18th Annual Workplace Class Action Report - 2022 Edition

622 Annual Workplace Class Action Litigation Report: 2022 Edition different footing, because although Plaintiffs’ complaint alleged that Bosch GmbH and Bosch LLC, like the BMW Defendants, coordinated with one another, Bosch LLC’s headquarters were in Michigan. Thus, even fully crediting the allegations that Bosch GmbH managed and controlled Bosch LLC, Bosch GmbH’s contacts with Bosch LLC would be contacts with Michigan and not New Jersey. For these reasons, the Court held that it lacked personal jurisdiction over Bosch GmbH and granted its motion to dismiss. Winters, et al. v. Grand Caribbean Cruises Inc. , 2021 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 26779 (D. Ariz. Feb. 11, 2021). Plaintiffs filed a class action alleging that Defendant made unsolicited cellular telephone calls to them in violation of the Telephone Consumer Protection Act (“TCPA”). Defendant filed a motion to dismiss, which the Court granted for lack of jurisdiction. Defendant contended that the Court lacked jurisdiction over Plaintiffs’ claims because Defendant, as a Florida company, was not subject to general jurisdiction in Arizona, and that Plaintiffs could not meet the requirements of specific personal jurisdiction. Plaintiffs argued that Defendant was subject to specific personal jurisdiction in Arizona because: (i) it engaged in "direct contact" with Arizona residents; or (ii) the contacts of Defendant’s agents with Arizona residents may be imputed to it. The Court disagreed. It found that Plaintiffs failed to meet their burden of establishing specific personal jurisdiction under either of these theories. Id . at *9-10. Defendant contended that it was not subject to personal jurisdiction in Arizona under a "direct contact" theory because it "did not place or make any telephone calls to Plaintiffs." Id . at *10. In support of its assertion, Defendant submitted a declaration from its president that stated that "Grand Caribbean has never placed or initiated a telephone call to any of the Plaintiffs in this action." Id . The Court ruled that based on the record before it, it must accept Defendant’s contention that it did not make any of the challenged phone calls to Plaintiffs. Id . Accordingly, the Court held that Plaintiffs failed to meet their burden of showing that Defendant itself committed an intentional act aimed at individuals in Arizona. Id. Plaintiffs also asserted that even if Defendant itself did not place the calls, there was obviously some agreement between Defendant and the agents placing the telephone calls, such that a reasonable consumer would have believed the calls to have come from Defendant. The Court agreed with Defendant that Plaintiffs failed to meet their burden of establishing specific personal jurisdiction based on an agency theory. Id . at *14. The Court noted that Plaintiffs did not distinguish between entities in the complaint and did not allege any facts showing that Defendant had the right to “substantially control its agents activities,” which is a “fundamental tenet of an agency relationship. Id . at *14-15. For these reasons, the Court granted Defendant’s motion to dismiss. (li) Labor Abuse Issues In Class Action Litigation Gonzalez, et al. v. CoreCivic, Inc. , 2021 U.S. App. LEXIS 1559 (5th Cir. Jan. 20, 2021). Plaintiff, an Immigration and Customs Enforcement (“ICE”) detainee, filed a class action alleging that Defendant’s work program for detainees violated the Trafficking Victims Protection Act (“TVPA”), which imposes civil liability on "[w]hoever knowingly provides or obtains the labor or services of a person" by certain coercive means. Id . at *1. Defendant filed a motion to dismiss on the grounds that its work programs fell outside the reach of the forced- labor prohibition. The District Court denied Defendant’s motion. On appeal, the Fifth Circuit affirmed the District Court’s ruling. It found that the plain text of the TVPA contained no such detainee-labor exemption. Plaintiff contended that Defendant’s work programs were not actually voluntary, and that she was essentially forced to clean the detention facilities, cook meals for company events, engage in clerical work, provide barber services for fellow detainees, maintain landscaping, and provide other labor. Id . at *2. Plaintiff further alleged that if she were to refuse, Defendant would impose more severe living conditions, including solitary confinement, physical restraints, and deprivation of basic human needs such as personal hygiene products. Id . The District Court determined that the plain terms of § 1589(a) covered labor conducted by immigration detainees in a private detention center. Defendant filed a motion to certify a question for interlocutory appeal of "whether the TVPA applies to work programs in federal immigration detention facilities." Id. at *4. The District Court granted the motion, and the Fifth Circuit accepted the question. On appeal, Defendant contended that the language in § 1589(a) did not encompass labor performed in work programs in a federal immigration detention setting. Id . The Fifth Circuit disagreed and it opined that Defendant was clearly an entity covered by the term "whoever,” and it clearly "obtained" the labor of detainees. Id . Alternatively, Defendant claimed that § 1589 must be construed narrowly to cover only forced labor that arose in the international human trafficking context. However, the Fifth Circuit concluded that the text of § 1589 itself was broad, and not limited to forced labor in the international human trafficking context. Id . at *5. Accordingly, the Fifth Circuit ruled that because on its face