Power can grind honest work to dust. Yet justice can still break through. After years of administrative pressure, a fourth-generation operation saw its life’s work wrecked, then fought back and won a historic case that questions federal tactics. The ruling spotlights due process, fair hearings, and the right to a jury when civil penalties hit. The road from growth to ruin to vindication now offers a clear signal for farms and small businesses.
From a thriving legacy to a crushing standoff
Roots ran deep, from immigrants arriving around 1900 to a 125-year enterprise in New Jersey’s Gloucester County. The farm grew into 3,000 acres near Swedesboro, branded Sun Valley Orchards. Integrated from seed to sale, vegetables filled the fields: asparagus, cucumbers, broccoli, cabbage, peppers, eggplant, and sweet corn. Peak seasons relied on about 180 seasonal hands and 15–20 outbound trucks daily.
Regulatory visits were routine. Inspections checked housing, transport, and payroll, and usually ended within a day, with quick fixes logged and done. To address a growing labor crunch, the farm adopted H-2A in 2015, bringing in foreign seasonal workers for over half of its crew, while maintaining on-site meal arrangements long praised by inspectors during earlier stops.
Then the pattern broke. Three Labor Department inspectors arrived and stayed four days, not one. Concern rose as months passed with no findings. In January 2016, a Washington director and two agents appeared and demanded $550,000 in back wages and civil penalties, framed as mistreatment of H-2A workers and failures tied to paperwork.
Mechanics behind the historic case and agency overreach
Trouble hinged on asparagus. Seventeen newly arrived workers, who had affirmed cutting experience, quit after a single day, telling managers the work was not for them. The farm documented each choice to leave. The agency later recast those exits as terminations, triggering a claim that three-quarters of each contract year still had to be paid.
A second charge targeted food. Paperwork showed “kitchen,” yet the long-standing practice was a low-cost meal plan, roughly $80 per week under federal guidelines. The agency sought full reimbursement plus $2,400 per worker in penalties for about 96 H-2A workers and some domestic staff, exceeding $300,000, even though wages were never docked.
Combined penalties topped $550,000: $212,250 in civil fines and $369,703 labeled as back wages. Several items had not been raised during the mid-season walk-through. The family faced a dilemma: pay or contest claims they viewed as factually wrong and detached from what inspectors had previously reviewed on the ground, now central to this historic case.
Consequences felt on workers, markets, and due process
Contest meant an in-house process. Agency lawyers prosecuted before an agency administrative judge, with no outside jury. In July 2017, brothers Joe and Russell Marino faced a week-long hearing that featured video testimony from three of the original seventeen, arranged through an outside group. None said they were fired, yet the judge ruled against the farm, and the agency appeals panel affirmed.
Costs spiraled. Private counsel consumed about $180,000 while the six-figure penalties loomed. Reputations suffered, as trade groups kept their distance despite the family’s long service on state boards, crop associations, township leadership, congressional testimony, and national farm organizations. National media outreach drew silence. Inside this loop, guilt often followed charges, not facts tested before peers.
Markets and weather battered margins from 2019 to 2021. Legal pressure added weight. In December 2021, the family auctioned equipment and land, even sending their father away to spare him the sight. Buyouts owed to their father and uncle were honored. They walked away with almost nothing, yet without unpaid debts, as the path toward a historic case was still unfolding.
Numbers, timelines, and why the system tilted
A turning point arrived in 2021 when the Institute for Justice took the case. Its filing emphasized a basic defect: enforcement initiated by the agency, tried by agency lawyers, heard by an agency judge, then affirmed by agency appellate judges. Separation between accuser and decider was missing at each stage.
Change moved fast after the Supreme Court’s 2024 decision in SEC v. Jarkesy, which affirmed a right to a jury when civil penalties are on the line. In July 2025, the Third Circuit unanimously held the Labor Department’s approach unconstitutional. In this historic case, the court cleared the family and reset the due-process balance.
The broader problem runs wide. Federal structures include roughly 400 agencies and sub-agencies, and in-house courts often rack up uneven win rates. Former FTC Commissioner Joshua Wright once described near-total affirmance or reversal patterns. In 2024, Labor collected $4.9 million in back wages and $5.8 million in penalties, money not always returned.
What this historic case changes for farms and citizens
Practical effects reach beyond one farm. When agencies seek large civil penalties, the path now points toward independent courts and, when warranted, a jury. Small firms gain a real forum, and facts can be weighed outside agency walls. That alone reduces power imbalances that once shaped outcomes before a case began.
The H-2A program also needs attention. Workforces hinge on clear, affordable rules, yet paperwork traps can distort reality and punish both employers and crews. Many growers argue that agriculture policy should sit with USDA, not a penalty-first framework inside Labor, so compliance matches the rhythms of planting and harvest.
Accountability includes money flows. Penalties meant for workers should reach them, with transparent tracking that the public can check. Agency win rates should be measured by independent bodies, not internal metrics. Clean lines of oversight make rights real, and they help rebuild trust that was burned in long administrative fights or sent back to Congress.
Why this ruling now reshapes fairness, labor, and oversight
Sun Valley’s journey shows how fast a paperwork dispute can grow into a life-altering storm, yet a court can still correct course. The win secures a clearer path to juries and independent judges when penalties threaten a livelihood. Because precedent travels, this historic case now protects families, workers, and honest competitors, and it signals lawmakers to align labor rules with agriculture’s real-world pace.