Forcing a Pre-Trial Detainee to do Hard Labor Can be a Violation of the 13th Amendment’s Prohibition Against Involuntary Servitude

McGarry v. Pallito, 687 F.3d 505 (2d Cir. 2012)

In this Second Circuit decision, a plaintiff made it past the motion to dismiss stage where his complaint alleged that prison officials violated his 13th Amendment right to be free from involuntary servitude.

The plaintiff was a pre-trial detainee at a state correctional facility where both pretrial detainees and sentenced inmates were required to do various work. Over his repeated objections, the plaintiff had to work in the prison laundry for 14 hours per day, three days per week. Prison officials told him that if he did not work, he would be locked up in shackles for 23 hours per day.

The defendants moved to dismiss on the grounds that the work did not violate the 13th Amendment and they were entitled to qualified immunity. The trial court granted the motion but the appellate court reversed.

The 13th Amendment provides that “[n] either slavery nor involuntary servitude, except as a punishment for crime whereof the party shall have been duly convicted, shall exist within the United States, or any place subject to their jurisdiction.” The term “involuntary servitude” is not limited to chattel slavery-like conditions; the Amendment was intended to prohibit all forms of involuntary labor, not solely to abolish chattel slavery. The Supreme Court has defined involuntary servitude as “a condition of servitude in which the victim is forced to work for the defendant by the use or threat of physical restraint or physical injury, or by the use or threat of coercion through the law or the legal process.” Further, institutions housing pre-trial detainees are not exempt from the amendment’s scope. Nor was the plaintiff “duly convicted,” thus he did not fall within the category of people to whom the Amendment does not apply.

The court held that the plaintiff’s allegations stated a cognizable claim under the 13th Amendment. His work in the prison laundry was allegedly compelled by the threat of physical restraint or physical injury given that he was threatened with being confined in shackles for 23 hours per day if he refused to do the work.

The court also held that the defendants were not entitled to qualified immunity at the motion to dismiss stage. The defendants had sought qualified immunity on two grounds. First, they argued that it was objectively reasonable to believe that they could compel pre-trial detainees to work because the work program advanced a legitimate interest in rehabilitation. But the court easily knocked this argument down on the basis that it has been clearly established for years that a state cannot rehabilitate pre-trial detainees, so it was not objectively reasonable for defendants to conclude otherwise.

The defendants’ second argument was that a housekeeping exception for inmates exists under the 13th Amendment and, consequently, it was objectively reasonable to assume that pre-trial detainees can be required to perform housekeeping chores while incarcerated. The court found that, even assuming that correctional facilities can require all inmates to perform personal housekeeping chores (e.g. cleaning their cells), it is clearly established that requiring hard labor of pre-trial detainees violates the 13th Amendment. Compelled work doing other inmates’ laundry for 14 hours per day, three days per week, cannot be reasonably construed as a personal housekeeping chore. The defendants were therefore not entitled to qualified immunity.