Signet Builders, Inc. v. Jose Ageo Luna Vanegas

Jose Ageo Luna Vanegas came to the U.S. legally on an H-2A visa specifically designed for seasonal workers in agriculture. The plan was never for Luna Vanegas to till the soil or otherwise engage in “primary” farming. Instead, consistent with the terms of the visa application submitted by petitioner Signet Builders, he built livestock confinement structures on farms, activities traditionally treated as secondary “agriculture” under the Fair Labor Standards Act (“FLSA”) and the H-2A program. As a result, like many other guestworkers lawfully employed pursuant to an H-2A visa, Luna Vanegas was paid an agreedupon wage for every hour he worked, but not overtime. Luna Vanegas nonetheless sued for overtime, and although his narrow view of what constitutes agriculture for the FLSA and H-2A visas could endanger his fellow workers’ ability to qualify for H2A visas, he sought certification of an FLSA collective action. The district court granted Signet’s motion to dismiss on the ground that Luna Vanegas’ on-farm employment constituted secondary agriculture. In a remarkable throwback, defying this Court’s emphatic rejection of a narrow-construction rule for FLSA exemptions in Encino Motorcars, LLC v. Navarro, 138 S.Ct. 1134, 1142 (2018), the Seventh Circuit applied that narrow-construction rule to reverse and set the FLSA and the H-2A visa program on a collision course. The questions presented are: Whether there is any room for a rule interpreting the FLSA’s exemptions narrowly, rather than fairly, after this Court’s decision in Encino Motorcars, LLC v. Navarro, 138 S.Ct. 1134 (2018).