David and Debbie Ross

The U.S. Department of Labor is seeking to impose over $70,000 in penalties and back wages on Triple R Farms—a small tobacco farm in Berry, Kentucky, run by married couple David and Debbie Ross—based on alleged violations involving the farm’s seasonal workers. David and Debbie respond that they did nothing wrong, but DOL insists they must defend themselves in the agency’s in-house administrative courts, where the only judge is an agency bureaucrat. 

So, the Rosses have joined with IJ to sue to stop DOL from adjudicating their case. Their claim is simple: When the government seeks to impose substantial monetary penalties, it should seek to make its case in a real federal court—not in its own bureaucratic tribunal, in which it appoints itself prosecutor, judge, and jury.