Workers who came to pick asparagus and peppers at Sun Valley Orchards in New Jersey in 2015 were paid $451.60 a week and charged $75 to $80 of it for a meal plan, according to findings by a Labor Department judge that the government recounts in its Supreme Court brief. On Tuesday, November 10, the justices hear argument on whether that judge had the power to make the farm pay.
The case, Department of Labor v. Sun Valley Orchards, tests how far the Supreme Court's 2024 decision in SEC v. Jarkesy reaches. Jarkesy held that the Securities and Exchange Commission could not seek civil penalties for securities fraud in front of its own in house judges. The question now is whether the same rule reaches the Labor Department's enforcement of the H-2A program, the visa system farms use to bring in seasonal foreign workers.
What the agency found
The farm got permission to bring in 96 foreign workers through H-2A and employed them alongside 51 domestic workers from April to October 2015, the government's brief says. An investigation followed. According to the findings of the administrative law judge and the department's Administrative Review Board, as summarized in that brief, the farm promised free kitchen facilities that workers could not use, deducted drink charges from paychecks, ran buses with unlicensed drivers and unsafe tires, and laid off 44 H-2A workers mid season after having them sign forms saying "Work has slowed down, and I would like to return home."
The ALJ and the board ordered the farm to pay $211,800 in civil penalties and $344,945.80 in back wages. By our arithmetic that is $556,745.80 in all. The farm's merits brief, filed by the Institute for Justice, describes the same total as "over half a million dollars" and calls Sun Valley "a family farm in rural New Jersey." Those findings were made by the agency. No jury or federal judge has weighed the evidence.
Two questions, two theories
The Court agreed to hear two questions, according to its docket. The first is whether Article III of the Constitution bars the Labor Department from adjudicating these money claims at all. The second is whether the H-2A statute, 8 U.S.C. 1188(g)(2), gives the department the power to do so in the first place.
The farm's argument is that the claims are about contracts. Its brief points out that the agency's own regulations "cover the enforcement of all contractual obligations" and that the ALJ found the farm liable because it "breached ... the contract that cemented the working relationship." Breach of contract cases with money damages were tried in common law courts in 1789, the farm says, so under Jarkesy they belong in an Article III court. "At the trial, prosecuting attorneys, agency witnesses, and judge were all employed by DOL," the brief says.
The government answers that H-2A is part of immigration law, an area where Congress has long let executive officers decide matters, including money penalties. It says the department has done this kind of adjudication for about 40 years, that farms can appeal to a federal district court afterward, and that from fiscal 2018 through 2023 the department returned roughly 80 percent of H-2A back wage awards to workers, citing a 2024 Government Accountability Office report.
The Third Circuit sided with the farm on July 29, 2025. It held that "rules about worker hours, housing, cooking, and transportation" are employment law, not immigration, and ordered judgment for Sun Valley without reaching the statutory question.
Our count of the amicus briefs
We opened all 19 friend of the court briefs on the docket and read each cover to see which side it supports. Six back the Labor Department. Thirteen back the farm.
The six for the department are a group of administrative and constitutional law professors, Public Citizen, the Constitutional Accountability Center, the Federation for American Immigration Reform, the AFL-CIO, and a joint brief led by the National Lawyers Guild with farmworker legal groups including California Rural Legal Assistance Foundation.
The thirteen for the farm include the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, the National Federation of Independent Business, the Cato Institute, the Pacific Legal Foundation, the New Civil Liberties Alliance, the Texas Public Policy Foundation, Altria Group, a group led by former Attorney General Edwin Meese III, and a brief from four former senior Labor Department officials, among them Patrick Pizzella, who served as acting secretary of labor in 2019.
Two names cross over between this case and Nielsen v. Watanabe, the federal prisoner case the Court heard on Monday, which we covered here. The Institute for Justice represents Sun Valley and filed a brief supporting the prisoner. The Constitutional Accountability Center supports the prisoner in that case and the Labor Department in this one. Cato filed against the federal government's position in both.
How long it has taken
The farm's season ended in October 2015, eleven years before this argument. The Third Circuit ruled 469 days before Tuesday's hearing. The government filed its petition on February 12, 2026, and the Court granted it 74 days later, on April 27. The argument comes 197 days after the grant.
What to watch
The argument is set for 10 a.m. Tuesday. If the justices rule for the farm on the constitutional question, the Labor Department would likely have to bring contested H-2A money claims in federal court, and other agencies that run similar in house proceedings would face the same question. If they rule on the statute alone, the constitutional fight could wait for another case. A decision is expected by the end of the term. For another recent case about how far federal agencies may go on their own, see our story on the Supreme Court and the immigration administrative closure rule.
Two Taps News stories summarize reporting and the analysis discussed on Two Taps and Friends. They are not legal advice. Read our standards.
