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IN THE UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT FOR THE

NORTHERN DISTRICT OF FLORIDA

TALLAHASSEE DIVISION

ROBERT L. ROWLAND,

Plaintiff,

v. CASE NO. 4:10-cv-64-RH-GRJ

DONNIE CONYERS, et al.,

Defendants.

_____________________________/

ORDER

This matter is before the Court on Plaintiff’s pro se First Amended Complaint.

(Doc. 16.) Plaintiff, a prisoner in the custody of the Florida Department of Corrections

(“FDOC”), filed his First Amended Complaint on the Court’s civil rights complaint form

for prisoner litigants for actions arising under 42 U.S.C. § 1983. From a review of the

First Amended Complaint, it is evident the facts as presented fail to state a claim upon

which relief can be granted with respect to most of the claims in the First Amended

Complaint. Plaintiff will be given an additional opportunity to amend his First Amended

Complaint to include only his deliberate indifference claim, the only claim in the First

Amended Complaint, which may present a claim upon which relief may be granted.

I. BACKGROUND AND FACTS

Plaintiff attempts to bring claims under 42 U.S.C. § 1983 against Defendants

former Sheriff Harrell W. Revell and Sheriff Donnie Conyers of the Liberty County

Sheriff’s Office, Investigators Ed King of the Florida Department of Law Enforcement

(“FDLE”) and Jennifer Skipper of the FDOC, and Sandy Vanlandingham and the State

Attorney for the Second Judicial Circuit in Gadsden County, Florida. Plaintiff claims the

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Defendants violated his Eighth Amendment right to be free from cruel and unusual

punishment, his Fourteenth Amendment right to due process, and his First Amendment

rights to free speech and access to the courts. Plaintiff also alleges that Defendants

breached an oral contract and acted in a negligent manner in the way in which

Defendants dealt with Plaintiff.

The material facts alleged in the First Amended Complaint disclose the following

details. In February 2005 Plaintiff was sentenced to ten years’ incarceration in a

criminal proceeding in Leon County. At the conclusion of the Leon County criminal

proceedings – and before Plaintiff was transferred to the custody of the FDOC to begin

serving his sentence on the Leon County charges – Plaintiff was transferred to the

Liberty County Jail to face Liberty County charges unrelated to the Leon County

proceedings.

In July 2005, while Plaintiff was in the Liberty County Jail awaiting resolution of

the Liberty County charges, then-Liberty County Sheriff Harrell W. Revell approached

Plaintiff to perform remodeling work on a home owned by Revell’s friend, Sandy

Vanlandingham. Vanlandingham apparently was employed as an investigator for the

State Attorney’s Office for the Second Judicial Circuit in Gadsden County, Florida, the

prosecuting authority on the Liberty County charges. Vanlandingham worked with Rick

Combs, the Assistant State Attorney handling Plaintiff’s case in the Liberty County

charges. According to Plaintiff, Sheriff Revell told Plaintiff if he performed the work on

Vanlandingham’s house, Plaintiff could avoid serving time in prison on the Liberty

County charges, serve his sentence on the Leon County charges in the Liberty County

Jail, and could earn money to support Plaintiff’s children. Plaintiff alleges he was under

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duress to perform the requested work on Vanlandingham’s home because

Vanlandingham was assisting Combs in prosecuting the Liberty County charges then

pending against Plaintiff.

Plaintiff began work on Vanlandingham’s home in July 2005 and was

unsupervised in his work. While Plaintiff was performing work on Vanlandingham’s

home, he severely injured his right thumb, almost amputating the thumb, while

operating a table saw. Plaintiff alleges he did not receive any medical care for his 

injury and that he was denied medical care and treatment for his injured thumb by the

Liberty County Sheriff.

Plaintiff also alleges Vanlandingham refused to pay Plaintiff for the work as

agreed and Plaintiff consequently walked off the job in protest at Vanlandingham’s

failure to pay him pursuant to their oral contract.

Plaintiff was later placed in FDOC custody after the Liberty County charges

against him were resolved. He complained to the FDOC about having been forced to

work on Vanlandingham’s home and the FDOC and FDLE both investigated Plaintiff’s

allegations. Defendant Jennifer Skipper of the FDOC and Defendant Ed King of the

FDLE interviewed Plaintiff in November 2008 as part of the investigation of Plaintiff’s

allegations. Plaintiff alleges Skipper and King confiscated his photographs and letters

in the course of conducting their investigation. Plaintiff also states both investigators

harassed a friend of Plaintiff’s who was in possession of several documents Plaintiff

had sent to her regarding Plaintiff’s performance of work at Vanlandingham’s home.

Plaintiff claims he was deprived of the opportunity to earn gain time as a result of

the Defendants’ actions. He also claims he was forced to engage in slave labor for

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private interests while he was housed at the Liberty County Jail. He further alleges the

Defendants were deliberately indifferent to a serious medical need in connection with

Plaintiff’s thumb injury. Plaintiff seeks a declaratory judgment that the Defendants’ acts

violated his rights as well as compensatory and punitive damages. 

II. STANDARD OF REVIEW

The Court must screen Plaintiff’s Complaint pursuant to 28 U.S.C. § 1915A. 

Section 1915A mandates the Court must independently review all cases brought by

prisoners against government entities or employees. The Court is further directed by

section 1915A to “identify cognizable claims or dismiss the complaint, or any portion of

the complaint, if the complaint ... is frivolous, malicious, or fails to state a claim upon

which relief may be granted; or ... seeks monetary relief from a defendant who is

immune from such relief.” 28 U.S.C. § 1915A.

Plaintiff filed his Complaint on the civil rights complaint form to be used by

prisoners in actions under 42 U.S.C. § 1983. A successful section 1983 action requires

a plaintiff to show he was deprived of a federal right by a person acting “under color of

state law.” Harvey v. Harvey, 949 F.2d 1127, 1130 (11 Cir. 1992)(citing Flagg

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Brothers, Inc. v. Brooks, 436 U.S. 149, 155-56 (1978)). A person acts under color of

state law when he acts with authority possessed by virtue of his employment with the

state. Edwards v. Wallace Community College, 49 F.3d 1517, 1522 (11 Cir. th

1995)(citing West v. Atkins, 487 U.S. 42, 48-50 (1988)). “The dispositive issue is

whether the official was acting pursuant to the power he/she possessed by state

authority or acting only as a private individual.” Id. at 1523 (citing Monroe v. Pape, 365

U.S. 167, 183-84 (1961)(overruled on other grounds by Monell v. Department of Social

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Servs., 436 U.S. 658 (1978))). 

III. DISCUSSION

Plaintiff’s First Amended Complaint purports to bring a host of federal

constitutional and state law claims against a number of different Defendants. To

provide guidance to Plaintiff in amending his complaint, the Court will review these

claims below.

A. Improper Defendants

To establish liability under 42 U.S.C. § 1983, Plaintiff must show an affirmative

causal connection between each Defendant’s conduct and the constitutional

deprivation. Tittle v. Jefferson County Comm’n, 10 F.3d 1535, 1541 n.1 (11 Cir. th

1994). Plaintiff has not included any factual details with respect to the alleged violation

of his federal constitutional rights by Liberty County Sheriff Donnie Conyers. Simply

because Sheriff Conyers is the Liberty County Sheriff is legally insufficient to allege a

claim against him for the action of others. Under section 1983 liability cannot be based

upon respondent superior. Accordingly, Plaintiff should delete Donnie Conyers as a

Defendant when he amends his First Amended Complaint.

Plaintiff also alleges Defendants Ed King and Jennifer Skipper investigated his

claims on behalf of the FDLE and FDOC, respectively. Other than alleging they

investigated his claim Plaintiff has failed to allege any link between their actions and the

alleged constitutional violations. Simply because King and Skipper did not conduct the

investigation in the manner and with results Plaintiff wanted is insufficient to state a

constitutional violation. Plaintiff should thus delete King and Skipper as Defendants

from his Second Amended Complaint unless he can make specific factual allegations

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with respect to constitutional deprivations committed by either Skipper or King.

B. Plaintiff’s Involuntary Servitude Claim

Plaintiff claims he was under duress to perform work on Defendant Sandy

Vanlandingham’s home because Vanlandingham was working as an investigator for the

state authority prosecuting him on the Liberty County charges. He seeks to bring an

involuntary servitude claim against Vanlandingham, Revell and the State Attorney’s

Office for the Second Judicial Circuit. This claim fails to state a cause of action for

involuntary servitude under the Eighth, Thirteenth or Fourteenth Amendments.

To the extent Plaintiff attempts to frame his involuntary servitude claim as a due

process violation under the Fourteenth Amendment Plaintiff cannot state a claim. The

Due Process Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment provides in relevant part that no

state “shall ... deprive any person of life, liberty, or property, without due process of

law.” U.S. Const. amend XIV, § 1. Due process does not protect prisoners from every

negative impact their confinement may have on them. Meachum v. Fano, 427 U.S.

215, 222 (1976). Although prisoners retain due process and a number of other

constitutional rights, their liberty and property interests are subject to certain restrictions

by virtue of their imprisonment. Id. at 225. Thus, prisoners are not entitled to due

process procedures (notice and hearing) whenever their liberty is affected, but only

when this restraint “imposes atypical and significant hardship on the inmate in relation

to the ordinary incidents of prison life.” Sandin v. Conner, 515 U.S. 472, 484 (1995). 

This Court has previously concluded the failure to compensate a prisoner for his work is

not a due process violation. See Daniels v. Crosby, 444 F.Supp. 2d 1220, 1226 n.4

(N.D. Fla. 2006). Plaintiff fails to allege how his liberty was deprived as a result of

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performing the work on Vanlandingham’s house nor has he shown how the failure to

receive wages for his work as a prisoner raises a due process consideration. 

Plaintiff also has failed to state a claim for involuntary servitude under either the

Eighth or Thirteenth Amendments. Courts who have addressed the propriety of an

involuntary servitude claim by a prisoner for forced performance of services – similar to

the claim advanced by Plaintiff in this case – have done so under either the Eighth

Amendment or under the Thirteenth Amendment. 

For example, in Villarreal v. Woodham, 113 F.3d 202, 204 (11 Cir. 1997) the

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Eleventh Circuit addressed the issue of forced performance of services in a case in

which a sheriff ordered a pretrial detainee to perform translation services for other

inmates, medical and court personnel, purportedly promised the detainee

compensation for the services, and then failed to compensate the pretrial detainee. 

The Eleventh Circuit there in analyzing the issue under the Eighth Amendment upheld

the dismissal of the detainee’s involuntary servitude claim, holding the forced

performance of services by a detainee, which did not pose a risk to the detainee’s

health or safety, was not a violation of the Eighth Amendment’s prohibition of cruel and

unusual punishment. Id. at 207. 1

The Fifth Circuit reached a similar conclusion in two forced labor cases involving

a prisoner but analyzed the issue under the Thirteenth Amendment. See, e.g., Watson

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Also at issue in that case was whether the inmates must be paid a minimum wage as required

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by federal law. The court held that pretrial detainees are not employees covered by the Fair Labor

Standards Act (“FLSA”) and, therefore, are not entitled to minimum wage. Villarreal v. W oodham, 113

F.3d 202, 207-08 (11 Cir. 1997).

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The Thirteenth Amendment provides in pertinent part that “[n]either slavery nor involuntary

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servitude, except as punishment for crime whereof the party shall have been duly convicted, shall exist

within the United States or any place subject to their jurisdiction.” U.S. Const. amend XIII.

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v. Graves, 909 F.2d 1549, 1552-55 (5 Cir. 1990)(Louisiana Sheriff not liable under th

section 1983 for violation of the Thirteenth Amendment where sheriff arranged for

prisoners to work for considerably less than minimum wage at Sheriff’s family’s

construction company as part of a “work release program,” because prisoner has a

choice whether to work); Murray v. Mississippi Dep't of Corrections, 911 F.2d 1167,

1167-68 (5th Cir.1990)(Although Mississippi law likely prevented an inmate from 3

working on private property, the Fifth Circuit “decline[d] to create a private-property

exception ... that an inmate may be compelled to work without pay,” finding “no basis

from which to conclude that working an inmate on private property is any more violative

of constitutional or civil rights than working inmates on public property.”). 

Thus, because by the very nature of their restriction as prisoners, prisoners

cannot bring a claim for violation of the Thirteenth Amendment simply because they are

forced to do work - either public or private – without compensation. And in the absence

of an allegation that the forced work presents a risk to the health or safety of the

prisoner, a prisoner cannot state a claim for violation of the Eighth Amendment where

the prisoner is forced to perform work without compensation. Accordingly, Plaintiff has

failed to state a cause of action upon which relief may be granted for involuntary

servitude under either the Eighth or the Thirteenth Amendments.

C. Plaintiff’s Deliberate Indifference Claim

Plaintiff’s First Amended Complaint can also be construed as raising a claim

under the Eighth Amendment or under the Fourteenth Amendment for deliberate

Florida law contains a similar prohibition against the leasing of inmates to work for any private

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interests. FLORIDA STAT. § 951.10.

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indifference against the Liberty County Sheriff for a lack of medical treatment Plaintiff

received after he severely injured his right thumb while operating a table saw while

performing work on Vanlandingham’s home. Plaintiff alleges “the Liberty County

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Sheriff’s Dept. failed to secure a medical treatment plan and care for Plaintiff creating a

deliberate indifference to medical needs as Plaintiff was under the care, custody, and

control of their agent acting under color of state law.” (Doc. 16 at 6-A.) “To prevail on a

claim for deliberate indifference to serious medical needs, Plaintiffs must show: (1) a

serious medical need; (2) the defendants' deliberate indifference to that need; and (3)

causation between that indifference and the plaintiff's injury.” Mann v. Taser Int’l., Inc.,

588 F.3d 1291, 1206-06 (11 Cir. 2009). Plaintiff has alleged the Liberty County Sheriff

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failed to provide him any treatment in connection with his right thumb injury, which is

sufficient to state a claim for deliberate indifference and, accordingly, Plaintiff will be

allowed to proceed on his deliberate indifference claim.

D. Plaintiff’s Claims for First Amendment Access to Court and Free Speech 

In the First Amended Complaint, Plaintiff also alleges the Defendants violated his

First Amendment rights to access the courts and freedom of speech. Plaintiff, however,

has failed to include any factual allegations with respect to his right to complain to

prison officials about his conditions of confinement. Moreover, none of the events

The Eighth Amendment does not apply to pre-trial detainees, but the failure to provide medical

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treatment or the provision of inadequate medical treatment to a pre-trial detainee is instead governed by

the Due Process Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment. Craig v. Floyd County, 643 F.3d 1306, 1311 (11

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Cir. 2011). It is unclear from the factual allegations in the First Amended Complaint whether Plaintiff was

a pre-trial detainee awaiting the resolution of the Liberty County charges or whether he was instead

serving his sentence on the Leon County charges in the Liberty County Jail at the time he severed his right

thumb. This does not matter, however, because “[i]n regard to providing pretrial detainees with such basic

necessities as ... medical care, the minimum standard allowed by the due process clause is the same as

that allowed by the eighth amendment for convicted persons.” Hamm v. Dekalb County, 774 F.2d 1567,

1574 (11 Cir. 1985).

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Plaintiff describes has any relationship to conduct by a particular defendant, which

suggests Plaintiff’s ability to file a lawsuit or prepare legal papers was impeded. 

Accordingly, Plaintiff has failed to state any cognizable claim for violation of the First

Amendment.

E. Plaintiff’s State Law Claims

1. Loss of Gain Time

Plaintiff also claims that during the time in he was in the Liberty County Jail

awaiting resolution of the Liberty County charge he lost gain time on his state conviction

he should have earned. Plaintiff’s allegation does not raise a claim that he lost gain time

he already had earned but rather that he lost the opportunity to earn gain time. Further,

because there is no allegation that the DOC even determined that Plaintiff was not

entitled to gain time there is no cognizable claim raised in the First Amended Complaint.

Thus, because gain time is a state created right – the calculation of which is governed

solely by Florida state law – Plaintiff has not, and cannot, allege he was deprived of

any federal right and, accordingly, Plaintiff has failed to allege a cause of action under

section 1983 for loss of gain time. 

2. Breach of Contract and Negligence

Plaintiff also attempts to bring a state law claims for negligence against the

Liberty County Sheriff and a breach of contract claim against Vanlandingham. Plaintiff

cannot bring state law claims against a defendant in federal court under Section 1983

absent a federal constitutional violation by the defendant. Paul v. Davis, 424 U.S. 693,

710 (1976)(noting that an allegation of defamation alone by a state official is insufficient

to bring a claim under Section 1983). Further, because there is no diversity of

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citizenship between the Plaintiff and all of the Defendants the Court does not have

subject matter jurisdiction over these claims independent of section 1983. 

IV. CONCLUSION

In light of Plaintiff’s pro se status, the Court will permit Plaintiff an opportunity to

amend his First Amended Complaint to name the proper Defendants and proceed only

with his claim for deliberate indifference to his medical needs, the only claim in the First

Amended Complaint which arguably states a claim upon which relief may be granted. 

To amend his First Amended Complaint, Plaintiff should completely fill out a new civil

rights complaint form, marking it “Second Amended Complaint.” An amended

complaint completely replaces all previous complaints and all earlier complaints are

disregarded. N.D. Fla. Loc. R. 15.1. Plaintiff should file his Second Amended

Complaint with the Clerk of the Court and keep one identical copy for himself. 

Accordingly, it is hereby ORDERED:

1. The Clerk is directed to send the Plaintiff a blank civil rights complaint form 

for prisoner litigants for actions arising under 42 U.S.C. § 1983, which Plaintiff shall

complete in full and file on or before October 21, 2011.

2. Failure to comply with this Order in the allotted time will result in a

recommendation to the district judge that this cause be dismissed. 

DONE AND ORDERED this 26 day of September, 2011. 

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s/ Gary R. Jones 

GARY R. JONES

United States Magistrate Judge

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