host family declarations, and letters from
members of Congress, because of the "persuasive information" that
they contained. The plaintiffs further contend that the District
Court abused its discretion in failing to do so because it
"declined to consider documents outside the pleadings in ruling
on" the motion to dismiss pursuant to Rule 12(b)(6) and relied on
this rationale for denying the motion for reconsideration. As the
plaintiffs put it, the District Court abused its discretion in
this regard because it made this decision "without even reviewing
[the Colvin affidavit] . . . even though the District Court had
previously suggested at an earlier status conference that the
parties could agree to submit additional facts outside the
Complaint, and even though the District Court did consider other
materials outside the pleadings in its decision."
The District Court did consider a congressionally
commissioned report from the GAO that the Attorney General cited,
but which was not in the record, in deciding the motion to dismiss.
But, that document, as the District Court noted, is publicly
available and the plaintiffs did not object to its inclusion. The
documents at issue in this challenge, by contrast, were not
publicly available, and the Attorney General did object to their
consideration and thus did not agree to their submission.
The plaintiffs' arguments concerning the denial of their
request to amend their complaint pursuant to Rule 15(a) are
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similarly unavailing. Under that Rule, District Courts "freely
give leave [to amend the complaint] when justice so requires."
Fed. R. Civ. P. 15(a). But, as we have explained, "once [a]
judgment has been entered, the district court is without power to
entertain any amendments unless the judgment is set aside." Deka
Int'l S.A. v. Genzyme Corp. (In re Genzyme Corp. Secs. Litig.),
754 F.3d 31, 46 (1st Cir. 2014). And here, judgment was entered
prior to the plaintiffs' motion to amend and, thus, the District
Court denied that motion on that basis.
The plaintiffs do contend that the District Court abused
its discretion in denying this motion for leave to amend by relying
on our decision in Fisher v. Kadant, 589 F.3d 505, 509 (1st Cir.
2009), because there "the plaintiffs had two months between the
order on the motion to dismiss and entry of judgment." But, Fisher
did not rely on the time between the order on the motion to dismiss
and the entry of judgment in reaching its conclusion. See id. at
509-14. And, the plaintiffs do not grapple with a series of other
cases applying Rule 15(a) also without regard for the time between
the order on the motion to dismiss and the entry of judgment. See,
e.g., In re Genzyme, 754 F.3d at 46; Feliciano-Hernández v.
Pereira-Castillo, 663 F.3d 527, 538 (1st Cir. 2011). Thus, we see
no abuse of discretion by the District Court on this score either.
VI.
The judgment of the District Court is affirmed.
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