The Greater Missouri Medical Pro-Care Providers H-1B case is the most noteworthyH-1B since the 2000 decision, Defesnor v. Meissner. The latest decisionin Greater Missouri greatly curtailsthe DOL’s investigative powers and significantly reduces liability concerns forH-1B employers.
                                                                 
The DOL has traditionally used anyH-1B employees’ complaint to investigate a company’s entire H-1B program.  I have personally defended H-1B employers in abouta dozen matters where the DOL has used this technique to extract significant finesfrom H-1B employers for technical alleged violations.  In most of these instances, the H-1B employerhas paid off the DOL instead of spending considerable fees and time defendingitself.  With this latest decision, thisDOL method should stop.
The 8th Circuit heldthat the underlying Congressional statue, “expressly ties the [DOL’s} initial investigativeauthority to the complaint and those specific allegations.”  (Page 10 of the decision, linked above).  The DOL must have “reasonable cause” toextend the scope of an investigation. 
It is illustrative to understandwhat happened in Greater Missouri.  The H-1B employer, GMM, hired several Physicaland Occupational Therapists.  In June2006, one of the H-1B Therapists filed a Complaint that eventually found itsway to the DOL.  In response to thisComplaint the DOL open a company-wide investigation and requested documentationon every H-1B employee on GMM’s roster. Based on this documentation, the DOL ordered GMM to pay $382,890 in backwages to H-1B employees.
The case meandered through the administrativecourts for years.  The case found its wayto the Administrative Review Board, which issued a decisionin January 2014.  In that decision, theARB confirmed that that the DOL’s investigative authority could include all H-1Bemployees, however “if the H-1B violation underlying the claim occurred morethan 12 months before a complaint was filed, any remedies for that violationare barred.”  This finding reduced the backwage fine to $106,786.   
A dissent by one of the three ARBjudges opined that the DOL’s investigative authority was limited to just the Complainant’sallegations.  This dissent was referencedby the 8th Circuit in the most recent decision.

If this decision holds firm, theDOL’s investigative powers will be constrained to the matter at hand.