Tippah County, Third Party Plaintiff-Appellant v. UNITED STATES of America, Defendant Mississippi Public Entities Workers’ Compensation Trust, Third-Party Defendant-Appellee.
No. 12-60435.
United States Court of Appeals, Fifth Circuit.
March 15, 2013.
536 F.3d 536
III.
Today, the majority allows parents unhappy with an IEP to bypass the comprehensive remedial scheme of the IDEA and sue under § 504 for money damages. It then misapplies § 504 to impose on schools a tort-like duty not to mismanage a disabled student‘s IEP. This unfortunate consequence defies precedent. I would hold that Ms. Stewart‘s failure to exhaust administrative remedies under the IDEA bars her from seeking money damages under § 504. Alternatively, I would hold that bad faith, gross misjudgment, and deliberate indifference all rest upon substantially identical levels of culpability—levels that approximate the discriminatory animus § 504 was intended to capture. On either wing, the district court‘s dismissal ought be affirmed.
Billy Sean Akins, Akins & Adams, P.A., Ripley, MS, for Third Party Plaintiff-Appellant.
Joshua Jerome Wiener, Butler, Snow, O‘Mara, Stevens & Cannada, P.L.L.C., Ridgeland, MS, for Third-Party Defendant-Appellee.
Timmy VUNCANNON, Plaintiff
Before STEWART, Chief Judge, and SMITH and WIENER, Circuit Judges.
PER CURIAM:
This case asks whether plaintiff Timmy Vuncannon, a county jail inmate, was covered under the Mississippi Workers’ Compensation Act (“MWCA“) and thus is entitled to compensation benefits for injuries sustained while he was laboring on a work detail program maintained by Appellant Tippah County (“the County“). The incarcerating county and the medical corporation that treated Vuncannon seek reimbursement of medical expenses from Appellee, Mississippi Public Entities Workers’ Compensation Trust (“MPE“), the provider of workers’ compensation insurance for the County. Concluding as a
I. FACTS AND PROCEDURAL HISTORY
While he was serving time in the County‘s jail, Vuncannon labored in a county work program under the sheriff‘s supervision, for which services he earned $10 per day to be credited “toward any and all charges of F.T.A/cash bonds owed to the county.” Vuncannon was seriously injured in a forklift accident while helping law enforcement officials conduct a “drug bust” pursuant to that program.
In his federal court action, Vuncannon asserted both state and federal claims against numerous defendants, all of which have been dismissed. Shelby County Health Care Corporation (“the MED“), owner of the medical facility where Vuncannon was treated for his injuries, filed a complaint in intervention, contending that Mississippi law required the County to pay Vuncannon‘s hospital bills of more than $640,000. The MED ultimately settled its claims against the County, and, with the County, filed a third party complaint against MPE. The County contended that because Vuncannon was injured while working as a trustee for its jail, he was covered by the MWCA, making MPE liable for reimbursing his medical expenses. MPE countered that it is under no obligation to provide reimbursement because county inmates injured on work detail are not among those covered by the MWCA.
Both sides moved for summary judgment. Noting an absence of binding authority, the district court concluded that the Mississippi Supreme Court would likely interpret the MWCA strictly and deny coverage in this case. Although conceding that the issue posed a difficult question of state law, the court dismissed the claim
The County now appeals that judgment, insisting that statutory provisions excluding state inmates from MWCA coverage do not apply to county inmates like Vuncannon. MPE responds that the dispositive issue is not whether the exclusion of state inmates extends to county inmates, but whether, when Vuncannon was injured, he qualified as an “employee” under a “contract of hire,” as required for him to come within the purview of the MWCA in the first place.
II. ANALYSIS
A. Standard
We review a grant of summary judgment de novo, applying the same legal standards as do the district courts.1 Summary judgment is appropriate when “there is no genuine dispute as to any material fact and the movant is entitled to judgment as a matter of law.”2 When reviewing a summary judgment, we construe all the evidence and reasonable inferences in the light most favorable to the nonmoving party.3 We are “not limited to the district court‘s reasons for its grant of summary judgment”4 and “may affirm the district court‘s judgment on any grounds supported by the record.”5
B. The Mississippi Workers’ Compensation Act
Under Mississippi law, compensation “shall be payable for disability or death of an employee from injury or occupational disease arising out of and in the course of employment, without regard to fault as to the cause of the injury or occupational disease.”6 The law defines an eligible “employee” as “any person . . . in the service of an employer under any contract of hire or apprenticeship, written or oral, express or implied. . . .”7 Mississippi‘s statutes also specify exclusions that, by their terms, place some classes of inmates outside the MWCA‘s scope. For example, Mississippi Code § 47-5-417 provides that no inmate, while outside the jail on a state-approved work program, “shall be deemed to be an agent, employee or involuntary servant of the Department of Corrections, the state or any political subdivision thereof[.]” Vuncannon was not a participant in any state-approved work program, however, and the County had not implemented any such program at the time Vuncannon was injured. Likewise, Mississippi Code § 47-5-567—which excludes “inmate[s]” from MWCA coverage—applies only to state inmates and thus has no bearing on the status of Vuncannon, who was a county inmate.8
Based on the undisputed material facts of the instant summary judgment record, we conclude that Vuncannon was not an employee working under a contract of hire within the intendment of the MWCA. At the outset, we note an absence of any express, written contract between Vuncannon and the County. It is true that a worker may be an “employee” covered by the MWCA if his “contract of hire” is either written or oral, express or implied, so this absence is not dispositive.11 The County‘s assertion that an express, written agreement existed, however, finds no support in the record. The County points only to a notice from the sheriff transmitted not to Vuncannon, but to the Tippah County Justice Court, stating that Vuncannon had been placed on a work detail program and credited $10 per day for his labor. Vuncannon never signed this document, however, and it was dated January 26, 2006—the day of his injury and nine days after he began working for the County. Neither is it evident from the record that Vuncannon was even aware of that notice, much less that he was given a copy of it or of any other writing explaining the terms and conditions under which he would work.
Any contention that Vuncannon labored under an implied contract of hire likewise proves unavailing. First, notwithstanding the dearth of Mississippi case law on point, the Mississippi Attorney General (“AG“) has addressed a similar matter. Responding to the question whether a city must carry workers’ compensation insurance for a convict participating in community service pursuant to the terms of a municipal court order, the AG cited
[i]t is the imperative duty of the board of supervisors in each county in this state to require each convict sentenced to imprisonment in the county jail and the payment of a fine and costs, or to imprisonment and payment of costs, or to payment of fine and costs, to work out the sentence on the county convict farm or on the public roads or other public works of the county, or in a contiguous county[.]14
That Vuncannon, like any Mississippi inmate, was entitled to credit for his labors15 does not change the fact that the County simply could have required him to work.
Further, although coverage under the MWCA usually “is not affected by the fact that an employee‘s wages are minimal,”16 courts nationwide have looked to whether the inmate labored alongside, and under circumstances substantially similar to, traditional workers in determining workers’ compensation eligibility.17 There might be “little justification in freeing [a private] employer from the burdens of the prisoner‘s work-related injury”18 when, for example, the prisoner works outside the prison pursuant to a work-release program. But, Vuncannon suffered injury while working under the supervision of the country sheriff for the benefit of the Mississippi Bureau of Narcotics, a public entity. He received only a $10 per day credit “toward any and all charges of F.T.A/cash bonds owed to the county“—a meager sum well below the prevailing wages earned by traditional public-sector workers, and not in cash at that. Perhaps most importantly, as Mississippi law saddles the incarcerating county with the burden of paying an indigent inmate‘s hospital bills,19 it is the
County, and not Vuncannon himself, that is likely to be stuck with the hospital costs. Of course, absent workers’ compensation, a typical county worker in Mississippi would have no such recourse against his employer for injuries sustained on the job—casting doubt on the necessity and practical import of providing such coverage for inmates.
We note in closing that if the County had bargained successfully with MPE for coverage of its working inmates, it would be entitled to the benefit of that bargain, regardless whether the MWCA in fact required the County to maintain that coverage. The record, however, includes neither evidence nor allegation that any such bargaining occurred. It follows that the County has not been deprived of any payment to which it is entitled.
III. CONCLUSION
Because, at the time of his injury, Vuncannon was not working for the County under a contract of hire, he did not fall within the ambit of the MWCA. Thus, the County‘s workers’ compensation insurance did not cover Vuncannon‘s medical expenses. We therefore AFFIRM the district court‘s judgment dismissing the third party plaintiffs’ claims against MPE.
UNITED STATES of America, Plaintiff-Appellee, v. Jorge Cabecera RODRIGUEZ, also known as Jorge Cebecera, also known as Jorge Paul Cabecera, also known as Jorge P. Cabecera, Defendant-Appellant.
No. 11-20881.
United States Court of Appeals, Fifth Circuit.
March 15, 2013.