## Facts

- Twelve Latino current or former employees sued five Minnesota grocery-store corporations and two individual corporate officers who allegedly managed day-to-day operations.
- Plaintiffs alleged they worked for defendants’ related grocery businesses in the Minneapolis–St. Paul area over long periods, including allegations spanning 1998–2015.
- Plaintiffs alleged defendants moved employees among stores and sometimes directed them to work at the individual defendants’ homes.
- Plaintiffs alleged coercive and abusive working conditions, including repeated incidents in which workers were locked in parts of stores, including freezers.
- Plaintiffs alleged defendants used immigration-related coercion, including explicit or implicit threats of deportation and threats to report workers to immigration authorities if they did not comply or if they complained.
- Plaintiffs alleged verbal, physical, and sexual abuse, along with wage-and-hour abuses such as unpaid overtime, inadequate breaks, and denial of medical attention.
- Plaintiffs asserted claims including forced labor under international law (ATS), forced labor under the TVPRA, and a civil RICO claim based on an alleged pattern of trafficking-related and related predicate acts.

## Issues

1. Whether the complaint plausibly alleged an Alien Tort Statute claim for forced labor as a violation of the law of nations, including whether plaintiffs plausibly alleged alien status and whether private parties (corporations and officers) may be liable.
2. Whether the allegations plausibly stated a TVPRA forced-labor claim based on confinement, threats tied to immigration enforcement, and other coercive conduct.
3. Whether the complaint plausibly pleaded a civil RICO claim by alleging an enterprise and a pattern of racketeering activity, including TVPRA predicate acts.
4. Whether the complaint failed under Rule 12(b)(6) by improperly grouping defendants rather than providing fair notice of each defendant’s alleged conduct.

## Decision

- The court denied defendants’ Rule 12(b)(6) motion to dismiss the ATS, TVPRA, and RICO counts.
- The court held the complaint provided sufficient factual detail to give fair notice and did not fatally group defendants.
- The court held plaintiffs plausibly alleged ATS forced labor actionable as a law-of-nations violation and plausibly alleged plaintiffs’ alien status at the pleading stage.
- The court held the complaint plausibly alleged TVPRA forced labor based on physical restraint/confinement and immigration-related threats that could constitute serious harm or abuse of legal process.
- The court held plaintiffs plausibly alleged a RICO enterprise involving the corporate entities and individual officers and a pattern of racketeering activity over time, including trafficking-related predicate acts.

## Legal Principles

- On a Rule 12(b)(6) motion, the court accepts well-pleaded factual allegations as true and asks whether they plausibly state a claim and provide fair notice of the grounds for relief.
- A complaint is not subject to dismissal merely because it alleges coordinated conduct by multiple related entities and managers, so long as it identifies the alleged conduct and roles with enough specificity to provide fair notice.
- Forced labor may qualify as a law-of-nations violation cognizable under the ATS when the alleged conduct meets the level of coercion recognized by international norms; at the pleading stage, alien status may be plausibly inferred from allegations tied to immigration-related threats.
- Under the TVPRA, forced labor may be pleaded by alleging labor obtained through force, physical restraint, threats of serious harm, or abuse of legal process; threats to invoke immigration enforcement may satisfy these coercion elements.
- A civil RICO claim may be pleaded by alleging an enterprise distinct from the predicate acts and a pattern of racketeering activity shown by related predicate acts over time; trafficking-related violations may serve as RICO predicates.

## Conclusion

The court permitted the ATS, TVPRA, and RICO claims to proceed past the pleadings based on detailed allegations that defendants confined workers, used immigration-related threats and other coercion to obtain labor, and operated related businesses and managers in a manner plausibly constituting an enterprise engaged in a sustained pattern of trafficking-related misconduct.


Aragon v. Che Ku, 277 F. Supp. 3d 1055 (D. Minn. 2017)