Family Farm Wins Historic Case After Feds Violate Constitution and Ruin Business | Hacker News Reader

Family Farm Wins Historic Case After Feds Violate Constitution and Ruin Business

agweb.com

35 pointsstorf4532 comments

Kind of weird framing as "historic" and "violated the Constitution" when the actual decision from the court just says,

"Following the Supreme Court’s recent decision in SEC v. Jarkesy, 603 U.S. 109 (2024), we hold that Sun Valley was entitled to have its case decided by an Article III court."

Usually it is a non-story when lower courts start following a brand new Supreme Court precedent. Not sure why this one is on HN or why even really why it warranted 10,000 words in the original link.

It was interesting to read about the impact that unconstitutional actions by the government had on actual people in a real case, and how a Supreme Court ruling remedied it (partially). What a bizarre response. Do you have something against these people or something?

I found the initial lack of mention of the recent Supreme Court ruling weird and when I read the actual Circuit Court decision I felt the actual article was bad, biased journalism bordering on outright lying.

The article spends a lot of time telling us about this fourth generation farm and telling us about workers who quit after one day.

The actual circuit decision says they didn't provide adequate housing -- failing to put insect screens on doors and windows leading to an insect infestation and putting mattresses directly on the floor which is known to create mold. They also failed to provide free food as required and even started selling beverages at profit with no notice you the workers. They are also supposed to provide free transportation but were found to be using drivers who were driving illegally without licenses in all 5 vehicles.

I'm in favor of them getting a trial in a real court but the whole article smells fishy to me and came across as incredibly biased.

That is a much different response than "this article is not newsworthy at all, why would you even publish it?"

That was a puff piece void if any details. The only idea that rings out is a separation of power.

Said the USA seems to be going into the consolidation of power. SOTUS has stated that being an expert in a field and subject is meaningless, politicians should have complete say. The continuation of allow tariffs by executive order versus legislative branch, as written in law, is another example of the consolidation of government.

The great news here is that the tables have turned dramatically in favor of employers. Laborers will just have to suck it up and get wages stolen and contracts violated occasionally to ensure that the bureaucrats are kept in check.

> In a seismic 2024 ruling with direct relevance to Sun Valley, SCOTUS ruled that citizens are entitled to a jury trial when hit with civil penalties imposed by administrative law judges.

"Citizens are entitled to a jury trial". Is this really the hill you're going to die on — arguing that it's a terrible thing that people are entitled to defend themselves in court?

The 7th amendment has never been understood to be exhaustive.

> In Suits at common law, where the value in controversy shall exceed twenty dollars, the right of trial by jury shall be preserved, and no fact tried by a jury, shall be otherwise re-examined in any Court of the United States, than according to the rules of the common law.

> Denied access to an outside court or jury, the Marinos were subjected to an in-house agency process from pillar to post. Pursuit by DOL agents, enforcement by DOL personnel, trial by DOL attorneys, decision by DOL judge, and approval by DOL appellate judges.

The farm was accused of violating labor laws, sued for a half million dollars, got tried and convicted by an internal DOL judge with no jury. Just really, seriously try to argue to me that the drafters of the 7th amendment considered what happened here to be outside the scope of the 7th amendment. They would have said:

"right of trial by jury shall be preserved, unless the federal government sets up an entire parallel legal system to avoid the inconvenience of taking people to trial before taking their livelihoods"

Come on man.

I don't understand how any person can come to a conclusion like this from this account. Some employees lied about their qualifications, showed up to work, were unable to do they work they claimed they knew how to do, were unwilling to learn or even try to do so, they quit, and the government then decided this company owed those employees 3/4 of the entire salary they would have been paid had they completed the entire crop year.

In the other issue, their representative mistakenly clicked the 'kitchen provided' food option in the paperwork instead of 'meals provided', with the government claiming there was some conspiracy to defraud the employees into taking meals instead of receiving a food stipend, when they'd been providing home cooked meals to the employees for decades, as the DOL had observed countless times.

In both cases, there was no harm to the employees whatsoever.

> Some employees lied about their qualifications

The article uncritically printed this claim, however we have no reporting from the workers. For all we know they got off easy with the level of fines they received. The article is a press release.

So your entire criticism comes down to you thinking the article is simply lying about that and presumably everything. And what reason do you have to believe this? And would you make such claims if it were an article that confirmed your biases?

> And what reason do you have to believe this?

I didn’t say the article was lying, I said it uncritically reported only one side of the story.

This is an agribusiness news site. Do you think that they’re out here looking for an honest to god scoop about labor abuses? Do you think that if they found them, they’d make a front page story about it?

You're assuming there is another side, which there seems to be no reason whatsoever to assume. The facts, outside of the government's behavior, are extremely benign and supported by decades of precedent by the exact same people doing the exact same stuff in the exact same way. I'm certain the guys who quit, or even if they were fired, on the first day didn't expect to get a crop year's salary out of it. This makes the government's behavior all the more absurd. Yet the government's behavior is not in question, only the constitutionality of it. And indeed it turns out that it was unconstitutional.

> You're assuming there is another side, which there seems to be no reason whatsoever to assume

There are at least two sides to every contract, that's how contracts work. There are a lot of people lining up to defend the business owner, and I'm not finding a single word from any of the H-2A workers, who are uniquely powerless and in a class who has a well-documented history of being exploited.

Those workers 'quitting' was found to be constructive dismissal. They were coerced into quitting, that's the 'other side.' That meant they surrendered their transportation costs back home (which they would've been entitled to if they were fired), and arguably lost out on other work they could've done.

They can't say anything more than 'yeah we were totally fired'. So it comes down to motivation, witnesses, history, etc. The farmers have been running this farm for decades with an upstanding record, and have zero motivation to want to get rid of the employees they hired unless those employees could not competently do the labor they were hired to do.

By contrast the workers themselves signed up for some of the most brutal/specialized farm work (which they may not have understood had they lied and never actually done it before - it's one of the highest paid crops for laborers), zero witnesses to their claims (and in fact they could only get 3 of the 17 workers to even claim that they were fired), and were able to carry out a freeroll for a crop year of salary by saying 'Yeah uh we were fired.' Anonymously. Through a translator. Provided by some NGO. Online. While in Mexico. At home.

In the end if one has to make a probability judgement, this is not even remotely close. And indeed this is why the farmers are cheering having their constitutional right to a fair trial granted - they're going to win this literally 100% of the time to the point that this is practically fit for summary judgement. Again the only thing particularly weird here are the government's actions.

Yes, you have recited the business' argument. However, fta:

> (When contacted by Agweb regarding the Sun Valley case, DOL referred all questions to DOJ. When contacted by Agweb, DOJ did not respond.)

So we're basically hearing the side of the story from the business' lawyers, since the regime's DOJ is vehemently not on the side of laborers and certainly not willing to vouch for the prior administration.

At the end of the day this is just a debate about whether they're due a jury trial, and this is all a matter of political philosophy. I'm personally of the opinion that jury trials are inappropriate in civil cases, and should only be used for criminal trials, so I don't really get worked up about the right of this business to get one.

I haven't recited anybody's argument. These are the basic facts of the case. The fact that they don't leave any room for a meaningful counter-argument is the entire point.

The reason the constitution guarantees a trial by jury is to avoid tyranny. I have no idea what perspective you're coming from that you want to destroy the lives of the farmers here when I'm fairly certain you realize that no fair court in this world will ever find them guilty. And that's precisely why the constitution enshrines your right to a trial by jury - to avoid kangaroo courts where the same person(s) accusing you of something is the one judging your guilt or innocence. That's how you get things like the witch trials, Spanish Inquisition, and so on endlessly throughout history.

It's part of the Bill of Rights. This is the entirety of the 7th Amendment:

---

"In Suits at common law, where the value in controversy shall exceed twenty dollars, the right of trial by jury shall be preserved, and no fact tried by a jury, shall be otherwise re-examined in any Court of the United States, than according to the rules of the common law."

---

It was written in the times before governments started printing funny money so $20 remained fairly consistent, but even if you want it inflation adjusted it's about $700. And in this case, there was hundreds of thousands of dollars and the entire livelihood of numerous people at stake. I just can't understand your perspective here whatsoever.

That sounds absolutely terrible and stressful. And it dragged on for nine years? Imagine trying to make it as a farm, barely hanging on, only to have self important bureaucrats count styles harassing you and causing you to lose money and health for a decade! There needs to be more consequences for those involved

The modern day star chamber.

IJ FTW

Ending Chevron deference turns out to have been right. These fiefdoms are unacceptable. And correcting should be more important than punishment.

Imagine if OSHA decided to find out about dangerous conditions, allow someone to die, and then punish for that instead of fixing.

Unacceptable.

Don't worry, the same party being the "judge, jury and executioner" is now rapidly becoming the norm across everything, no longer just limited to agency fiefdoms. Have fun!

This kafkaesque nightmare is the same dysfunction you see in large corporations.

It happens for the same reason: when organizations get too large, the people running different parts stop communicating effectively, and no one feels directly accountable. But there’s also a reason some companies grow so large in the first place. Scale brings benefits: standardized systems, the ability to hire specialists for every niche role, resources to build infrastructure, etc. These advantages can outweigh the downsides of size for a while.

The difference is that companies hit a natural ceiling. Once the inefficiencies of size outweigh the benefits, they stop being competitive. Smaller firms hold their ground against them. Governments don’t have that check. There’s no competition forcing them to stay efficient, so they can grow far beyond their optimal size and never correct. Our best hope is what happened here: the courts striking down these government overreaches as unconstitutional.

I've seen it in public school systems. It's never "this is the right thing to do" or "this is the wrong thing to do" it's "I can't justify this to my boss" so you meet with their boss who similarly passes the buck. Eventually you get high enough that it becomes "I delegated that to Person X." Then you meet with Person X who says "I don't have the power to make that decision."

As an American, I was fascinated to see an interview with an older Italian farm owner. She employed Sikhs in eastern Italy for farm labor. In the Italian language interview she explained like she was talking to a close friend, how actually the Sikhs eat their children back home, due to starvation... as if she was sharing a secret! (hint- this is wildly false and outrageous to say it)

In other words, I do not believe for one second that this farming operation was anything other than a sweatshop, with dangerous conditions and stolen pay. The look on the face of the farmer in the article adds no confidence that this is not the case. For those reading that do not believe that people work in these conditions, in the USA in 2025, then I suggest you do some homework.

You should consider trusting the legal system and the rights of the accused, rather than knowing nothing about a case and trusting the federal bureaucracy on nothing other vibes and gut feelings.

> The look on the face of the farmer in the article adds no confidence that this is not the case

You can’t actually tell anything at all about a person’s moral character from their facial expression.

That sounds a lot like "They're eating the cats! They're eating the dogs!". I know a lot of Sikh folks and they're pretty chill.

You literally invented an entire fantasy to justify your racism. Absolutely none of what you said is even slightly provable, nor mentioned even vaguely in the article.

absolutely a real interview, stunning in the racism of the farm owner, actually

I don’t care about the person you saw an interview with, you invented a fantasy about the person in the article. Stunning in your racism.

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