America’s farmers may be the envy of the world but not to the
federally-funded legal services program. All over the nation, legal services
lawyers are engaged in a systematic campaign to siphon millions of dollars
from small family farmers and run many right out of business in the process.
The rationale for this outrageous treatment is supposedly to improve the
working conditions of migrant workers. However, the reality is one
of unscrupulous and opportunistic lawyers exploiting farmers and even migrants
to further their political agenda, costing farmers millions in lost productivity
and migrants thousands of lost jobs.
Ohio
The Advocates for Basic Legal Equality (ABLE), a grantee of the
Legal Services Corporation (LSC), sued an Ohio farmer for a litany of migrant
labor law violations. The farmer was forced to spend $14,000 to refute
what turned out to be largely baseless charges. His only infraction was
for failing to show the piece rate work on some employees check stubs.
Nobody was underpaid. In fact, the large majority of employees were paid
2 to 3 times the minimum wage. Furthermore, the farmer had close relations
with many of the workers, some of whom had been working for him for 20
years. For these and other reasons, half of the original plaintiffs dropped
off the lawsuit. When the farmer asked one employee why he was on the suit,
the shocked employee said he didn’t even know he was a plaintiff. It seems
the ABLE lawyer would deceive the workers into the suit by helping them
get food stamps. This gave him the power of attorney which he would then
use to include them in the lawsuit without their knowledge.
For more Information, see Congressional Testimony of Libby Whitley.
House Judiciary Committee. Subcommittee on Commercial and Administrative
Law. June 15, 1995
Maryland
A former employee of the LSC-funded Maryland Legal Aid Bureau
says that Gregory Schell, a Legal Aid lawyer, was so intent upon suing
farmers that he made it a policy of keeping them ignorant of the law. Beatrice
Rivera said Schell actually chastised her once because she met with farmers
to educate them on housing requirements for their migrant workers. Rivera
felt she was giving growers a chance to correct problems and give immediate
assistance to workers. Schell said all she did was prevent him from filing
future suits. In another case, Rivera informed Schell that a farmer was
making improvements in migrant housing following recommendations she made
on a prior visit. Schell told her to file a complaint immediately before
he could finish the repairs. Even more shocking is Rivera's account of
how an associate of Schell's would visit workers' camps and actually offer
alcohol and drugs to anyone who would give him information that Schell
could use against the grower. Furthermore, Schell openly bragged about
how he deceived workers into filing suits by having them sign forms they
thought were food stamp applications but were in fact administrative complaints
against their employer.
See Affidavit of Beatrice Rivera. Congressional Testimony. June
15, 1995
South Carolina
In a similar case, legal services attorneys attacked the South
Carolina Farm Bureau for publishing a handbook to help farmers comply with
agricultural labor laws. They complained it would prevent them from
filing suits for violations.
See Congressional Testimony of Harry Bell. June 15, 1995
Pennsylvania
In 1989, the LSC-funded Friends of Farmworkers (FOF) sued fruitgrower Knouse Fruitlands on behalf of 16 plaintiffs. Knouse Fruitlands is a family farm run by Janet Knouse, her daughter and two sons. Targets of a carefully orchestrated FOF campaign, the Knouses were accused of violating every conceivable state and federal agricultural labor law. However, 98% of the charges were dismissed before ever going to trial. The case dragged on for three years before a jury cleared the Knouses of any wrongdoing. However, a judge reversed the jury’s decision and awarded $24,000 to the plaintiffs and $51,000 to FOF in attorneys’ fees. The Knouses spent over $400,000 defending themselves.
See Congressional Testimony of Libby Whitley. June 15,
1995
Texas
Texas Rural Legal Aid (TRLA) sued several vegetable growers as
part of its campaign to help the Texas Farm Workers union organize workers
in the High Plains area of the state. In 1985, a federal district
court dismissed all charges against the growers. Notwithstanding that TRLA
had been dismissed from the case, the TRLA sued to recover attorney’s fees.
The judge awarded $250,000, compensating the attorneys at a rate of $175
per hour despite the fact that the local attorneys' billing rates in the
area were $50-75 per hour. The end-result of this taxpayer-subsidized fiasco
was to stick the growers with a half-million dollar legal bill and the
demise of the local vegetable industry. Of the nineteen major growers
in the Texas High Plains area in 1980, only two remain today.
See Congressional Testimony of Libby Whitley. June 15, 1995