On April 22, 2024, California’s highest court ruled that detainees held in local jails have no right to receive minimum wage—or any wages—for their labor.

The case arose when pretrial detainees at the Santa Rita Jail filed a class-action suit against Alameda County in federal court for the Northern District of California in 2019. They prepared meals for Aramark Correctional Services LLC under its $19 million contract with the County, but cried foul when they received no pay. Defendants’ motion to dismiss was partially denied, so they filed an interlocutory appeal with the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit.

The appellate court, in turn, submitted a certified question of state law to the California Supreme Court: Do pretrial detainees performing work in county jails “have a claim for minimum wages and overtime under Section 1194 of the California Labor Code in the absence of any local ordinance prescribing or prohibiting the payment of such wages?” See: Ruelas v. Cty. of Alameda, 51 F.4th 1187 (9th Cir. 2022).

To answer that, the Supreme Court considered “the interplay between the Penal Code, the Labor Code, and the constitutional provisions governing public-private contracts for inmate labor.” Per Penal Code§ 4019.3, a county …