Baltimore County Seeks Redo of Incarcerated Worker Wage Appeal

Baltimore County urged the full Fourth Circuit to review a wage-and-hour ruling made by a three-judge panel that gave incarcerated workers who earned $20 per day sorting recycling a new shot at their pay claims.

The panel’s decision “drastically extends the reach” of the Fair Labor Standards Act, and this “expansive interpretation” could “create an entirely new class of inmate ‘employees’” with repercussions far beyond the case itself, the county told the US Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit on Wednesday.

There’s “no categorical rule” that the FLSA can’t cover incarcerated workers “when they work outside their detention facility’s ...