William Castle v. Eurofresh, Inc.

Opinion by Judge MILAN D. SMITH, JR.; Concurrence by Judge BERZON.

OPINION

William Castle, formerly an Arizona state prisoner, 1 appeals the district court’s entry of judgment in favor of defendants Eurofresh Inc., the State of Arizona (the State), the Arizona Department of Corrections (ADC), and certain officials of the ADC. 2 Castle alleges that the defendants violated the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA), 42 U.S.C. §§ 12131-12134 , and the Rehabilitation Act of 1973 (RA), 29 U.S.C. § 794 , by failing to reasonably accommodate his disability. We conclude that Castle’s claims against Eurofresh were properly dismissed. Castle was not Eurofresh’s “employee” under Title I of the ADA, and Eurofresh does not receive federal financial assistance, as it must in order to subject it to the requirements of the RA. However, we reverse the judgment in favor of the State Defendants, because those defendants may be held liable for acts of disability discrimination committed by one of their contractors. We therefore remand Castle’s claims against the State Defendants for further proceedings required by this opinion.

BACKGROUND

Castle was convicted of theft and perpetuating a scheme or…

concurring:

I concur in Part II and Part III of the majority opinion, and also, reluctantly, in Part I.

Part I holds Castle not an employee under Title I of the Americans with Disabilities Act (“ADA”). 42 U.S.C. §§ 12111 (4), 12112(a). The sweep of Hale v. Arizona, 993 F.2d 1387 (9th Cir.1993), and Coupar v. Department of Labor, 105 F.3d 1263 (9th Cir.1997), compels that conclusion. But the notion that prisoners who work for covered employers can never be “employees” for purposes of federal employee-protective statutes undermines those statutes as applied to employees generally and misconstrues the reach of the “employee” designation.

Castle labored for a private employer, off prison grounds, under compulsion of a sentence requiring work. Hale , by contrast, concerned prison labor that shared only the latter two of these three characteristics, and so did not expressly decide the employee status of prisoners working on behalf of private employers. Hale, 993 F.2d at 1390 . That distinction, I would like to think, matters: A profit-seeking firm that hires convicts at its own worksite should not be shielded from the costs of compliance with the ADA. Those costs can be substantial,…

FOR PUBLICATION

UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS

FOR THE NINTH CIRCUIT

WILLIAM W. CASTLE, No. 11-17947 Plaintiff-Appellant, D.C. No. v. 3:09-cv-08114-

JWS

EUROFRESH, INC., AKA Eurofresh Farms; ARIZONA DEPARTMENT OF CORRECTIONS, an agency of the OPINION State of Arizona; DORA B. SCHRIRO, Warden, former Director, Arizona Department of Corrections; CHARLES L. RYAN, Director, Arizona Department of Corrections;

STATE OF ARIZONA,

Defendants-Appellees.

Appeal from the United States District Court for the District of Arizona John W. Sedwick, District Judge, Presiding

Argued and Submitted April 11, 2013—Pasadena, California

Filed September 24, 2013

Before: Marsha S. Berzon, Richard C. Tallman, and Milan D. Smith, Jr., Circuit Judges.

Opinion by Judge Milan D. Smith, Jr.; Concurrence by Judge Berzon CASTLE V. EUROFRESH, INC.

SUMMARY*

Prisoner Civil Rights

The panel affirmed in part and reversed in part the district court’s summary judgment and remanded in an action brought by an Arizona state prisoner who alleged that defendants violated the Americans with Disabilities Act, 42 U.S.C. §§ 12131–12134,…