March 18, 2019

CLA’s Central West Justice Center wins workers’ rights case in front of Mass. Supreme Judicial Court

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

Contact: Leticia Medina-Richman Managing Attorney
Central West Justice Center
March 15, 2019                                 
Phone: (508) 425-2811
Email: lrichman@cwjustice.org 

Central West Justice Center wins workers’ rights case in front of Mass. Supreme Judicial Court

Attorneys from Community Legal Aid’s wholly owned subsidiary Central West Justice Center (CWJC) won an important victory for workers’ rights in front of the Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court (SJC). On Friday, March 15, 2019, the SJC ruled in favor of the plaintiffs in the case Arias-Villano v. Chang & Sons Enterprises, Inc. 

CWJC’s clients cleaned, sorted, weighed, and packaged bean sprouts at a facility in Whatley, Mass.  Despite the fact that they regularly worked more than 40 hours per week, their employer denied them overtime pay on the grounds that state law exempts “laborers engaged in agriculture and farming on a farm” from overtime compensation. The SJC decided that the type of work performed by the plaintiffs did not constitute “agriculture and farming.” The Court determined that the agriculture overtime exemption applies to planting, raising, and harvesting crops, none of which was work performed by the plaintiffs. The Court therefore found that the plaintiffs were entitled to overtime pay for the work they performed in excess of 40 hours per week.

The case was argued at the SJC by Attorney Susan Garcia Nofi.  Attorneys William C. Newman and Harris Freeman submitted a “friend of the court” brief for the American Civil Liberties Union of Massachusetts and others in support of the plaintiffs.

“The employees in this case did not work in the growing rooms, nor did they grow or harvest bean sprouts,” Garcia Nofi said. “They performed post-harvest work in a factory-like setting.”

Leticia Medina-Richman, the Managing Attorney of the Central West Justice Center, described the decision as a significant victory for workers and noted that the decision “brings clarity about what constitutes fair compensation for the many hours worked by those performing the kind of tasks that the plaintiffs performed.”

Central West Justice Center, together with its parent corporation Community Legal Aid (CLA), provides free civil legal services to the low-income and elderly residents of the five counties of central and western Massachusetts (Berkshire, Franklin, Hampden, Hampshire, and Worcester). The organizations maintain full-time offices in Worcester, Springfield, Northampton, and Pittsfield

For more information on Community Legal Aid’s Central West Justice Center please visit www.cwjustice.org