On June 15, 2016, a group of seven villagers from Cambodia filed a lawsuit against five companies, demanding justice for the exploitation they reportedly suffered while employed at two Thai seafood processing facilities that export to the United States. After traveling from Cambodia to these factories in Thailand, the plaintiffs found themselves ensnared in a web of human trafficking, forced labor, involuntary servitude, and peonage.
The Trafficking Victims Protection Act (TVPRA) allows survivors of human trafficking to file a civil action against individuals and entities that knowingly benefit from forced labor, involuntary servitude, and human trafficking. Despite the plaintiffs demonstrating evidence of enduring years-long horrific labor conditions, their case was dismissed, their appeals were denied, and, after nearly a decade of waiting, the plaintiffs still have not had their day in court. This blog describes their stories and the failures of the Ninth Circuit in granting these workers justice.
This blog post provides an update on the Trafficking Victims Protection Act (TVPRA) case against five defendant seafood companies: Phatthana Seafood Co., Ltd.; S.S. Frozen Food Co., Ltd.; Doe Corporations; Rubicon Resources, LLC; and Wales & Co. Universe Ltd. It provides an overview of the harms workers faced, a history of the case, and an interpretation of the latest TVPRA amendment currently impacting this case. It concludes by discussing how the Ninth Circuit can rectify its mistakes and provide justice to the seven individuals whose lives were devastated by these corporations.
The Workers
Most of the plaintiffs had never traveled outside of Cambodia until they began this job. They had established lives with loved ones in their communities and were enticed by the promises of a better life. The complaint details the story of one worker and his wife, who alleged they were told they would work eight hours a day, be paid a living wage, and be provided free and comfortable accommodations, as shown in brochures. This was enough to entice them to leave their home country and start a new chapter working in Thailand to send money to their children at home. Prior to leaving Cambodia, this couple said they were required to pay recruitment fees, an exploitative practice where workers pay high costs to their employer or a recruiter who works with them in exchange for a job. The couple then alleged that they were charged $350 to obtain a passport and for recruitment, which was far more than the husband could earn in a year in Cambodia. To pay this fee, the husband reported taking out a loan, at 3% interest per month, and using his house and his parent’s farm land as collateral.
However, when they arrived at the factories, workers said their passports were confiscated, a practice that the International Labour Organization (ILO) has described as a “clear indicator of forced labour and trafficking.” The workers claimed they were paid a fraction of what had been promised to them and that they were required to pay for accommodations. One worker reported being paid 197 Baht per day (about $6 USD) despite claiming to work eight hours a day for thirteen or fourteen days at a time. Despite this meager salary, that worker reported being charged an unnecessary 3,500 Baht (about $105 USD) “work permission” fee, charged additional sums for work equipment and gloves, and charged for accommodations shared with other workers.
Unlike the images shown in the idyllic brochure, workers claimed that their accommodations were an insect-infested, overcrowded room they shared with other workers where no mattresses or bedding were available. Two hundred people shared a single bathroom, without hot water. Workers alleged that they were forced to try to sleep on a cement floor, often lying awake while worrying about their families at home.
All of the workers described being forced to work long hours with little to no personal protective equipment, exposing themselves to chlorine gas which caused health problems, including chronic respiratory issues. Multiple workers reported seeing people collapse from chlorine exposure.
When each of the plaintiffs tried to leave these abysmal conditions and return to their families in Cambodia, they claimed they were prevented from leaving by the debt they accrued in loans with high interest rates taken out to pay the myriad of fees. The trafficked couple reported that they did not have enough money to support their children back in Cambodia, leaving them without medication and food. One of their children, who is deaf, was unable to attend school without his parents sending money. Throughout all of this hardship, the couple remained concerned about being unable to pay their loan, which would lead their family to lose their home and farm land.
The practice of entrapping workers via debt is known as debt bondage. It is an indicator of forced labor that “reflects an imbalance in power between the worker-debtor and the employer-creditor” that can bind the worker to the employer for years at a time. Workers reported being so indebted they could not even afford to pay for food, much less send money home to family members who were depending on them. One man, who was unable to repay the money he borrowed to finance the recruitment fees, claimed that he lost use of the land he put up as collateral, leading to his family being unable to grow food and facing hunger. As a result, his family’s debt increased and his sister dropped out of eighth grade to work and help support her family.
All of these workers were vulnerable migrants whose circumstances were exploited by the companies who knowingly profited from their labor. The complaint states that they lacked formal contacts, had no family or connections in the area, had little information about their employers prior to commencing work, and did not speak Thai. They trusted the impressions of the work crafted by the recruiters because they had no other choice but to believe that this offer of employment was legitimate.
The Case
Despite how horrific conditions plaintiffs allege they suffered were, U.S. District Judge John F. Walter dismissed claims against all five companies in December 2017. The plaintiffs had argued that Phatthana and S.S. Frozen had enough of a presence in the United States to be held accountable under the TVPRA through “an agency relationship or joint venture” with the defendant Rubicon Resources LLC, a company incorporated in Delaware with its principal place of business in California. However, claims against Phatthana and S.S. Frozen were dismissed because they lacked the minimum contacts with the United States necessary to establish jurisdiction.
The plaintiffs pursued two appeals, arguing that the district judge had wrongfully dismissed this case. In the first, in 2022, Global Labor Justice submitted an amicus brief alongside the John Burton Law Firm – which Corporate Accountability Lab (CAL) joined – in support of the plaintiffs arguing that the Ninth Circuit’s reading of the TVPRA is out of sync with the rest of the US legal framework that is designed to counteract forced labor. EarthRights International and the Center for Justice and Accountability also submitted amicus briefs in this case on the dangerous implications of the Ninth’s Circuit’s decision related to personal jurisdiction.
In that appeal, the plaintiffs claimed that one of the defendants, Rubicon, played an active and essential role in selling seafood produced in Thailand to the United States. They used evidence that, in 2011, Rubicon brought more than two tons of seafood produced with forced labor into the United States for delivery to Walmart. However, Walmart rejected this shipment. This one rejection was enough for the Ninth Circuit to throw away the workers’ claim.
The Ninth Circuit affirmed the district court’s decision and held that the plaintiffs failed to provide evidence that Rubicon knowingly benefitted from participation in a venture that it knew, or should have known, was violating the TVPRA. To put it simply, the court interpreted the TVPRA in such a way that defendants who tried to profit from forced labor, but were unsuccessful in doing so, were shielded from liability. According to the court, it does not matter whether human trafficking occurred and people suffered if the perpetrators failed to make a profit; only the non-financially savvy human rights offenders can be held liable.
The Aftermath
Following this decision, the court denied en banc review, which spurred human rights organizations to ask Congress to clarify whether a company that attempted to benefit from a venture engaged in forced labor – regardless of whether it actually benefited – could be held liable under the TVPRA. At this point CAL, alongside Global Labor Justice and the Law Offices of John Burton, filed another amicus brief on behalf of human and workers’ rights organizations and U.S. Shrimp producers with the United States Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals in support of the plaintiffs.
Congress obliged. Less than a year after the Ninth Circuit’s decision, it enacted the Abolish Trafficking Reauthorization Act, or ATRA, which clarified the text of the TVPRA. This clarification explained that the TVPRA imposes liability on a defendant who knowingly “attempts or conspires to benefit” from participation in a venture that it knew or should have known was engaged in acts that violated the TVPRA. ATRA passed without a single opposing vote. Congress could not have been any clearer: the Ninth Circuit’s interpretation of the TVPRA was wrong.
After Congress amended the TVPRA, a new question arose: can a court reopen a final judgment based on a legislative change in law? Instead of answering this question directly, the Ninth Circuit instead chose to state that the clarification of the TVPRA did not apply to events that occurred before its enactment. Their reasoning was that, despite the clarification clearly occurring in response to the court’s erroneous reasoning in Ratha, ATRA’s text did not explicitly state that ATRA was to apply retroactively. In other words, because Congress did not say verbatim that this clarification should apply to the case it was created to address, it should not apply to that case. Despite ATRA being described as a “Clarifying and Technical Amendment,” the Ninth Circuit apparently did not receive the message that it was clarifying their own error.
This decision was filed on July 31, 2024. Almost a year later, on March 4, 2025, the Ninth Circuit issued a subsequent order requiring that this case be reheard en banc. This is a big deal. The rehearing has opened the door for plaintiffs to reargue their case and to be granted a second chance at receiving justice.
At this point, the seven individuals who have endured significant abuse have been waiting almost a decade for a court to acknowledge their experiences and to grant them relief. They continue waiting for confirmation that corporations are not immune to accountability and must be held responsible for their actions. If corporate accountability truly exists, these workers’ wait will come to an end soon.
Nikki Santos is a Legal Fellow with Corporate Accountability Lab.
Banner image by Mike Bergmann.
