Wentworth v. Solem

¶4PER CURIAM.

¶5Robert Wentworth, an inmate at the South Dakota State Penitentiary at Sioux Falls, South Dakota, filed a complaint against state prison officials alleging various illegalities in the operation of prison industries.

¶6The complaint alleged that Wentworth was a former convict-employee of the prison bookbinding shop; that the defendants had allowed goods manufactured by convicts in the prison bookbindery to be transported in interstate commerce, in violation of 18 U.S.C. § 1761;1 that the defendants had failed to clearly mark the goods so transported as being manufactured by convicts, in violation of 18 U.S.C. § 1762; 2 and *775that the defendants had violated the Fair Labor Standards Act, 29 U.S.C. § 201et seq., and the equal protection clause, U.S. Const, amend. XIV, by failing to pay convict-employees of the bookbindery the federally prescribed minimum wage. Went-worth sought compensatory and punitive damages, and declaratory and injunctive relief.3

¶7The district court construed 18 U.S.C. §§ 1761-62 as excepting goods made by convicts in a penal institution from their coverage. It further concluded that in view of the Supreme Court’s recent decision in National League of Cities v. Usery, 426 U.S. 833, 96 S.Ct. 2465, 49 L.Ed.2d 245 (1976), Wentworth’s minimum wage allegations failed to state a claim. Accordingly, it dismissed the complaint. This appeal followed. We affirm.

¶8We need not consider the propriety of the district court’s construction of 18 U.S.C. §§ 1761-62 because we find that Wentworth cannot predicate a private claim on those statutes. Sections 1761-62 are criminal statutes and do not expressly create a private right of action. In determining whether a private remedy is implicit in a statute not expressly providing one the Supreme Court finds several factors to be relevant. Factors to be considered include: whether the plaintiff is one of the class for whose especial benefit the statute was enacted; whether there is any indication of legislative intent to create or deny such a private remedy; whether it is consistent with the underlying purposes of the legislative scheme to imply such a remedy; and whether the cause of action is one traditionally relegated to state law so that it would be inappropriate to infer a cause of action based solely on federal law. Cort v. Ash, 422 U.S. 66, 78, 95 S.Ct. 2080, 45 L.Ed.2d 26 (1975).

¶9Sections 1761-62 embody Congressional interest in free labor and were designed to protect private business from competition from goods produced with inexpensive convict labor. Kentucky Whip & Collar Co. v. Illinois Cent. R. R. Co., 299 U.S. 334, 351, 57 S.Ct. 277, 81 L.Ed. 270 (1937). Reviewing the Cort v. Ash, supra,factors in these circumstances, we conclude that Wentworth, a state prisoner, has no private remedy under these statutes.

¶10Wentworth predicates his claim that he is entitled to the federal minimum wage on the 1974 amendments to the Fair Labor Standards Act, which extended the applicability of the minimum wage law to state employees. See 29 U.S.C. § 203(e)(2)(C). He contends that he is a state employee within the meaning of the Act.

¶11We are doubtful that Congress, by the 1974 amendments, intended to extend the coverage of the minimum wage law to convicts working in state prison industries. Moreover, any attempt to so extend the coverage would be void under the Supreme Court’s recent holding that Congress may not constitutionally prescribe a minimum wage for state employees where to do so would “operate to directly displace the States’ freedom to structure integral operations in areas of traditional government functions . . . .” National League of Cities v. Usery, supra,96 S.Ct. at 2474. Wentworth’s claim that the failure to pay convict workers a minimum wage violates the equal protection clause also lacks merit. Cf. Sigler v. Lowrie, 404 F.2d 659, 661 (8th Cir. 1968). Accordingly, the district court properly rejected Wentworth’s minimum wage claim.

¶12The judgment of the district court is affirmed.