Immigrant Nurses’ RICO Claims Against Placement Firm May Proceed

Nurses who immigrated at the request of a placement agency to work in US hospitals can continue with their Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organization Act claims against the agency, a federal court said.

Lucinda Byron and Latoya Lewis sufficiently alleged that Avant Healthcare Professionals LLC misled them about their immigration status and materially misrepresented to them and the US government the pay they would receive, Judge Julie S. Sneed of the US District Court for the Middle District of Florida said Aug. 9, adopting the recommendation from a magistrate judge to grant Avant’s motion to dismiss in part.

Workers in other industries—including aviation, retail, and trucking—have also recently challenged contracts that impose hefty fees when they leave their positions earlier than previously agreed or don’t give employers as much advance notice as requested.

Lewis and Byron alleged in their class action that their Avant contracts required them to pay an unspecified amount of damages if they left their jobs before their agreed-upon employment period ended. They also said the company wouldn’t tell them how much quitting would cost until they actually resigned.

Avant told workers who sought to quit that it had to report their resignations to US Citizenship and Immigration Services, which made them think leaving would negatively affect their immigration status, Byron and Lewis said.

Both women quit in 2023, but Byron said she would have left earlier if not for the contract’s costs. They jointly sued, alleging violations of RICO, the Fair Labor Standards Act, the Trafficking Victims Protection Act, and the Florida Antitrust Act.

To state a RICO claim, the plaintiffs had to establish that Avant operated an enterprise through a pattern of racketeering activity, Sneed said. The plaintiffs alleged that Avant engaged in a pattern of racketeering activity when it made its material misrepresentations to them and the government. The misrepresentations made the plaintiffs feel like they couldn’t leave their US jobs and allowed Avant to suppress their wages, they said.

The nurses supported their allegations by showing that they earned more after they left Avant—Lewis also alleged that while working for Avant she was paid $27 or $30 an hour, but other nurses at her hospital earned up to $100 an hour. The nurses’ allegations plausibly state a RICO injury because they directly tie their suppressed wages to Avant’s misrepresentations, Sneed said.

The nurses’ claims against Avant under the FLSA were dismissed because they weren’t ripe, Sneed said.

Their claims under the FAA were dismissed because that statute applies to restraints on commerce and not the “discreet effects that agreements have on the parties that enter into them,” Sneed said.

The TVPA claims based on the damages-for-quitting provision and use of non-compete agreements in their contracts, the immigration threats, and wage suppression, were allowed to proceed because Avant didn’t challenge the magistrate judge’s conclusion that they were supported by case law.

Nichols Kaster PLLP; Varnell and Warwick PA and Towards Justice represent the nurses. BakerHostetler LLP represents Avant.

The case is Byron v. Avant Healthcare Pros., LLC, 2024 BL 275379, M.D. Fla., No. 6:23-cv-1645-JSS-LHP, 8/9/24.