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[DO NOT PUBLISH]
IN THE UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS
FOR THE ELEVENTH CIRCUIT
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No. 17-15322
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D.C. Docket No. 6:14-cv-00053-JRH-GRS
R. ALEXANDER ACOSTA,
Secretary of Labor, Department of Labor,
Plaintiff-Appellee,
versus
BLAND FARMS PRODUCTION & PACKING, LLC,
DELBERT BLAND,
an individual,
Defendants-Appellants.
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Appeal from the United States District Court
for the Southern District of Georgia
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(April 5, 2019)
Before WILSON, BRANCH, and ANDERSON, Circuit Judges.
PER CURIAM:
Bland Farms Production & Packing, LLC runs a packing shed that processes
and packages Vidalia onions grown both by Bland Farms as well as other farmers
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in the area. Shortly after he began growing onions in the 1980s, Delbert Bland was
questioned by the Department of Labor about whether he was paying his packing
shed employees properly. In response, Bland wrote to the Department, requesting
guidance on when he should be paying overtime wages to his packing shed
employees. The Department replied that a farmer is not responsible under the
agricultural exemption from overtime if the packing shed employees were
processing onions grown by the farmer or onions that the farmer had purchased in
the field as long as he had purchased the entire field of onions.
Bland Farms processed onions in its packing sheds during the 2012-2016
seasons that were grown on land owned and leased by other growers. These
contract growers contracted before planting to sell the onions to Bland Farms that
they grew. Specifically, the contract growers prepared the seedbeds, planted,
transplanted, fertilized, sprayed herbicides and pesticides, irrigated, and harvested.
Bland Farms’ expert agronomist provided free advice and counsel to the contract
growers throughout the season, visiting their farms and advising on the timing of
planting and harvesting, the choice of seed varieties, and the application of
chemicals. The contract growers paid all of the expenses: the seed, fertilizer,
herbicide, pesticide, and labor costs. Bland Farms provided some labor
occasionally and often helped haul the onions out of the field; Bland Farms would
advance cash to the growers when necessary and occasionally harvested the
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onions. Bland Farms charged the growers for any provided assistance and
recouped any cash advances. Typically, Bland Farms only paid for those onions
that were marketable, under the “pack-out rate.” Occasionally, Bland Farms paid a
set rate for the onions, regardless of quality, the “across-the-scales” method. The
risk of loss was on the growers through the growing period; they carried their own
crop insurance; Bland Farms took no responsibility for the onions until purchased.
The Department of Labor filed this action challenging the overtime-exempt
status of Bland Farms’ packing shed employees during the Vidalia onion packing
season in May 2014. After a bench trial, the district court released an order finding
Bland Farms’ packing shed employees did not qualify as exempt employees
because Bland Farms was not so intimately involved in its contract growers’
operations as to make its employees secondary agriculture employees. The court
awarded overtime wages for the 2012-2016 seasons. The court also awarded
liquidated damages from and after the time the Department filed suit, because it
held that although Bland Farms reasonably relied on the Department of Labor’s
advice from the 1980s about when overtime was due, it could not rely on that
advice after the Department filed suit.
The Fair Labor Standards Act provides an exception to the overtime pay
requirements for “any employee employed in agriculture.” 29 U.S.C. §
213(b)(12). In another section, the FLSA defines agriculture as:
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farming in all its branches and among other things includes the
cultivation and tillage of the soil, . . . the production, cultivation,
growing, and harvesting of any agricultural or horticultural
commodities . . . and any practices . . . performed by a farmer or on a
farm as an incident to or in conjunction with such farming operations,
including preparation for market . . . .
29 U.S.C. § 203(f). We have stated that “processing on a farm of commodities
produced by other farmers is incidental to, or in conjunction with, the farming
operation of the other farmers and not incidental to, or in conjunction with, farming
operations of the farmers on whose premises the processing is done. Such
processing is therefore not within the definition of agriculture.” Mitchell v.
Huntsville Wholesale Nurseries, Inc.,
267 F.2d 286, 290 (5th Cir. 1959). 1
Bland Farms argues that its direction and supervision of the farming
operations of its growers is more extensive than was the direction and supervision
by Huntsville of its growers. However, the actual facts of Huntsville, see
id. at 288
n.2, are extremely similar to the facts of the instant case with respect to the
autonomy of the contract growers in their farming operations. Furthermore,
although both Huntsville and Bland Farms provided advice and counsel and
sometimes cash advances to their contract growers, “these things are not farming.”
Id. at 291. Because Huntsville held that the direction and supervision did not
1
In Bonner v. City of Prichard,
661 F.2d 1206, 1209 (11th Cir. 1981) (en banc), this Court
adopted as binding precedent all of the decisions of the former Fifth Circuit handed down prior
to the close of business on September 30, 1981.
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transform the farming operations of the Huntsville growers so as to constitute
farming operations of Huntsville—i.e., because the farming operations of the
growers in Huntsville remained farming operations of the growers and not farming
operations of Huntsville—and because we are not persuaded that the direction and
supervision of Bland Farms over its growers is materially distinguishable from that
exercised by Huntsville, we conclude, as did the court in Huntsville, that the
farming operations of Bland Farms’ growers should not be considered to be
farming operations of Bland Farms. See also Sweetlake Land & Oil Co. v. NLRB,
334 F.2d 220, 221, 223 (5th Cir. 1964). Thus, Bland Farms’ packing shed
employees were not employed in agriculture when they packed the growers’
onions. Those employees were therefore entitled to overtime pay, and we affirm
the district court’s award of back wages.
“Any employer who violates [29 U.S.C. § 207] shall be liable to the
employee . . . in the amount of . . . [her] unpaid overtime compensation . . . and in
an additional equal amount as liquidated damages.” 29 U.S.C. § 216(b). A court
may award no liquidated damages “if the employer shows to the satisfaction of the
court that the act or omission giving rise to such action was in good faith and that
he had reasonable grounds for believing that his act or omission was not a violation
of the [FLSA].” 29 U.S.C. § 260. Whether an employer acted in good faith and
had reasonable grounds for believing its act or omission was not a violation of the
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FLSA has both a subjective and objective component. Dybach v. Fla. Dep’t of
Corr.,
942 F.2d 1562, 1566 (11th Cir. 1991). Subjective good faith means the
employer had an honest intention to ascertain what the FLSA requires and to act in
accordance with it.
Id. Objective good faith means the employer had reasonable
grounds for believing its conduct comported with the FLSA.
Id.
In the district court, Bland Farms argued that it acted in good faith and with
reasonable belief that it was complying with the FLSA for two reasons: first, its
reliance on the Department’s letter, and second, its reasonable belief, wholly aside
from that letter, that it was in compliance with the FLSA because of its extensive
control over the farming operations of its growers. The district court found that
Bland Farms initially acted in good faith and with reasonable belief that it
complied with the FLSA when it relied upon the Department’s letter. However,
the court found that it ceased to have good faith after the Department filed suit.
Thus, the court awarded liquidated damages for the period after the filing.
However, in doing so, the court ignored Bland Farms’ second argument: its
reasonable belief, aside from the Department’s letter, that it was in compliance
with the FLSA; that is, its reasonable belief that “Bland Farms was actually the
farmer of the onions its employees processed.” Because the district court failed to
address this second ground in its calculation of liquidated damages, we vacate and
remand the portion of its order regarding liquidated damages so that it may address
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this argument. In so doing, we recognize that the district court has broad discretion
under the Act to determine liquidated damages.
AFFIRMED in part, VACATED in part and REMANDED.
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