John D. WILLIAMS, Plaintiff-Appellant, v. Buddy HENAGAN, In His Individual Capacity; Gary Cooper, Mayor, In His Official Capacity; Mike Suchanek, Individually and In His Official Capacity; Louisiana Department of Corrections; C. Paul Phelps Correctional Center; Joann Peshoff, Individually and In Her Official Capacity; Clarence Snyder, Individually and In His Official Capacity; Jean McCaig, Individually and In Her Official Capacity, Defendants-Appellees.
No. 07-30997.
United States Court of Appeals, Fifth Circuit.
Jan. 28, 2010.
In summary, the “qualified family-owned business interest” deduction of
Bradley Charles Myers, Katie Deranger Bell (argued), Lana Davis Crump, Kean, Miller, Hawthorne, D‘Armond, McCowan & Jarman, L.L.P., Baton Rouge, LA, for Henagan.
Joy C. Rabalais, Borne & Wilkes, L.L.P., Lafayette, LA, for Henagan, Suchanek and Cooper.
John Fayne Wilkes, III (argued), Borne & Wilkes, L.L.P, Lafayette, LA, for Suchanek and Cooper.
Jeannie H. Cheng (argued), LA Dept. of Justice, Lafayette, LA, for LA Dept. of Corrs., C. Paul Phelps Correctional Ctr., Peshoff, Snyder and McCaig.
Before JONES, Chief Judge, ELROD, Circuit Judge, and GUIROLA, District Judge*.
PER CURIAM:
John D. Williams (“Williams“), a former Louisiana inmate, brought a handful of claims against various state defendants and defendants from DeQuincy, Louisiana (“DeQuincy defendants“)1 for alleged injuries arising out of his confinement in the state‘s Phelps Correctional Center (“Phelps“) and the DeQuincy, Louisiana, City Jail (“DeQuincy“). The district court held that Williams failed to exhaust his prison administrative remedies and dismissed all of his claims against the state defendants and all but two of Williams‘s claims against the DeQuincy defendants. The court later granted summary judgment for former Mayor Buddy Henagan2 and Police Chief Mike Suchanek on Williams‘s Fair Labor Standards Act (“FLSA“) and Thirteenth Amendment claims. Williams appeals. We affirm the district court‘s judgment.
BACKGROUND
On November 21, 1996, Williams pled guilty to simple burglary and was sentenced as an habitual offender to eight years of hard labor. Williams arrived at Phelps Correctional Center in December 1997 and was transferred from Phelps to the DeQuincy City Jail on October 7, 2000. As part of his sentence, Williams worked for the city. His duties largely included maintaining city property and facilities
Williams asserts that Buddy Henagan, then the mayor of DeQuincy, and Michael Suchanek, DeQuincy‘s Chief of Police, forced Williams to work additional hours beyond the regular work week and sometimes for their private gain. Henagan had him wax the floors of Henagan‘s church; work 20 hours a day during the city‘s railroad festival and cook barbecued chicken continuously for over 26 hours at various local fundraisers. Up to twice a month, he was required to ride around the city with Henagan between 2 a.m. and 3 a.m. to count burned out street lights. Henagan took Williams to Texas once to transport furniture Henagan had been given. Suchanek required him to work off-hours for Suchanek‘s private businesses, sometimes until midnight or later and often on weekends. These ventures included Suchanek‘s space jump rental4 and his grass cutting business. Williams admits he was paid occasionally for work he performed for Henagan and Suchanek.
During incarceration at DeQuincy and Phelps, Williams contends he experienced various constitutional deprivations. Williams filed two administrative grievances pursuant to the prison‘s Administrative Remedy Procedure (“ARP“). See generally
On March 4, 2004, Williams filed a pro se complaint in federal court. Williams later retained counsel and filed an amended complaint. The amended complaint alleged a variety of claims falling into three general categories. A series of claims related to his confinement at both DeQuincy and Phelps including: inadequate medical treatment, inadequate supervision of inmates, and inadequate hiring, supervising, and training practices for city employees (“confinement claims“).5 He also alleges that his work for Henagan‘s and Suchanek‘s private interests entitled him to both a minimum wage and overtime under the FLSA. Finally, he claims his work for Henagan and Suchanek violated the Thirteenth Amendment.
The state defendants moved to dismiss the claims against them. On June 6, 2005, the district court, accepting the magistrate judge‘s report and recommendations, dismissed the confinement claims for failure
STANDARD OF REVIEW
We review a district court‘s grant of summary judgment de novo. Deville v. Marcantel, 567 F.3d 156, 163 (5th Cir. 2009). A party is entitled to summary judgment if “the pleadings, the discovery and disclosure materials on file, and any affidavits show that there is no genuine issue as to any material fact and that the movant is entitled to a judgment as a matter of law.”
DISCUSSION
A. Confinement Claims
Williams appeals the June 6, 2005, dismissal of his “confinement” claims against the state defendants for failure to exhaust his administrative remedies. That same order effectively dismissed Williams‘s confinement claims against the DeQuincy defendants for the same reasons. Because Williams‘s brief does not challenge the dismissal of such claims against the DeQuincy defendants, the argument is waived. United States v. Thibodeaux, 211 F.3d 910, 912 (5th Cir.2000).
Before reaching the issue of exhaustion, the state defendants contend that Williams‘s notice of appeal was defective.7 The district court ruled in an opinion dated June 6, 2005, that “all defendants except Buddy Henagan and Mike Suchanek are dismissed,” (emphasis added), but Williams‘s notice of appeal mistakenly indicated that he appealed this ruling only as to Henagan and Suchanek. It stated in relevant part that Williams appealed
the Opinion of the District Court rendered on June 6, 2005, dismissing the plaintiff‘s claims for inadequate medical treatment, conspiracy, and retaliation against defendants Mayor L.A. “Buddy” Henagan individually and in his official capacity as Mayor of the City of DeQuincy and Chief Michael Suchanek, individually and in his official capacity as Chief of Police of the City of DeQuincy for failure to exhaust administrative remedies.
As a result of this error, the notice of appeal did not name the three state defendants—Peshoff, Snyder and McCaig—at all. This court did not list them as appellees in its briefing notice, and the state defendants claim they had no notice that Williams intended to appeal the rulings concerning them until six months after the notice of appeal, when he filed his initial
A party is not required to indicate the identity of any appellees in a notice of appeal,8 but there are grounds in our precedent to conclude that if a party names some but not all defendants, the unnamed defendants are excluded.
That does not end the matter, however, because “notices of appeal are liberally construed where ‘the intent to appeal an unmentioned or mislabeled ruling is apparent and there is no prejudice to the adverse party.‘” Sec. and Exchange Comm. v. Van Waeyenberghe, 990 F.2d 845, 847 n. 3 (5th Cir.1993) (emphasis omitted) (citing C.A. May Marine Supply Co. v. Brunswick Corp., 649 F.2d 1049, 1056 (5th Cir.1981)). Even “where the plaintiff appealed only a portion of the judgment,” we generously interpret the scope of the appeal, and require a showing of prejudice to preclude review of issues “fairly inferred” from the notice and subsequent filings.9 Morin v. Moore, 309 F.3d 316, 321 (5th Cir.2002). We consider not only the notice, but also the appellant‘s brief, in determining the fairly inferred scope of the appeal. See United States v. Ramirez, 932 F.2d 374, 376 (5th Cir.1991) (“[W]hen the intent to appeal an unnamed or mislabeled ruling is apparent (from the briefs or otherwise) and no prejudice results to the adverse party, the appeal is not jurisdictionally defective.” (citing Turnbull v. United States, 929 F.2d 173 (5th Cir. 1991))).
In Morin, the plaintiffs appealed “from the final judgment and order dismissing [their] cause of action based on
A similar analysis applies here. The notice of appeal correctly identified the district court‘s ruling dismissing the state defendants, and Williams challenged that ruling in his brief.10 The state defendants, with additional time granted by this court, filed a competent responsive brief. Accordingly, under our precedent, we may consider the appeal if the state defendants suffered no prejudice.11
The panel majority finds no prejudice because the issues affecting the state defendants are straightforward, and the error in the notice of appeal has not prevented them from persuading the court that they should prevail. The fact that six
Turning to the exhaustion issue, the court unanimously concludes that the district court correctly dismissed the claims against the state defendants. Williams‘s claims against two state entities (Louisiana Dept. of Corrections and C. Paul Phelps Correctional Center) and state employees in their official capacities are barred by the Eleventh Amendment. Further, Williams failed to exhaust his claims against the state defendants as required by the Prison Litigation Reform Act,
Williams asserts that he was not required to exhaust his other confinement claims, including claims regarding his right to attend religious services, unreasonable searches and seizures, and cruel and unusual punishment, because he has been released from prison, and release renders ARPs moot. The statutory provision Williams relies on states generally that:
If an inmate is discharged before the review of an issue that affects the in
mate after discharge is completed ... the institution will complete the processing and will notify the inmate at his last known address. All other [ARP] requests shall be considered moot when the inmate discharges ....
This provision does not excuse Williams‘s failure to file ARPs. It declares only that ARP requests that are filed and pending at the date of release will be moot if they have not been resolved by then. If Williams had filed appropriate ARPs and pursued them until they became moot based on his release, then perhaps he could argue that he thereby exhausted them. But
In sum, Williams‘s confinement claims fail to satisfy the PLRA exhaustion requirements or are waived in his briefing to this court.
B. FLSA Claim
Williams contends that he is entitled to a minimum wage and overtime under the FLSA for work performed for Henagan and Suchanek while confined in DeQuincy. The FLSA covers employees who are “engaged in commerce or in the production of goods for commerce.”
This court has ruled that certain prisoners are not covered by the FLSA. Prisoners who work inside prison for the prison are not the prison‘s FLSA employees. Loving v. Johnson, 455 F.3d 562, 563 (5th Cir.2006). Prisoners working inside prison for private employers are not employees under the FLSA. Alexander v. Sara, Inc., 721 F.2d 149, 150 (5th Cir. 1983). Further, work-release prisoners working outside the prison for a private employer are not FLSA employees of the prison. Reimonenq v. Foti, 72 F.3d 472, 475-76 (5th Cir.1996).
In Watson v. Graves, 909 F.2d 1549 (5th Cir.1990), however, the court concluded that prisoners who had not been sentenced to hard labor and were employed by a private firm while on work release were FLSA employees of the private employer. Watson and his co-plaintiff worked for the sheriff‘s daughter and son-in-law in their construction business, which used inmate labor. Id. at 1552. The prisoners were paid only 20 dollars for each long working day. Id. The decision expressly distinguished between prisoners sentenced to hard labor and those who are not. Id. at 1553, n. 7.
The threshold question here is whether the FLSA can apply to inmates, like Williams, who are sentenced to hard labor but whose work is carried out for private employers outside the prison. Watson states because inmates sentenced to hard
The DeQuincy defendants essentially concede that Williams‘s labor inured to Henagan‘s or Suchanek‘s private benefit, but whether these arrangements were lawfully part of Williams‘s hard labor sentence is unclear on the record before us. In effect, Williams advocates that the FLSA, otherwise unavailable to prisoners sentenced to hard labor, applies when prison officials misappropriate prisoner labor or otherwise abuse their discretion. We decline to rule on this novel issue because even if Williams‘s work might be covered by the FLSA, Williams was not an “employee” of Henagan, and he was not “engaged in commerce” while working for Suchanek.
1. FLSA Employee
The FLSA circularly defines an “employee” as “an individual employed by an employer” and an “employer” “includes any person acting directly or indirectly in the interest of an employer in relation to an employee.”
Because courts have found these definitions vague, the “economic reality test” has arisen to determine FLSA coverage.15 Although Reimonenq stated that the economic reality test is “unserviceable and consequently inapplicable, in the jailer-inmate context,”16 72 F.3d at 475, this court had already held that “status as an inmate [not sentenced to hard labor] does not foreclose inquiry into FLSA coverage,” Watson, 909 F.2d at 1554-55. Watson thus evaluated the four standard factors under the economic reality test, i.e., whether the putative employer: (1) possessed the power to hire and fire the employees, (2) supervised and controlled employee work schedules or conditions of employment, (3) determined the rate and method of payment, and (4) maintained employment records. Watson, 909 F.2d at 1553.17 Not finding these factors dispositive, the court turned to the FLSA‘s twin purposes to maintain a minimum living standard and to reduce unfair competition among firms seeking business and among
Ultimately, Watson fails to support Williams‘s claim to be an FLSA employee of Henagan. The sporadic work Williams performed for the mayor‘s private gain does not reflect an economic reality resembling a sustained employment relationship. The three relevant tasks, waxing the floors at Henagan‘s church, moving furniture on one occasion at his house, and making one trip to Texas to pick up furniture, are not fairly analogous even to seasonal employment, which is sufficiently permanent to create an employment relationship under the FLSA. Brock, 814 F.2d at 1053-54. Performing occasional odd jobs for a person, even apart from the hard labor prisoner status issue, does not render the worker an FLSA covered employee.
Williams‘s work for Suchanek, on the other hand, was continual, as he spent three days a week cutting lawns and regularly assisted with the space jumps. The district court correctly found a genuine issue of material fact whether Williams was an FLSA employee of Suchanek. Williams‘s case resembles Watson in this respect. But rather than resolve Williams‘s employee status conclusively, we can more readily determine that the work he performed was not in “commerce” under the FLSA.
2. Engaged in Commerce
The test this court recently articulated for FLSA‘s “engaged in commerce” requirement is “whether the work is so directly and vitally related to the functioning or an instrumentality or facility of interstate commerce as to be, in practical effect, a part of it rather than an isolated activity.” Sobrinio v. Med. Ctr. Visitor‘s Lodge, Inc., 474 F.3d 828, 829 (5th Cir.2007). Work that is purely local in nature does not meet the FLSA‘s requirements, but “[a]ny regular contact with commerce, no matter how small, will result in coverage.” Id. at 829. In Sobrinio, an employee of a motel serving the Texas Medical Center worked variously as a janitor, security guard, and driver for the hotel‘s guests. Id. He ferried guests on errands to local stores but never drove to the airport or other transportation centers. Id. The court held that although many guests were from out of state the employee was not engaged in commerce under the FLSA. Id. Williams‘s work mowing lawns and setting up the space jump is equally localized. Under Sobrinio, his tasks fell outside the purview of the FLSA.
C. Thirteenth Amendment Claim
The Thirteenth Amendment states, “Neither slavery nor involuntary servitude, except as punishment for crime whereof the party shall have been duly convicted shall exist within the United States, or any place subject to their jurisdiction” (emphasis added). It is undisputed that “[w]hen a person is duly tried, convicted and sentenced in accordance with the law, no issue of peonage or involuntary servitude arises.” Wendt v. Lynaugh, 841 F.2d 619, 620 (5th Cir.1988)
Although Williams was sentenced to hard labor, he asserts that only the Louisiana Department of Corrections, not the City of DeQuincy or its officials, could force him to work. This argument is incorrect as a matter of state law. Williams‘s sentence confined him to the Department of Corrections, and he remained an inmate until his release on April 29, 2004. He did not have a right to be housed in a particular facility, and under Louisiana law, he was lawfully incarcerated at the DeQuincy City Jail.
Nor did his being forced to work on private property render his labor involuntary servitude. See Murray v. Mississippi Dep‘t of Corrections, 911 F.2d 1167 (5th Cir.1990). In Murray, the court held that Mississippi law likely prevented an inmate from working on private property, but it “decline[d] to create a private-property exception to our prior holdings that an inmate may be compelled to work without pay,” finding “no basis from which to conclude that working an inmate on private property is any more violative of constitutional or civil rights than working inmates on public property.” Id. at 1167-68.
This reasoning also vitiates Williams‘s final argument. Louisiana law requires participants in a work-day release program to work more than eight but less than ten hours a day.
CONCLUSION
Henagan and Suchanek may well have abused their authority over Williams, and they do not deny many of Williams‘s allegations about his work for them. None of this conduct, however, rises to the level necessary for an FLSA or Thirteenth Amendment claim. Further, Williams failed to exhaust prison administrative remedies for his claims against the state defendants. Accordingly, we AFFIRM the district court‘s judgment.
AFFIRMED.
EDITH H. JONES, Chief Judge, concurring in part and dissenting in part:
With due respect to the majority, I feel compelled to dissent on the narrow issue
Consider this scenario. A plaintiff sues multiple defendants. The court dismisses claims against three of them (“A, B and C“). Two years later, the court enters final judgment in favor of the remaining defendants (D and E). The plaintiff notices an appeal against D and E only. The lawyer for A, B and C calls his clients and says:
“Do you remember that old case? It‘s finished, and you‘re off the hook. Plaintiff didn‘t file an appeal against you!”
A, B & C gratefully pay their “final” bill to their lawyer.
Six months later, the lawyer stuns A, B and C when he calls back:
“Fellows, I am sorry to have to tell you, but I just received a brief in Plaintiff‘s appeal, and he thinks he can reverse your judgment. Frankly, the case was over so long ago, I can‘t remember exactly what happened. I have to write a brief, and I‘ll have to reacquaint myself with the file. We can‘t sit out this appeal. My meter just started running again.”
The only difference between the hypothetical and the case before us is the immaterial point that appellants Snyder, Peshoff and McCaig are represented by the state and will not personally pay their legal bill for this surprise appeal. In this unusual situation, when a judgment is rendered for multiple defendants, the better interpretation of
Williams admits his notice of appeal “forgot” to name the state defendants. But “the notice afforded by a document, not the litigant‘s motivation in filing it, determines the document‘s sufficiency as a notice of appeal.” Smith v. Barry, 502 U.S. 244, 248-49 (1992). Williams‘s confinement claims were alleged against five individuals: Henagan, Suchanek, Snyder, Peshoff, and McCaig. The district court dismissed the claims against all five because Williams failed to exhaust administrative remedies. If Williams had simply identified the June 6, 2005 order and claims covered by it without naming individual defendants, his notice of appeal would have included all of them. Instead, he specified only Henagan and Suchanek in his notice of appeal, emphasizing its limited nature just as he had earlier done by moving to clarify the June 6 order‘s dismissal of his claims against Suchanek and Henagan alone. Inclusio unius est exclusio alterius. With this selective notice, Williams did not advise the state defendants that they were the subject of his appeal. The state defendants understandably viewed the appeal as limited to the local defendants and consequently moved to dismiss for lack of notice to them under
The majority is persuaded that, because the state defendants could successfully brief the issues in time, they suffered no prejudice and, for that additional reason, Williams‘s notice of appeal satisfies
Although the majority fails to cite any cases on point that concern the naming of only a selected few defendants in the notice of appeal, the Fourth Circuit had no difficulty in letting an un-named defendant off the hook for a deficient notice. Smith v. Barry, 985 F.2d 180, 184 (4th Cir.1993) (on remand from 502 U.S. 244 (1992)) (holding that since the notice of appeal identified six prison guards but not their co-defendant, the court did not have jurisdiction over the co-defendant). Similarly, the Seventh Circuit stated it would entertain a motion to dismiss an appeal where the notice of appeal “names all but one of the defendants [so that] the omitted defendant may reasonably believe that he is off the hook and need not hire a lawyer to defend the appeal.” Chathas v. Smith, 848 F.2d 93, 94 (7th Cir.1988). We should be consistent with sister circuits, not divergent from them, especially on jurisdictional procedural points that affect how lawyers do business.
Finally, I note that Williams is represented by counsel. Were he proceeding pro se, I might understand the basis for the majority‘s generosity. In this case, however, the flawed notice, if it was flawed, was crafted by counsel and should be interpreted as written.
In sum, Williams‘s notice of appeal is deficient as to the state defendants because it is misleading. I would hold that this court lacks jurisdiction over Williams‘s appeal of the dismissal of the state defendants and would dismiss this portion of his appeal.