|
The Michigan Court of Appeals has reversed a trial court order
compelling two workers seeking back pay to disclose their Social
Security numbers (SSNs). The court based its ruling on the fact that
the information is irrelevant and was sought by the defendant for the
improper purpose of intimidating the workers.
The plaintiffs, Mayra Cabrera and Norma Portillo,
were cleaning service workers for the defendant, Five Star Cleaning.
They sued Five Star Cleaning to recover back pay for wages they earned
but were not paid during a six-week period in 2001. Five Star Cleaning
thereafter requested discovery of the plaintiffs’ SSNs and immigration
documents. The plaintiffs replied that this information was not
discoverable, because it was irrelevant to the subject matter of the
suit and to any defenses available to Five Star Cleaning.
The defendant filed a motion with the trial judge
to compel discovery of the plaintiffs’ SSNs and immigration documents,
arguing that the requested information was either relevant or might lead
to relevant information. The defendant specifically argued that the
information was relevant to the plaintiffs’ breach of contract claim,
given that “there were potential questions regarding whether an illegal
alien could contract for employment or allege a breach of contract.”
Similarly, the defendant argued that its discovery request was relevant
to the plaintiffs’ Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA) claim because of the
question as to “whether illegal aliens were entitled to liquidated
damages.”
The plaintiffs responded that the issue underlying
all counts of their complaint was “the fact that [they] worked and . . .
did not receive wages for work that has already been performed.”
The trial court granted the defendant’s motion in
part, ordering the plaintiffs to disclose their SSNs but not their
immigration documents. The court issued a partial protective order with
respect to the plaintiffs’ SSNs, ordering that the defendant use their
SSNs only for the purposes of the litigation and limiting the inquiries
the defendant could make to the Social Security Administration (SSA) to
the work the plaintiffs had performed specifically for the defendant.
The plaintiffs filed a motion to reconsider the
discovery ruling. After their motion was denied, the plaintiffs
appealed the ruling to the Court of Appeals.
The appeals court reversed the trial court’s
decision, ruling that the plaintiffs’ SSNs are not relevant in
determining the amount of their unpaid wages for work already
performed. The court held that “the production of plaintiffs’ social
security numbers is clearly not relevant in determining liability for
unpaid wages for the reason that it is the duty of the employer, not the
employee, to report earned wages to the federal Wage and Hour
Division.” It further noted that since all records of employment must
be maintained and kept by the employer, information regarding the amount
of wages earned by the plaintiffs as reported to agencies such as the
SSA is already in the defendant’s possession.
The appeals court considered federal case law on
the question of immigration status discovery in FLSA suits. It cited
Liu v. Donna Karan Int’l, Inc., 207 F. Supp. 2d 191 (S.D.N.Y. 2002),
and Flores v. Amigon, 233 F. Supp. 2d 462 (E.D.N.Y. 2002), for
their holding that “discovery of the employee’s immigration status was
not relevant to an FLSA claim for unpaid wages for work already
performed” and that “the potential for prejudice from disclosure far
outweighed whatever minimal value the information might have.” (For
more on Liu, see “Court
Denies Designer Donna Karan’s Request for Discovery into Immigration
Status,” Immigrants’ Rights
Update, July 29, 2002, p. 14; for more on Flores, see
“Courts Continue Rejecting Defendants’ Post-Hoffman Inquiries
into Plaintiffs’ Immigration Status,” IRU, Oct. 21, 2002, p. 10.)
The appeals court also cited the Liu and
Flores decisions for their treatment of the U.S. Supreme Court’s
decision in Hoffman Plastic Compounds, Inc. v. NLRB, 535 U.S. 137
(2002). Specifically, the court agreed that there is a distinction
between undocumented workers who seek back pay for wages actually earned
and those seeking back pay for work not performed. Therefore, like the
Liu and Flores courts, the court found that the Hoffman
decision was not relevant to Cabrera’s and Portillo’s case. (For a
summary of the decision in Hoffman, see “Supreme
Court Bars Undocumented Worker from Receiving Back Pay Remedy for
Unlawful Firing, IRU, Apr. 12, 2002, p. 10.)
In addition to ruling that the plaintiffs’ SSNs
were irrelevant to the case, the appeals court also found that the
defendant’s discovery request “was made for the improper purpose of
intimidating plaintiffs to withdraw their lawsuit and forgo their legal
rights to recover unpaid wages for work already performed.” The
decision represents an important victory for immigrant workers’ access
to legal remedies to recover wages that they earned but were not paid
and sends a clear message to employers who try to use the discovery
process to deny such access to these workers.
Cabrera v. Five Star Cleaning, 265 Mich. App. 402 (Mar.
10, 2005).
By
Anita Sinha, NILC staff
attorney
|
