The decision involving hiring was made outside of the United

1. The decision involving hiring was made outside of the United States.  Therefore, do you agree with the court’s reasoning surrounding the extra-territorial reach of the FLSA? Can you think of a valid policy reason why the courts seek to apply FLSA to decisions such as this one?
2. Given the court’s reasoning in this case, can you imagine a ‘slippery slope’ involving extra-territoriality?  If you were arguing the case for the defendant farm, what would be your most persuasive argument utilizing a slippery slope?  “If this provision of the FLSA applies extra-territorially, then . . . ” what is the next step? And with what consequences for employers?
3. Do you agree with the Court in Patel that protecting undocumented immigrants by requiring that employers treat them the same as other workers will discourage undocumented immigration?
4. Are you persuaded, as was the court, by the context and history of the FLSA?  Does it make a difference that we are making decisions today based on the history of an act that was passed into law decades ago?  What relevance or weight should a court give to that history in making its decisions today?

Issue: Whether employer violated the FLSA’s anti-retaliation provision when the employer refused to hire farmworkers who had filed a previous FLSA lawsuit.

Facts: Plaintiffs are 14 Mexican farm workers who had been legally employed in the United States on the defendant Shannon’s farm. They brought their claim under the Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA), alleging that the defendant refused to rehire them in retaliation for participating in a prior FLSA lawsuit, since workers who did not participate in that prior suit were rehired.  The defendant moved to dismiss, claiming that, since the decision not to rehire occurred in Mexico, FLSA did not apply. The court concluded that FLSA’s anti-retaliation protection could apply extraterritorially.

Decision: The court found that neither § 213(f) nor general extraterritoriality principles stand in the way of the plaintiffs’ § 215(a)(3) retaliation claim, under the FLSA’s anti-retaliation provision. The plaintiffs do not ask this Court to apply the FLSA to regulate foreign working conditions, so the extraterritoriality concerns did not bar action. The § 215(a)(3) cause of action is being invoked as Congress intended — to prevent retaliation for filing a lawsuit to enforce workplace standards in the United States.