FOR PUBLICATION UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS FOR THE NINTH CIRCUIT SYLVESTER OWINO; JONATHAN No. 21-55221 GOMEZ, on behalf of themselves, and all others similarly situated, D.C. No. Plaintiffs-Appellees, 3:17-cv-01112- JLS-NLS v. CORECIVIC, INC., a Maryland OPINION corporation, Defendant-Appellant. Appeal from the United States District Court for the Southern District of California Janis L. Sammartino, District Judge, Presiding Argued and Submitted February 18, 2022 San Francisco, California Filed June 3, 2022 Before: M. Margaret McKeown and William A. Fletcher, Circuit Judges, and Richard D. Bennett, * District Judge. Opinion by Judge McKeown * The Honorable Richard D. Bennett, United States District Judge for the District of Maryland, sitting by designation. 2 OWINO V. CORECIVIC SUMMARY ** Class Certification / Victims of Trafficking and Violence Protection Act The panel affirmed the district court’s order certifying three classes in an action brought under the Victims of Trafficking and Violence Protection Act of 2000 by individuals who were incarcerated in private immigration detention facilities owned and operated by CoreCivic, Inc., a for-profit corporation. U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement contracts with CoreCivic to incarcerate detained immigrants in 24 facilities across 11 states. Plaintiffs, detained solely due to their immigration status and neither charged with, nor convicted of, any crime, alleged that the overseers of their private detention facilities forced them to perform labor against their will and without adequate compensation in violation of the Victims of Trafficking and Violence Protection Act of 2000, the California Trafficking Victims Protection Act (“California TVPA"), various provisions of the California Labor Code, and other state laws. The panel held that the district court properly exercised its discretion in certifying a California Labor Law Class, a California Forced Labor Class, and a National Forced Labor Class. The panel held that, as to the California Forced Labor Class, plaintiffs submitted sufficient proof of a classwide ** This summary constitutes no part of the opinion of the court. It has been prepared by court staff for the convenience of the reader. OWINO V. CORECIVIC 3 policy of forced labor to establish commonality. Plaintiff established predominance because the claims of the class members all depended on common questions of law and fact. The panel agreed with the district court that narrowing the California Forced Labor Class based on the California TVPA’s statute of limitations was not required at the class certification stage. For the same reasons as above, the panel held that, as to the National Forced Labor Class, the district court did not abuse its discretion in concluding that plaintiffs presented significant proof of a classwide policy of forced labor and that common questions predominated over individual ones. The panel held that under Moser v. Benefytt, Inc., 8 F.4th 872 (9th Cir. 2021), CoreCivic’s personal jurisdiction challenge with respect to the claim of non-California-facility class members was an issue for the district court to resolve. The panel declined to vacate the certification of the National Forced Labor Class, but it held that CoreCivic retained its personal jurisdiction defense, and the panel …
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Source: All recent Immigration Decisions In All the U.S. Courts of Appeals