Jan. 11—ST. CLOUD, Minn. — Owners of a Minnesota dairy farm accused of stealing millions of dollars from employees, in the form of unpaid wages, face a civil lawsuit, but not criminal charges.
Why? It seemingly comes down to the way certain offenses are customarily handled in courts in Minnesota and the U.S. It also reflects a situation in which the local and state government agencies involved can't agree about who is responsible.
The lawsuit,
brought this week by Minnesota Attorney General Keith Ellison against Evergreen Acres, a
lleges the dairy farm failed to pay at least $3 million of vulnerable workers' earned wages,
illegally charged rent for squalid housing and maintained a culture of fear and violence.
What the owners are accused of meets the definition of theft in Minnesota statute and they would potentially
face up to 20 years in prison
if convicted in a criminal court.
But criminal prosecutions for wage theft are rare at both the federal and state levels, said Judd Legum, a journalist and lawyer
who recently wrote about the dueling systems for dealing with theft.
"When someone steals a six-pack of beer from a grocery store or a sweater from a boutique, it is generally treated as a criminal matter. The billions of dollars in wages stolen from workers, however, are almost always treated as a civil offense," he wrote.
Wage theft is not uncommon in the U.S., according to the Department of Labor, which says employers owe workers about
$163.3 million in back pay,
and that doesn't include the wage theft that goes unreported.
"In most cases, employers know that they're not really going to get caught," Legum said, adding that the cost for an individual to pursue back wages might outweigh what was stolen by the employer.
The lawsuit against Evergreen Acres alleges that over about three years, the Minnesota dairy farm shaved 12 to 32 hours from employee timecards for each two-week pay period. According to Ellison, the dairy farm also failed to provide employees with written information on how they are paid, something that's required by law. The attorney general also alleges the business falsified pay stubs and destroyed time cards.
Evergreen Acres Dairy, Evergreen Estates, Morgan Feedlots and owners Keith Schaefer and Megan Hill are named in the lawsuit, which was filed in Stearns County. In the lawsuit, Ellison alleges that the dairy farm exploited the vulnerability of its workforce, which is made up of unauthorized workers largely from the Oaxaca region of Mexico.
The handling of the Evergreen Acres case reveals a shortcoming in U.S. legal practice — namely how certain crimes are handled if they are committed by individuals or privately owned businesses.