Minnesota Attorney General Keith Ellison announced that his Office has reached a settlement with Evergreen Acres Dairy, Evergreen Estates, Morgan Feedlots, and the dairy operations’ owners Keith Schaefer and Megan Hill that protects Evergreen’s workers by ensuring Evergreen complies with Minnesota housing-habitability and employment law. The settlement resolves the Attorney General’s lawsuit against the farm for systematically withholding wages from workers and illegally deducting rent from workers’ wages for substandard housing.
As part of the settlement, Evergreen will pay $250,000 in back wages to workers as well as to continue to bring employee housing up to standard. The Attorney General will monitor Evergreen for a period of three years and must allow the Attorney General staff to inspect employee housing and to obtain various wage-and-hour records from Evergreen. If Evergreen violates any of the terms of the settlement, it will be subject to a civil penalty of an additional $250,000.
In addition, the Attorney General secured a legally binding commitment from Evergreen that workers will have access to legal services and will be provided with proper documentation of their pay and hours, as required by law. It also ensures Evergreen will keep all employee records as required by law and will not make deductions from any employee’s pay without written permission from the employee. The settlement further guarantees Evergreen will communicate these changes with its employees in English and Spanish.
Attorney General Ellison filed the lawsuit against Evergreen in January 2024 after dozens of complaints from workers regarding wage theft and abysmal worker housing. Attorney General Ellison alleged in the suit that Evergreen systematically deprived their low-wage dairy employees of wages they earned by shaving both regular and overtime hours from workers’ paychecks, by failing to pay wages owed at the beginning and end of workers’ employment, and by unlawfully deducting rent for substandard onsite housing that failed to meet standards of habitability under Minnesota law. For example, some workers lived in garages, haphazardly converted barns, and other buildings not fit for human habitation. Some employees lived in housing with no onsite toilet.
In March 2024, Attorney General Ellison announced he had obtained a stipulated temporary injunction, in which Evergreen agreed to pay workers correctly and improve housing conditions while the lawsuit continued.
“Agricultural workers like these dairy workers at Evergreen are an important part of our economy and deserve to afford their lives and live with dignity, safety and respect. Today, we send a strong message that dairy farms like Evergreen and all employers in Minnesota cannot illegally profit off the backs of workers,” said Attorney General Ellison. “This settlement not only protects agricultural workers from exploitation, it also protects other producers who follow the rules from being undercut by competitors that aren’t paying employees what they’re owed under the law.”
Office of the Minnesota Attorney General
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