Employer’s attorney may be held liable for retaliating against client’s former employee

In a decision that is already drawing harsh criticism, the Ninth Circuit held that an attorney may be liable to his client’s former employee for retaliation where the attorney contacted federal immigration authorities at U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) to advise, “if there is an interest in apprehending” the plaintiff, he would be attending a deposition on a certain date. ICE conducted its own investigation and determined “based on our records he has no legal status.” The plaintiff learned that ICE was aware of him, alleged that realizing the same had caused him severe, and as a result, he said, settled his wage-hour lawsuit against the former employer. After settling with the company, he sued its attorney, again, not his own attorney but opposing counsel. The Ninth Circuit noted that attorney had allegedly communicated with ICE about five other plaintiffs and held that the plaintiff’s claim should be allowed to proceed.

In doing so, the Ninth Circuit reviewed the statutory language of FLSA’s retaliation provisions. The Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA) is the nation’s primary wage-hour law. The Ninth Circuit read its anti-retaliation language as being broader than its substantive provisions regarding overtime, minimum wage, etc. The Ninth Circuit said the broad anti-retaliation language was more like Title VII’s (the nation’s leading anti-discrimination law). The Ninth Circuit held that, given the breadth of FLSA’s anti-retaliation language, such a claim is viable.

The decision has been called “flat-out bonkers” and possibly “the year’s worst employment law decision” and is being cited as an example of a decision by a court that “has officially lost its mind.”

Source: Arias v. Raimondo, Court of Appeals, 9th Circuit 2017 – Google Scholar