UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS FOR THE FOURTH CIRCUIT

No. 19-4903

UNITED STATES OF AMERICA,

Plaintiff - Appellant,

v. BOBBY PAUL EDWARDS,

Defendant - Appellee.

Appeal from the United States District Court for the District of South Carolina, at Florence. R. Bryan Harwell, Chief District Judge. (4:17-cr-00907-RBH-1)

Submitted: January 29, 2021 Decided: April 21, 2021

Before WILKINSON, NIEMEYER, and THACKER, Circuit Judges.

Vacated in part and remanded by published opinion. Judge Niemeyer wrote the opinion, in which Judge Wilkinson and Judge Thacker joined.

Eric S. Dreiband, Assistant Attorney General, Alexander V. Maugeri, Deputy Assistant Attorney General, Tovah R. Calderon, Elizabeth P. Hecker, Civil Rights Division, UNITED STATES DEPARTMENT OF JUSTICE, Washington, D.C., for Appellant. Emily Deck Harrill, Assistant Federal Public Defender, OFFICE OF THE FEDERAL PUBLIC DEFENDER, Columbia, South Carolina, for Appellee. NIEMEYER, Circuit Judge:

For over 5 years — from 2009 to 2014 — Bobby Edwards, the manager of J&J Cafeteria in Conway, South Carolina, effectively enslaved JCS (to whom we refer with the fictitious name “Jack”), forcing him to work at the restaurant over 100 hours per week without pay.

After Edwards was reported to the authorities, he pleaded guilty to forced labor, in violation of the Trafficking Victims Protection Act (“TVPA”), 18 U.S.C. § 1589. The district court sentenced Edwards to 120 months’ imprisonment and ordered him to pay restitution of roughly $273,000, representing unpaid minimum wages and overtime compensation computed under the Fair Labor Standards Act (“FLSA”). While the court did order restitution of the full amount of those wages and overtime compensation, it did not include, as requested by the government, an “additional equal amount as liquidated damages,” as provided by the FLSA, 29 U.S.C. § 216(b), for when minimum wages and overtime compensation have not been paid as required. The court concluded that liquidated damages under the FLSA were “statutory punitive damages” that were available only in civil cases.

The government appealed, contending that the district court erred in failing to include liquidated damages in its restitution award. For the reasons given herein, we agree. We therefore vacate the award of restitution and remand for its recalculation.

2 I

In 1990, when Jack was 12 years old, he started working part-time at J&J Cafeteria as a dishwasher. He has an intellectual disability and an IQ of 70. After a few years of part-time work, Jack dropped out of high school and started working full-time at the restaurant. For the first 19 years of his employment, when the restaurant was owned and managed by different members of the Edwards family, Jack was always paid for his labor.

That, however, changed in September 2009, after Bobby Edwards took over the management of the restaurant. Edwards moved Jack into an apartment attached to the restaurant and forced him to work more than 100 hours per week without pay — usually 6:00 a.m. to 11:00 p.m. for 6 days and 6:00 a.m. to 2:00 p.m. on Sundays. Not only did Jack work long hours without pay, he was never given a day off. Edwards effected this forced labor by taking advantage of Jack’s intellectual disability and keeping Jack isolated from his family, threatening to have him arrested, and verbally abusing him. His control over Jack also involved physical abuse. Once, when Jack failed to deliver fried chicken to the buffet as quickly as Edwards had demanded, Edwards dipped metal tongs into hot grease and pressed them to Jack’s neck, resulting in a burn that fellow employees had to immediately treat. Other times, when Jac