Court Opinion

ID: 9721205
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-26 08:51:26.928404+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:24:24.013615
License: Public Domain

CADY, Justice
(dissenting).
I respectfully dissent from that portion of the holding of the majority declaring a prison inmate is an employee of the State of Iowa entitled to seek relief under the Iowa Civil Rights Act from discriminatory practices while performing a regularly as*22signed prison job when various factors used to distinguish employees from independent contractors militates in favor of a finding that the inmate is an employee. This holding is contrary to the position of the Iowa Civil Rights Commission, as well as the interpretation of related federal laws by the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission, the Department of Labor, and nearly every court in the nation that has addressed the application of the Fair Labor Standards Act to prisoners who work in state prison industries. See McCaslin v. Cornhusker State Indus., 952 F.Supp. 652, 656-58 (D.Neb.1996) (noting that a majority of jurisdictions, along with the EEOC and Department of Labor, do not consider prisoners employees). Moreover, the majority’s holding is unfaithful to the principles of statutory interpretation we are obligated to apply when we declare the statutory intent of our legislature. See Teamsters Local Union No. 421 v. City of Dubuque, 706 N.W.2d 709, 713 (Iowa 2005) (recognizing we apply the rules of statutory construction to attain our goal of interpreting statutes according to the intent of the legislature). I would affirm the decision of the district court and conclude the legislature did not intend for prison inmates who, like Renda, perform regular prison labor to be included within the provisions of Iowa’s civil rights act relating to unfair or discriminatory practices in the workplace.
At the outset, I acknowledge discrimination exists in prisons as it still does in society in general. Moreover, a prison setting in no way excuses the presence of discrimination. Yet, the question is not whether the overarching policies behind the enactment of Iowa’s civil rights act pertaining to employment discrimination apply to prisons, but whether the legislature intended for the provisions to apply to prisoners engaged in regularly assigned labor. The majority has failed to properly analyze this question and, accordingly, has answered it incorrectly.
The majority first rejects the Iowa Civil Rights Commission’s interpretation by finding the legislature did not give the commission the power to interpret the meaning of an “employee” under the act. Yet, this conclusion simply aligns the standard of judicial review on appeal. The majority may not be required to give the commission’s interpretation- deference, but courts may nevertheless utilize all agency interpretations as a helpful tool in conducting independent analysis. See PanDa Eng’g v. Eng’g & Land Surveying Examining Bd., 621 N.W.2d 196, 198 (Iowa 2001) (recognizing we give weight to an agency’s statutory interpretation “in areas of the agency’s expertise”). The majority proceeded to substitute its judgment for that of the commission without pausing to give any thought to the commission’s interpretation.
More importantly, the majority builds its decision on two false premises that have no foundation in law or logic. These false premises are responsible for the majority’s faulty conclusion. The majority begins its analysis with the premise that the word “employee” is a broad term and, therefore, must include prison inmates unless there is a “compelling reason” to the contrary. This homespun principle has no support in the law and is totally contrary to our long-standing rule of statutory interpretation that, when a statute does not provide a helpful definition of a disputed term, courts should not imply a meaning that is broader than the common-law definition. See Nationwide Mut. Ins. Co. v. Darden, 503 U.S. 318, 322-23, 112 S.Ct. 1344, 1348, 117 L.Ed.2d 581, 588-89 (1992) (applying test to the term “employee”); see also Harvey v. Care Initiatives, Inc., 634 N.W.2d 681, 685 (Iowa 2001) (“[W]e construe statutory language consistent *23with our case law and the common law.... Words that have a well-defined meaning in the common law have the same meaning in statutes dealing with similar subject matter.” (Citations omitted.)). Furthermore, this approach reveals our legislature did not intend to include prison inmates as employees under Iowa Code chapter 216. See Frederick v. Men’s Reformatory, 203 N.W.2d 797, 798 (Iowa 1973) (holding inmates are not “employees” under the workers’ compensation statute). The majority totally ignores the common-law context and, from that point, sets course on its misguided path of a “compelling reason” to exclude.
The majority next declares, again, without any authority, that the absence of a statutory exception for prison inmates in chapter 216 signals that the legislature intended to include prison inmates within the parameters of chapter 216. This premise totally misses the point of our applicable rules of interpretation and sinks an already distressed analysis.
Under our principles of statutory interpretation, an exception to a statute created by the legislature normally indicates the matter excepted would have been included in the statute absent the exception. River Bend Farms, Inc. v. M & P Mo. River Levee Dist., 324 N.W.2d 460, 462 (Iowa 1982); see also 2A Norman J. Singer & J.D. Shambie Singer, Statutes and Statutory Construction § 47:11, at 333 (7th ed. 2007) (stating the general rule that “statutory exceptions exist only to exempt something which would otherwise be covered”). However, the absence of an exception for a particular matter in a statute, as in this case, does not present the same inference. The absence of an exception may simply signal that the legislature never considered the matter to be covered under the statute in.the first place. For example, in 1973, we held the workers’ compensation statute applicable to employees in this state did not include prison inmates working in prison industries, even though they were not specifically excluded from the statute. Frederick, 203 N.W.2d at 798. We found the relationship between the state and its prisoners were, in fact, “the antithesis of voluntary employment,” and inmates were not included in the statute because they were not employees. Id. Subsequently, the legislature amended the workers’ compensation statute to provide for limited workers’ compensation cover7 age for inmates engaged in special work such as services rendered under a chapter 28E agreement, services rendered for private industry maintained in the prison or under section 904.809, and certain other special work assignments and projects. See generally Iowa Code § 85.59 (2009) (providing benefits for certain specified inmates). Thus, the special statutory inclusion of inmates performing certain jobs confirmed our legislature’s intent not to generally include inmates in the statute.
Under our accepted rules of interpretation, we must accept that our legislature does not include inmates in matters relating to employment without special rules for inclusion. The approach of the majority is contrary to the weight of our rules of interpretation and the clear intent of our legislature.
Lastly, the majority places a great amount of emphasis on the Baker case. Baker v. McNeil Island Corr. Ctr., 859 F.2d 124 (9th Cir.1988). The holding is a minority position, and the case can be distinguished from this case because it dealt with a voluntary work assignment.
Notwithstanding, the multifactor test ultimately adopted by the majority is misplaced as a means to decide if inmates performing mandated labor within the walls of a prison for no wage are employees. See Iowa Code § 904.701 (indicating all inmates are required to perform, labor *24and providing rules for paying inmates “gratuitous allowances” for services rendered to prison). The test focuses primarily on control, which is the very point of incarceration. Incarceration provides the ultimate control. In fact, incarceration provides so much control that an inmate performing regular work, like Renda, could never become an employee. See Vanskike v. Peters, 974 F.2d 806, 810 (7th Cir.1992) (“In those cases the question is essentially whether there is enough control over the individual to classify him as an employee. But here ... there is obviously enough control over the prisoner; the problematic point is that there is too much control to classify the relationship as one of employment.”). As we recognized in Frederick, an inmate is the antithesis of a voluntary employee. 203 N.W.2d at 798.
The majority has analyzed the issue in this case without following our rules of interpretation and has reached a conclusion that is clearly contrary to the intent of our legislature. For that reason, I respectfully dissent. Our role of interpreting statutes is too important to take the approach followed by the majority.