Fifth Circuit appeals court sides with Angola’s Farm Line workers

On Friday evening, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit told the state Department of Corrections that it must comply with an earlier district-court order to “correct the glaring deficiencies in their heat-related policies” for workers forced to do agricultural labor at the Louisiana State Penitentiary at Angola.

“Common sense indicates that working for long hours in the summer sun without shade, sufficient rest, or adequate protective equipment poses serious health risks,” wrote the court.

“There are far better uses of Louisiana taxpayer dollars than fighting against basic safety measures called ‘common sense’ by the Fifth Circuit,” said Lydia Wright, associate director of civil litigation at the Promise of Justice Initiative (PJI), which represents several men incarcerated at Angola, s and the organization Voice of the Experienced (VOTE).

In May, Wright filed a motion on behalf of her clients, requesting that the court halt Farm Line work during the most scorching heat of summer, whenever the heat index reached or exceeded 88 degrees. Plaintiffs gave accounts of spending hours, often on their knees, pulling grass with their bare hands, a torturous task known as “goose-picking.” They told of watering seedlings in a field carrying a five-gallon bucket of water and a Styrofoam cup. They spoke of being forced to work without breaks or even clean water, despite back and bone injuries and medical conditions that made them feel constantly light-headed.

In a July 2 order, District Judge Brian Jackson of the Middle District of Louisiana ruled in their favor. Though he stopped short of requiring the Farm Line to stop on the hottest days, he required immediate changes that would take into consideration the “human health and safety” needs of incarcerated workers, who are forced to work outdoors in Angola’s fields for pennies an hour. The DOC needed to submit a plan within a week, to show how they could reconfigure the Farm Line’s approach to protecting incarcerated workers from heat, he ordered.

Now, with the Fifth Circuit’s opinion, the seven-day deadline is back in play. By this Friday, July 19, one week from the Fifth Circuit’s opinion, the DOC must submit a plan to Jackson’s court.

But more than a week ago, after Jackson issued his order, the DOC filed notice to appeal and the Fifth Circuit granted the DOC’s request for an administrative stay. Friday’s opinion from the Fifth Circuit vacated the stay for the first two parts of Jackson’s five-part order while leaving the stay in place, pending appeal, for the last three parts of the order.

It was a triumphant moment for those who had filed the motion in May. “The district court and Fifth Circuit have now both affirmed what incarcerated men have known for generations: that Angola’s Farm Line is dangerous and inhumane,” Wright said.

The DOC must now submit a plan to swiftly address the other two deficiencies, the lack of shade and adequate rest and the failure to protect workers by providing sunscreen, protective clothing and equipment. as ordered by Jackson.

Among other arguments, the DOC had argued that Jackson’s decision was flawed because none of the named plaintiffs were currently working on the Farm Line. But the Fifth Circuit notes that an assistant warden had given an affidavit noting that the workers were taken off the Farm Line in response to the plaintiff’s motion. “It is … not clear that the Louisiana State Penitentiary will not resume requiring the named plaintiffs to work in the fields once the litigation ends,” the judges wrote.

The court also approved, by lifting its stay, the need for DOC to create a plan to protect workers from heat, as outlined in the first two parts of Jackson’s order, despite DOC’s submissions to the court noting that some improvements had already been made. Namely, the DOC filing says that Angola field officers were, as of June 21, carrying sunscreen “at all times,” offering it to workers at morning checkout and, as needed, upon request in the fields. Also, as of June 24, the prison will be using 10-foot-by-10-foot canopy tents to provide “a shaded break area” for the workers, the DOC told the court.

The DOC’s very narrow interpretation of what needed to be reformed sharply contrasted with the views of the Farm Line’s lawyers, who see the case – and the Fifth Circuit’s lifting of its stay – as a correction of historical wrongs.

“For more than a hundred years, incarcerated men have put their lives at risk in the scorching fields of Louisiana’s prisons,” said Samantha Kennedy, executive director of the Promise of Justice Initiative. “We’re very encouraged that the Fifth Circuit has deemed the plight of our clients serious and worthy of examination. People in prisons are human beings. We’re very hopeful for the future of this litigation.”

PJI is seeking to make the suit a class-action, which would allow them to represent anyone who works, or is at risk of working on Angola’s Farm Line — where prisoners are forced to work the fields for little to no pay, in ways that feels more like punishment than work that is vital or rehabilitative, incarcerated workers say.

In looking at the last three points of Jackson’s order, the Fifth Circuit found that those points went too far, by focusing on all DOC prisoners, “granting relief beyond the parties in this case.” In parts three and four, which ordered the DOC to more carefully assess workers with health conditions and those taking medications that inhibit thermoregulation, Jackson also did not fully explore the current context of those points, such as how the state currently chooses to place certain medicines on its Heat Pathology Medications list or how it awards, or doesn’t award, workers “heat precaution” status, the appeals court explained.

It’s unclear if the appeals court would uphold a more tailored district-court order that added more references and made those same demands, but was more specifically focused on Angola Farm Line workers.

In his fifth point, Jackson had also ordered the DOC to craft an additional policy for days when heat index values reach or exceed 113 degrees Fahrenheit, the temperature at which the National Weather Services issues excessive heat warning. But the Fifth Circuit found that it was “unclear that such relief is warranted” beyond that already provided by the first two parts of Jackson’s order.

This story was changed after publication, to reflect that the DOC must now submit its plan within seven days.