Federal appeals court issues hold on part of order to keep Angola farm workers safe in high heat

BATON ROUGE, La. (BRPROUD) — The 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals has agreed to stay part of an order from a lower court that would require the state to make a plan to better protect inmates sentenced to farm work at Louisiana State Penitentiary from extreme heat.

U.S. Judges James Ho, Irma Carrillo Ramirez and Cory T. Wilson issued a new unpublished order late Friday, July 12. They vacated a previous administrative stay and partially granted a stay pending appeal.

They agreed that the state made some valid arguments about the order that appealed to statewide policies and procedures. But requirements that inmates have access to water, rest and shade while working the Farm Line were not too expensive, too broad or too difficult to be worked on.

U.S. Judge Brian Jackson previously ordered the state of Louisiana to change policies and procedures around the Farm Line program at the prison, commonly called Angola. His order only applied to the plans and procedures that take effect when temperatures are 88 degrees Fahrenheit or hotter. It required more specific policies to keep inmates safe from heat-related health threats including specific changes to the Farm Line and updates to policies that affect workers or inmates statewide. He set a seven-day deadline.

The 5th Circuit granted an administrative stay on July 5, and the deadline passed pending the appeals court decision.

The appellate bench agreed with the state that a seven-day deadline over a week with a federal holiday was not practical.

While they agreed to stay pending appeal on three of the five issues the state raised, they have denied a stay on two of them.

Jackson wanted the state to:

1. Make sure people working the Farm Line get adequate shade and rest.
2. Fix equipment policies to give the Farm Line workers sunscreen and protective clothing.
3. Make a new, expanded list of medicines that can cause heat regulation temperatures and possibly make working outdoors in high heat unsafe.
4. Make a procedure so that all inmates with health problems that can cause thermoregulation issues are given heat precaution duty status.
5. Create a heat-related work policy for when heat indexes reach or top 113 degrees Fahrenheit.

The judges agreed that parts of the order that would change the statewide Louisiana Department of Public Safety & Corrections policy on working in high temperatures (issues 3, 4 and 5) are overly broad and would violate the Prison Litigation Reform Act. The 1996 law makes it more difficult for inmates to file lawsuits to change their conditions and succeed in federal courts.

However, they found no errors with Jackson ordering specific changes to prevent heat-related illnesses on just the Farm Line at Angola.

The state argues that only about 50 people a day work the line, and none of the plaintiffs (who include eight current Angola inmates) are assigned to the Farm Line. The state argues that invalidates their arguments and there’s no defined class for this to be a class-action lawsuit.

The three-judge panel noted that court records show that the state agreed to keep all the men suing off the Farm Line while the suit is ongoing. It came to light when one of the plaintiffs said he’d been assigned to work detail and the state explained that was not in line with the warden’s orders.

“Regarding whether the named plaintiffs are currently being forced to work in the fields, the fact that the named plaintiffs are currently indefinitely prohibited from working in the fields does not make absolutely clear that the State will not direct them to do so in the future,” the 5th Circuit panel wrote.

They couldn’t find that Jackson erred on that argument, and the state seemed unlikely to succeed in its arguments on the matter.

Declining to stay the overly broad portions of the order, however, “would intrude on state sovereignty, along with subjecting the State to extensive, DPSC-wide policy changes and compliance costs,” the judges wrote.

The history of the suit

Voice of the Experienced (VOTE) and eight men currently in the prison asked to shut down the Farm Line in high heat. It’s part of an ongoing lawsuit about the work conditions. The initial lawsuit was filed in the Middle District of Louisiana in September. Plaintiffs argue conditions are cruel and violate the Americans with Disabilities Act.

The state argues that shutting down the Farm Line during high heat will require Louisiana to buy food to replace what would normally be harvested by prisoners. Defendants say current guidelines are enough to keep people safe and the state shouldn’t be held to a standard higher than other Louisiana farmers.

A trial date has been set for later this year in the Middle District.

The defendants include Secretary of the Louisiana Department of Public Safety and Corrections James LeBlanc; Warden Timothy Hooper; Director of Prison Enterprises Misty Stagg; the Louisiana Department of Public Safety and Corrections; and Prison Enterprises.

The Promise of Justice Initiative, Rights Behind Bars, and Paul, Weiss, Rifkind, Wharton & Garrison LLP represent the plaintiffs.

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