CHICAGO (CN) — A Seventh Circuit appellate panel ruled 2 to 1 against a class of participants in the Salvation Army's "Adult Rehabilitation Center" program on Tuesday, concluding the program's "work therapy" doesn't violate forced labor law.
The ruling affirms a September 2022 dismissal order from the District Court of Northern Illinois, where participants in the program claimed in a class action, first filed in Chicago in November 2021 and amended in January 2022, that the program amounts to forced labor under the Trafficking Victims Protection Reauthorization Act.
"The first amended complaint fails to allege adequately a claim under any of the forced labor provisions at issue in this case," U.S. Circuit Judge Kenneth Ripple, a Ronald Reagan appointee, wrote for the majority.
The Salvation Army presents the Adult Rehabilitation Center program as a 180-day residential rehabilitation course for those "seeking help for any number of social and life issues," with emphasis placed on those struggling with substance abuse. The organization claims the program provides "spiritual, social, and emotional assistance to people who have lost the ability to cope with their problems and provide for themselves."
But two classes of participants — those who joined the program willingly, and those who were referred to it as a condition of parole — tell a different story.
Both groups noted in court filings that they were only paid "a gratuity" between $1 and $25 per week while in the program, despite working at least 40 hours per week for the Salvation Army's thrift stores. The Salvation Army also requires program participants to live in its own housing, and the plaintiffs argued in their initial complaint that the organization conditioned food, clothing and housing on their labor for it.
The parolee plaintiffs further reported that Salvation Army staff would threaten them with retaliation if they refused to work or didn't work fast enough. Failure to comply could result in calls to the police or parole agents, or the parolees being kicked out of the program entirely — thus violating their probation.
Ripple and U.S. Circuit Judge Michael Scudder, a Donald Trump appointee who joined the majority opinion, favored an "alternative explanation" for the organization's behavior.
"The allegations describe a responsibly run treatment program designed to assist individuals who, in order to rid themselves of an alcohol or drug dependency, need to subject themselves to a safe and disciplined environment free of the distractions that can induce so easily retrogressive behavior," Ripple wrote.
He also noted the voluntary participants were also technically free to leave the program at will, despite the material pressures to stay.
As for the plaintiffs required to stay in the program as a condition of parole, the majority ruled they were subject to a different set of rules as participation in the program was one of the consequences for their criminal convictions.
"As individuals subject to a criminal sentence, and therefore to the government’s legitimate authority to effectuate the objectives of criminal justice, these participants cannot expect to have the same freedom of choice with respect to their work and living conditions as individuals not subject to the legitimate penal objectives of the state," Ripple wrote.
U.S. Circuit Judge Candace Jackson-Akiwumi, a Joe Biden appointee and the only Black judge on the panel, issued a ten-page dissent.
The case came to the Seventh Circuit on appeal for a dismissal order, she wrote, so the appellate court's review should be limited only to whether the plaintiffs had sufficiently alleged their case to survive that dismissal, which she said they had.
Jackson-Akiwumi further argued that the majority opinion had unjustifiably raised the pleading bar for forced labor claims under the trafficking act, and unfairly dismissed the plaintiffs' claims.
"The complaint describes how the Salvation Army caused previously food-insecure, unhoused, and impoverished Plaintiffs to rely on the organization for food, clothing, and shelter. The Salvation Army allegedly induced that reliance by taking whatever possessions and benefits plaintiffs had before they entered the program," Jackson-Akiwumi wrote. "Then, once plaintiffs became dependent on the Salvation Army to meet their basic needs, the organization would deploy the threat of withdrawing those provisions to keep plaintiffs engaged in labor they did not want to perform."
The extent to which these actions were coercive, Jackson-Akiwumi said, was something a factfinder could have looked into. And regardless of the factual truth of the claims, she argued, they were still sufficiently presented to warrant further proceedings.
"In requiring ... plaintiffs to prove that they were effectively restrained from leaving, the majority opinion reads the statute far more narrowly than our sister circuits have. But even under that strained reading, plaintiffs in this case should move forward because, as I explained earlier, they did allege that the Salvation Army prevented them from leaving," she wrote.
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