Incarcerated individuals in Alabama have filed a 214-page response opposing a motion to dismiss their lawsuit accusing state prisons of using slave labor.
The case involves multiple claims against state officials, private employers and local governments alleging Alabama’s prison labor program system is a form of modern-day slavery. Each defendant filed motions to dismiss the lawsuit, claiming that counsel for plaintiffs did not state a legal claim in the lawsuit.
“Despite defendants’ strenuous efforts to dispute plaintiffs’ well-founded allegations — a strategy that cannot justify dismissal of plaintiffs’ claims at this juncture — and to preclude the court from evaluating the sufficiency of plaintiffs’ claims on the merits, plaintiffs have stated viable claims against all defendants, and the motions to dismiss should be denied,” counsel for the plaintiff wrote in the response to defendants’ motions to dismiss.
(READ MORE: Federal court hears arguments in lawsuit over Alabama’s alleged ‘forced prison labor’)
Defendants argued in their motion to dismiss that plaintiffs failed to “exhaust administrative remedies” under the Prison Litigation Reform Act, meaning inmates must try to resolve their complaint through the prison’s grievances procedures.