Baltimore County OKs law firm contract in class-action lawsuit over work-release pay
The Baltimore County Council has approved a $450,000 contract with an outside law firm to defend the county against a class-action lawsuit alleging the county violated federal and state labor laws by not paying minimum wage and overtime to work-release inmates.
Greenlit by a 7-0 vote Monday, the county has hired the law firm Nelson Mullins Riley & Scarborough to serve as co-counsel on the federal case brought by an Essex man incarcerated at the Baltimore County Detention Center. He participated in the jail’s work-release program at the Cockeysville recycling center, operated by the county’s Department of Public Works.
Plaintiff Michael A. Scott says he and others in the program were paid a flat rate of $20 a day to work and were not granted overtime. The lawsuit asserts they often worked more than 57 hours a week.
The lawsuit alleges violations of the federal Fair Labor Standards Act, and Maryland wage and hour laws.
Maryland’s minimum wage is $11.75 per hour.
“These types of arrangements come with a cost,” said Scott’s attorney, Howard Hoffman, adding that Scott missed payments to his landlord. “What happens to the children that are left behind? What happens to the car payments?”
The practice “creates a loop of poverty,” he said.
Courts have generally held that inmates are not considered employees protected by the Fair Labor Standards Act — but Hoffman has said this situation is “not an example of prison labor.” Scott and others participated in the work-release program voluntarily, not as part of a criminal sentence or rehabilitation, he said.
A 1993 decision by the 4th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals opined that inmates are not protected under federal labor laws. The opinion stems from a lawsuit filed by a former inmate at the Maryland Correctional Institution at Jessup asserting he was entitled to minimum wage compensation because of his participation in a work program at a graphic print shop run by State Use Industries of Maryland.
The court wrote that inmates performed work for State Use Industries “not to turn profits for their supposed employer, but rather as a means of rehabilitation and job training.”