Prison Labor Wage Claims Under the Thirteenth Amendment Are Foreclosed—and May Be Dismissed as Frivolous

1. Introduction

In Adams v. Wyoming Department of Corrections (10th Cir. Jan. 13, 2026), a Wyoming state prisoner, Jett Garriott Adams, brought a pro se civil-rights action under 42 U.S.C. § 1983 against the Wyoming Department of Corrections and officials in their official capacities. Adams alleged that the Wyoming Department of Corrections Medium Correctional Institution violated the Thirteenth Amendment by paying him approximately $0.40 per hour for work as a nighttime janitor—less than minimum wage—and by requiring him to accept other prison work at the same inmate pay scale.

The key issue on appeal was whether a prisoner can state a Thirteenth Amendment claim based on being required to work (or work for low wages) during incarceration, and whether the appeal was subject to dismissal as frivolous under the Prison Litigation Reform Act (PLRA).

2. Summary of the Opinion

The Tenth Circuit dismissed Adams’s appeal under 28 U.S.C. § 1915(e)(2)(B)(ii), concluding that the Thirteenth Amendment’s text and settled precedent foreclose claims that prison work for below-minimum wages constitutes unconstitutional “slavery” or “involuntary servitude.” The court held the appeal “wholly without merit” and lacking any arguable basis in law or fact.

The court also denied Adams’s motion to proceed in forma pauperis (IFP) because he failed to present a reasoned, nonfrivolous argument on law and facts. Finally, the court counted the dismissal as Adams’s second “strike” under 28 U.S.C. § 1915(g) and reminded him that dismissal does not relieve his obligation to pay the appellate filing fee in full.

3. Analysis

A. Precedents Cited

The panel anchored its disposition in a long line of authority holding that the Thirteenth Amendment’s prohibition on involuntary servitude does not apply to prison labor imposed as part of a sentence after lawful conviction.

• Text and core rule
  The court began with the constitutional text: the Thirteenth Amendment prohibits slavery and involuntary servitude, “except as a punishment for crime whereof the party shall have been duly convicted” (U.S. Const. amend. XIII, § 1). That exception—rather than any wage floor—does the doctrinal work in prison-labor cases.
• Foundational prison-labor cases: “no issue of peonage or involuntary servitude”
  The court quoted Omasta v. Wainwright, 696 F.2d 1304, 1305 (11th Cir. 1983), which in turn quoted Draper v. Rhay, 315 F.2d 193, 197 (9th Cir. 1963): where a person is “duly tried, convicted, sentenced and imprisoned,” no Thirteenth Amendment involuntary-servitude issue arises from compulsory prison work.
• Tenth Circuit authority
  The court relied on Ruark v. Solano, 928 F.2d 947, 949–50 (10th Cir. 1991) (citing Omasta v. Wainwright), identifying it as settled circuit law that the Thirteenth Amendment does not bar compelled labor incident to incarceration. It noted that Ruark v. Solano was “overruled on other grounds by, Lewis v. Casey, 518 U.S. 343 (1996),” which matters because Lewis did not disturb the Thirteenth Amendment point; it addressed unrelated doctrine (standing/injury in access-to-courts litigation).
• Minimum-wage framing rejected across circuits
  The panel cited multiple decisions rejecting Thirteenth Amendment claims based on low or no wages for prison jobs:
  • Aceves v. Jeffers, 196 F. App’x 637, 639 (10th Cir. 2006) (unpublished)
  • Dmytryszyn v. Hickenlooper, 527 F. App’x 757, 760 (10th Cir. 2013) (unpublished)
  • Murray v. Miss. Dep’t of Corr., 911 F.2d 1167, 1167–68 (5th Cir. 1990)
  • Omasta v. Wainwright, 696 F.2d at 1305
  Collectively, these cases treat prison labor as a component of incarceration that falls squarely within the Amendment’s “punishment for crime” exception, regardless of the wage paid.
• The court’s use of its own unpublished decisions
  Although Dmytryszyn v. Hickenlooper is unpublished, the panel treated it as persuasive and, more importantly, as consistent with published cross-circuit authority and the constitutional text. The panel characterized Adams’s claim as materially identical to Dmytryszyn, where the plaintiff alleged below-minimum-wage pay for janitorial work.
• Standards for “frivolous” litigation and PLRA screening
  The panel invoked:
  • Braley v. Campbell, 832 F.2d 1504, 1510 (10th Cir. 1987) (defining frivolous appeals as those where the result is obvious or arguments wholly without merit), quoting Taylor v. Sentry Life Ins. Co., 729 F.2d 652, 656 (9th Cir. 1984)
  • Thomas v. Muskogee Sheriff’s Dept., 160 F. App’x 714, 715 (10th Cir. 2005) (unpublished), quoting Thompson v. Gibson, 289 F.3d 1218, 1222 (10th Cir. 2002) (frivolous where lacking arguable basis in law or fact)
  • Neitzke v. Williams, 490 U.S. 319, 325 (1989) (frivolousness standard)
  These cases supply the doctrinal gateway for summary termination under § 1915.
• IFP standard and “reasoned, nonfrivolous argument” requirement
  For IFP, the court relied on DeBardeleben v. Quinlan, 937 F.2d 502, 505 (10th Cir. 1991), citing Coppedge v. United States, 369 U.S. 438 (1962), and Ragan v. Cox, 305 F.2d 58 (10th Cir. 1962). This line ties fee waivers to the presence of an arguable legal theory.
• PLRA “strikes” doctrine
  The panel counted the dismissal as a second strike and cited Jennings v. Natrona Cnty. Det. Ctr. Med. Facility, 175 F.3d 775, 780 (10th Cir. 1999) (overruled in part on other grounds by, Coleman v. Tollefson, 575 U.S. 532 (2015)). Again, Coleman adjusts strike mechanics but does not undermine the basic strike consequence.
• Filing fee obligation after dismissal
  The reminder that the filing fee remains due relied on Kinnell v. Graves, 265 F.3d 1125, 1129 (10th Cir. 2001).
• Other citations shaping the boundaries of review
  The court declined to address undeveloped Fourteenth Amendment assertions, citing Leathers v. Leathers, 856 F.3d 729, 753 (10th Cir. 2017), which cited Phillips v. Calhoun, 956 F.2d 949, 953 (10th Cir. 1992). It also noted (in a footnote) Griffin v. Hickenlooper, 549 F. App’x 823, 827 (10th Cir. 2013) (unpublished), quoting Serra v. Lappin, 600 F.3d 1191, 1196 (9th Cir. 2010), for the proposition that low prison pay does not itself create a due-process violation.
• Method of constitutional interpretation
  The panel cited United States v. Rahimi, 602 U.S. 680, 715 (2024) (Kavanaugh, J., concurring), for the interpretive principle that constitutional analysis begins with the text. It used this to rebut Adams’s argument that original-era “use” should override the Amendment’s express “punishment for crime” exception.

B. Legal Reasoning

The court’s reasoning proceeds in three linked steps.

1. Step 1: The Thirteenth Amendment contains a categorical exception for duly convicted prisoners.
   The panel treated the constitutional exception—“except as a punishment for crime whereof the party shall have been duly convicted”—as decisive. The controlling inquiry is whether the labor is incident to a lawful conviction and sentence, not whether the labor resembles market employment or meets wage-and-hour standards.
2. Step 2: Compelled prison work, even for low or zero pay, is treated as a component of incarceration.
   By citing Dmytryszyn v. Hickenlooper (“the labor he complains of is one component of his sentence of incarceration”), the court rejected attempts to recharacterize prison jobs as free-world employment subject to minimum wage, or as a separate “punishment” requiring independent justification. In the panel’s view, once the plaintiff is “duly convicted,” prison labor falls within the exception.
3. Step 3: The plaintiff’s distinguishing arguments did not create an arguable legal basis, rendering the appeal frivolous.
   Adams argued the exception applies only when labor itself is the punishment, not when imprisonment is the punishment. He also cited an operating procedure stating that inmates are sent to prison “as punishment not for punishment,” contending this reframes prison labor as unconstitutional “continual punishment.” The court rejected this on two grounds:
   • The operating procedure is an internal governance statement directed to staff conduct; it does not alter the constitutional character of incarceration or the sentence imposed.
   • Even if the policy language were read broadly, settled precedent treats prison labor during incarceration as encompassed by the “punishment for crime” exception.

C. Impact

Although designated nonprecedential, the decision reinforces (and applies) a deeply settled rule: Thirteenth Amendment challenges to prison labor based solely on low wages are not legally viable in the Tenth Circuit and beyond. The practical effects are significant:

• Early termination at screening: The opinion validates dismissal at the § 1915A screening stage for failure to state a claim, and supports characterizing such claims as frivolous where the legal bar is clear.
• PLRA leverage (IFP denial and strikes): By denying IFP and imposing a strike under § 1915(g), the decision exemplifies how wage-based Thirteenth Amendment suits can quickly restrict a prisoner’s future access to IFP status if repeated.
• Clarifies attempted “policy-language” workarounds: The court’s treatment of the “as punishment not for punishment” policy language signals that internal prison manuals are unlikely to reclassify constitutionally permitted incarceration incidents into Thirteenth Amendment violations.
• Directs litigants toward different legal frameworks (if any): The reasoning implicitly indicates that objections to prison compensation are legislative/policy matters or potentially statutory wage-and-hour questions (often separately foreclosed), rather than Thirteenth Amendment claims—absent extraordinary facts (e.g., labor outside lawful custody or not incident to conviction).

4. Complex Concepts Simplified

• Thirteenth Amendment “punishment for crime” exception: The Amendment bans involuntary servitude, but expressly permits it “as a punishment for crime” after a lawful conviction. Courts read this to allow compelled labor during incarceration.
• Section 1983: A federal statute allowing lawsuits against state actors for violating federal rights. It does not create rights itself; a plaintiff must identify an actual constitutional or federal-law violation.
• PLRA screening (28 U.S.C. § 1915A): Courts must review prisoner complaints early and dismiss those that are frivolous, malicious, or fail to state a claim.
• Frivolousness (28 U.S.C. § 1915(e)(2)): A case (or appeal) is frivolous if it lacks any arguable basis in law or fact. When precedent and text clearly foreclose a theory, courts may deem it frivolous.
• In forma pauperis (IFP): Permission to proceed without prepaying filing fees. Under Tenth Circuit standards, it requires not only financial need but also a reasoned, nonfrivolous appellate argument.
• “Strikes” under 28 U.S.C. § 1915(g): After three qualifying dismissals (“strikes”), a prisoner generally cannot proceed IFP in future civil actions unless in imminent danger of serious physical injury.

5. Conclusion

Adams v. Wyoming Department of Corrections is a straightforward but consequential application of settled constitutional doctrine and the PLRA. The Tenth Circuit reaffirmed that the Thirteenth Amendment’s express exception for punishment after lawful conviction forecloses claims that prison work paid below minimum wage constitutes slavery or involuntary servitude. The court further underscored the procedural consequences of advancing such foreclosed theories: dismissal as frivolous, denial of IFP status, assessment of a PLRA strike, and continued obligation to pay filing fees.