202061P.pdf   08/25/2022  Mark Fochtman  v.  Hendren Plastics, Inc.
   U.S. Court of Appeals Case No:  20-2061
                          and No:  20-2068
   U.S. District Court for the Western District of Arkansas - Fayetteville   
   [PUBLISHED] [Colloton, Author, with Loken and Benton, Circuit Judges] 
   Civil case - Arkansas Minimum Wage Act. In this class action, participants 
   in a drug and alcohol recovery program alleged the program assigned them 
   to work for defendant Hendren, a private company which paid the program 
   for their services; plaintiffs alleged the defendants failed to pay them 
   the required minimum wage; the district court concluded the plaintiffs 
   were employees and granted them relief. Held: the state drug court 
   judgments assigning the plaintiffs to the program did not present a 
   Rooker-Feldman issue, and the district court had jurisdiction over the 
   suit under the Class Action Fairness Act; the plaintiffs in the suit were 
   the primary benefits of the unusual work and payment arrangements between 
   the program and Hendren in that it allowed them to avoid adjudication in 
   the criminal justice system, and the fact that the work they performed as 
   participants in a court-ordered recovery program also benefited Hendren 
   did not make the program participants employees of either the program or 
   Hendren; as the plaintiffs were not employees, the district court judgment 
   is reversed.