Darrell Taylor v. the Salvation Army National Corporation

In the
United States Court of Appeals
For the Seventh Circuit
____________________
No. 23-1218
D ARRELL TAYLOR , et al.,
Plaintiffs-Appellants,
v.
T HE SALVATION A RMY NATIONAL C ORPORATION and
SALVATION A RMY d/b/a C ENTRAL TERRITORIAL OF THE
SALVATION A RMY,
Defendants-Appellees.
____________________
Appeal from the United States District Court for the
Northern District of Illinois, Eastern Division.
No. 1:21-cv-06105 — John Robert Blakey, Judge.
____________________
A RGUED NOVEMBER 29, 2023 — DECIDED A UGUST 6, 2024
____________________
Before R IPPLE , SCUDDER , and J ACKSON-A KIWUMI, Circuit
Judges.
R IPPLE , Circuit Judge. The Salvation Army operates
residential rehabilitation centers for, in its words, “adults

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2 No. 23-1218
struggling with life’s spiritual and social challenges.”1 Some
individuals enroll to deal with problems such as
homelessness or substance abuse; others are referred to the
centers by courts or parole or probation departments.
Participants receive food, clothing, and housing for the
duration of their stay and are required to work approximately
forty hours per week for the Salvation Army. Although the
Salvation Army characterizes that activity as “work therapy,”
the plaintiffs here—five former participants in the
rehabilitation program—contend that the work is, in reality,
forced labor. Those former participants brought this action,
claiming that the Salvation Army subjected them to forced
labor in violation of federal law. The Salvation Army moved
to dismiss the plaintiffs’ claims, and the district court granted
that motion.
We affirm the judgment of the district court, although, on
some issues, our analysis differs from that of the district court.
At the outset, the Rooker-Feldman doctrine does not bar the
claims brought by the plaintiffs who were on parole or
probation at the time of their participation (the “justice-
referred plaintiffs”), because those plaintiffs do not seek what
in substance would be appellate review of any state-court
judgments. Their claims fail on the merits, however, because
they participated in the Salvation Army’s program while
subject to criminal sentences that seriously constrained their
liberty—a fact with which they have not come to grips in this
litigation. The other plaintiffs (the “walk-in plaintiffs”) fare no
better. Those plaintiffs were free to leave at any time, and the
Salvation Army was entitled to condition its provision of
1 Salvation Army Br. 1–2.

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No. 23-1218 3
food, housing, and clothing to them on their continued
satisfactory participation in the program. Finally, the district
court correctly denied leave to amend. The plaintiffs’
proposed second amended complaint, like their first
amended complaint, did not contain plausible allegations
indicating that the Salvation Army violated the forced labor
provisions at issue in this case.
I
BACKGROUND
A
Because this case comes to us on the dismissal of the
complaint by the district court, we assume, for purposes of
this appeal, that the well-pleaded factual allegations in that
complaint are true. See Martin v. Haling, 94 F.4th 667, 671 (7th
Cir. 2024). Those allegations form the basis of this rendition of
the facts.
The Salvation Army is one of the largest charities in the
world. It operates in the United States through a national
organization, Salvation Army National Corporation
(“Salvation Army National”), and four territorial
organizations. One such territorial organization, which we
will call Salvation Army Central Territory, runs the
organization’s operations in eleven states across the
Midwest.2
As we noted in the introductory paragraph, the Salvation
Army operates residential rehabilitation programs for
individuals seeking spiritual, emotional, and social
2 For ease of reading, we refer to these entities as “the Salvation Army”
throughout this opinion.

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4 No. 23-1218
assistance. Many participants enroll voluntarily in the
rehabilitation programs because of problems such as
homelessness and substance abuse. Other individuals are on
parole or probation and are referred to the programs by
courts or parole or probation departments. There is no charge
for enrollment, and participants receive food, clothing, and
housing from the Salvation Army for the duration of the
program. Each participant must complete at least forty hours
per week of what the Salvation Army terms “work therapy.”
This activity can include cooking, washing dishes, bussing
tables, shoveling snow, loading and unloading donations
from trucks, working in stockrooms and warehouses, or
doing other work for the Salvation Army’s thrift stores.
Participants receive a small gratuity (between $1 and $25 per
week) for the work, and they typically remain in the program
for about six months.
The plaintiffs contend that the Salvation Army uses its
rehabilitation programs not to rehabilitate people in need but
instead as a “coercive labor arrangement that serves only the
organization’s financial interests.”3 Their complaint alleges
that the Salvation Army targets marginalized individuals
with “nowhere else to go” in order to obtain a workforce that
is reliant on the Salvation Army.4 According to the complaint,
the Salvation Army cements this dependence in part through
a “black-out period” spanning the first month to six weeks of
the program. During that time, participants are prohibited
from communicating with anyone outside the program. The
Salvation Army also requires participants to assign
3 Pls.’ Reply Br. 1.
4 First Am. Compl. ¶ 115.

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No. 23-1218 5
temporarily any government benefits that they may be
receiving, including Supplemental Nutrition Assistance
Program (“SNAP”) benefits,5 to the Salvation Army. The
work that the participants are required to do is physically
demanding and sometimes dangerous. If participants do not
work fast enough during their regular work shifts, they are
required to work overtime.
Salvation Army staff often remind the participants that if
they leave the program, they will lose the food and shelter
that the Salvation Army provides. Such reminders tend to
have a strong effect on the participants, especially those who
entered while they were experiencing some combination of
poverty, food insecurity, and homelessness. The stakes are
even higher for participants on parole and probation. Before
enrolling, some of those participants are told by their parole
or probation officers that staying at the Salvation Army for at
least some time is mandatory. While these participants are in
the program, the parole and probation officers stay in
“constant contact” with Salvation Army staff.6 The staff tell
the participants as much, threatening to reach out to the
officers if they fail to complete their required labor in the time
and manner dictated by the Salvation Army. Salvation Army
staff even spell out the consequences that could follow from
such reports, telling justice-referred participants that “if they
[do] not follow the rules, including working, they [will] be
kicked out of the program and [will] likely be incarcerated.”7
5 See 7 U.S.C. § 2013.
6 First Am. Compl. ¶ 14.
7 Id. ¶ 162.

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6 No. 23-1218
B
Four former participants in the Salvation Army
rehabilitation programs filed this action against Salvation
Army National and Salvation Army Central Territory
(collectively, “the Salvation Army”). The Salvation Army
moved to dismiss their initial complaint on various grounds.
Rather than respond to the motion to dismiss, these four
former participants, along with one other former participant,
filed an amended complaint. The five plaintiffs named in that
amended complaint include three individuals who
participated in the program while on parole or probation (the
“justice-referred plaintiffs”) and two who were not on parole
or probation when they participated (the “walk-in
plaintiffs”). The plaintiffs assert claims under 18 U.S.C.
§ 1589(a), which makes it unlawful to obtain labor by means
of “serious harm,” “threats of serious harm,” or an “abuse or
threatened abuse of law or legal process.” They also assert
claims under provisions that make it unlawful to knowingly
benefit from participation in a venture that violates § 1589(a),
see § 1589(b); to recruit a person for labor or services covered
by § 1589(a), see § 1590(a); to attempt to violate § 1589(a), see
§ 1594(a); and to conspire to violate § 1589(a), see § 1594(b).
The plaintiffs seek to represent classes of participants and
former participants in Salvation Army rehabilitation
programs located in the Salvation Army’s Central Territory.
The Salvation Army filed a motion to dismiss the
plaintiffs’ first amended complaint, and the district court
granted that motion. The district court first held that the
plaintiffs had Article III standing. It reasoned that they had
alleged an injury in fact (forced labor) fairly traceable to the
Salvation Army’s conduct (causing plaintiffs to work through

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No. 23-1218 7
allegedly unlawful threats) that can be redressed by the court
(through a damages award).
The district court then considered the applicability of the
Rooker-Feldman doctrine to the claims brought by the justice-
referred plaintiffs. The court noted the allegation that justice-
referred participants are generally referred to the adult
rehabilitation programs “by court order or as a condition of
probation or parole.”8 The district court seemed to discern
from that allegation that those plaintiffs participated “because
a state court order compelled them to do so.”9 From there, the
district court concluded that it could not redress their injuries
“without overturning the state court’s orders that required
them to participate” in the rehabilitation programs.10 The
district court accordingly dismissed the justice-referred
plaintiffs’ claims on Rooker-Feldman grounds.
The district court then turned to the claims brought by the
walk-in plaintiffs. It reasoned that the threats on which the
walk-in plaintiffs relied were not sufficiently serious because
there was “no allegation that Plaintiffs’ access to food,
clothing, and shelter could be withheld from them even after
they had left the [rehabilitation] program.”11 Regarding the
sub-standard working conditions alleged in the first amended
complaint, the district court reasoned that a reasonable
person in the walk-in plaintiffs’ position would have felt free
to leave and to try to obtain a better situation elsewhere.
8 R.61 at 4 (citing First Am. Compl. ¶ 145).
9 Id. at 5.
10 Id. at 4.
11 Id. at 9.

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8 No. 23-1218
The district court further concluded that the walk-in
plaintiffs’ claims failed for the additional reason that their
allegations did not plausibly indicate that either of the
Salvation Army defendants acted with the requisite scienter.
The district court thus dismissed the walk-in plaintiffs’ claims
for failure to state a claim. It then immediately entered
judgment for the Salvation Army on all of the plaintiffs’
claims.
The plaintiffs filed a Rule 59(e) motion to alter or amend
the judgment and for leave to file a second amended
complaint. They submitted that a proposed second amended
complaint, which they attached to the motion, addressed any
deficiencies in the first amended complaint, including the
supposed Rooker-Feldman issue. In evaluating the plaintiffs’
motion, the district court stated that the plaintiffs would only
be entitled to amend their complaint if they could satisfy the
requirement courts normally read into Rule 59(e): that the
movant show a manifest mistake of law or fact or newly
discovered evidence. The district court concluded that the
plaintiffs had not satisfied that requirement. The district court
added that the plaintiffs “had already amended their
complaint … in response to a prior motion to dismiss.”12 It
accordingly denied the plaintiffs’ motion to alter or amend
the judgment under Rule 59(e). This appeal followed.
12 R.72 at 1.

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No. 23-1218 9
II
DISCUSSION
A
The Salvation Army contends that the plaintiffs do not
have Article III standing. Echoing the district court, it also
contends that the justice-referred plaintiffs’ claims are barred
by the Rooker-Feldman doctrine. We cannot accept these
arguments. The plaintiffs have Article III standing, and
Rooker-Feldman does not bar the justice-referred plaintiffs’
claims.
1.
The Salvation Army submits that none of the plaintiffs
have Article III standing. “The requisite elements of Article III
standing are well established: A plaintiff must show (1) an
injury in fact, (2) fairly traceably to the challenged conduct of
the defendant, (3) that is likely to be redressed by the
requested relief.” Fed. Election Comm’n v. Ted Cruz for Senate,
596 U.S. 289, 296 (2022).
The Salvation Army seems to recognize that the forced
labor to which the plaintiffs allege they have been subjected
constitutes an injury in fact. It also seems to recognize that this
injury can be redressed by the damages the plaintiffs seek. See
Wernsing v. Thompson, 423 F.3d 732, 745 (7th Cir. 2005)
(“[I]njuries compensable in monetary damages can always be
redressed by a court judgment.”). The Salvation Army
therefore focuses its standing argument on Article III’s
traceability requirement.
The traceability element of Article III standing “examines
the causal connection between the assertedly unlawful

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10 No. 23-1218
conduct and the alleged injury.” Allen v. Wright, 468 U.S. 737,
753 n.19 (1984). A plaintiff’s burden on this element is
“relatively modest at this stage of the litigation.” Bennett v.
Spear, 520 U.S. 154, 171 (1997). To satisfy that burden, the
plaintiff need not establish that the defendant’s conduct was
the most immediate cause, or even a proximate cause, of the
plaintiffs’ injuries. Lexmark Int’l, Inc. v. Static Control
Components, Inc., 572 U.S. 118, 134 n.6 (2014). “An injury is not
fairly traceable to a defendant’s conduct if the causal chain is
‘attenuated,’ but Article III requires no more than a
‘meaningful[] connect[ion]’ between the two.” Pit Row, Inc. v.
Costco Wholesale Corp., 101 F.4th 493, 502 (7th Cir. 2024)
(quoting Allen, 468 U.S. at 757, then quoting Dep’t of Educ. v.
Brown, 600 U.S. 551, 568 (2023)).
The Salvation Army contends that the plaintiffs have not
established traceability because they enrolled in the
rehabilitation programs voluntarily and had the option to
leave at any time. According to the Salvation Army, any
injuries that the plaintiffs suffered were therefore “entirely
self-inflicted” and cannot support standing.13 This contention
fails for multiple reasons. First, there is no “exception to
traceability for injuries that a party purposely incurs.” Ted
Cruz for Senate, 596 U.S. at 296; see Havens Realty Corp. v.
Coleman, 455 U.S. 363, 374 (1982). Second, particularly at this
procedural stage, when we are to take all of the plaintiffs’
well-pleaded allegations as true,14 we cannot agree that the
13 Salvation Army Br. 31.
14 See Remijas v. Neiman Marcus Grp., LLC, 794 F.3d 688, 691 (7th Cir. 2015)
(“Under Rule 12(b)(1), ‘the district court must accept as true all material
allegations of the complaint, drawing all reasonable inferences therefrom

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No. 23-1218 11
injuries the plaintiffs allegedly suffered were “entirely self-
inflicted.” Instead, according to the amended complaint, it
was the Salvation Army that cut the plaintiffs off from the
outside world, overworked them in dangerous conditions,
and obtained their labor through threats of incarceration and
loss of food and shelter. The plaintiffs’ allegations easily
satisfy Article III’s requirement of a “causal connection
between the injury and the conduct complained of.” Brown,
600 U.S. at 561 (quoting Lujan v. Defs. of Wildlife, 504 U.S. 555,
560 (1992)). Article III standing poses no bar to their claims.
2.
The Salvation Army also contends that the Rooker-Feldman
doctrine bars the claims brought by the justice-referred
plaintiffs. The district court agreed and dismissed their claims
on that basis.
The Rooker-Feldman doctrine takes its name from the only
two cases in which the Supreme Court has applied it: Rooker
v. Fidelity Trust Co., 263 U.S. 413 (1923), and District of
Columbia Court of Appeals v. Feldman, 460 U.S. 462 (1983). See
Exxon Mobil Corp. v. Saudi Basic Indus. Corp., 544 U.S. 280, 283
(2005). In both cases, the “losing party in state court filed suit
in a U.S. District Court after the state proceedings ended,
complaining of an injury caused by the state-court judgment
and seeking federal-court review and rejection of that
judgment.” Skinner v. Switzer, 562 U.S. 521, 531 (2011). And in
both cases, the Supreme Court held that the district court
“lacked subject-matter jurisdiction over such claims, for 28
U.S.C. § 1257 ‘vests authority to review a state court’s
in the plaintiff’s favor, unless standing is challenged as a factual mater.’”)
(quoting Reid L. v. Ill. State Bd. of Educ., 358 F.3d 511, 515 (7th Cir. 2004)).

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12 No. 23-1218
judgment solely in [the Supreme Court].’” Id. at 531–32
(quoting Exxon Mobil, 544 U.S. at 292).
The Rooker-Feldman doctrine occupies “narrow ground.”
Exxon Mobil, 544 U.S. at 284. It is “confined to cases of the kind
from which the doctrine acquired its name: cases brought by
state-court losers complaining of injuries caused by state-
court judgments rendered before the district court
proceedings commenced and inviting district court review
and rejection of those judgments.” Id. Notably, the doctrine
“has no application to judicial review of executive action,
including determinations made by a state administrative
agency.” Verizon Md., Inc. v. Pub. Serv. Comm’n of Md., 535 U.S.
635, 644 n.3 (2002); see Singletary v. District of Columbia, 766
F.3d 66, 72 (D.C. Cir. 2014) (Rooker-Feldman did not bar “claim
seek[ing] review of decision by the [D.C.] Board of Parole”
because the Board is “‘an executive entity,’ not a court”).
Further, the doctrine does not apply when “the plaintiff did
not have a reasonable opportunity to raise the issue in state
court proceedings.” Brokaw v. Weaver, 305 F.3d 660, 668 (7th
Cir. 2002) (quoting Long v. Shorebank Dev. Corp., 182 F.3d 548,
559 (7th Cir. 1999)).
The district court held that Rooker-Feldman applied
because “a state court order compelled” the justice-referred
plaintiffs to participate and it could not redress their injuries
“without overturning the state court’s orders that required
them to participate.”15 But the plaintiffs’ allegations do not
support the district court’s assumption that a state court
ordered the justice-referred plaintiffs to participate. Charles
Lucas, for instance, participated while on parole, which in
15 R.61 at 3, 4.

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No. 23-1218 13
Illinois (where he served his sentence) is directed by an
administrative agency, not by courts. See 730 ILCS 5/3-3-
1(a)(5) (stating that the Prisoner Review Board is “the
authority for setting conditions for parole and mandatory
supervised release” in Illinois). And as the first amended
complaint makes clear, it was Mr. Lucas’s “parole officer
[who] told him that staying at the [Salvation Army] was
mandatory.”16 There is no indication in the complaint that a
state court ordered him to stay there. Darrell Taylor, another
justice-referred plaintiff, also participated while on parole in
Illinois. He enrolled “to comply with aspects of his parole
requirements”—specifically, the residency requirement.17
The situation with respect to Darrell Burkhart, the third
justice-referred plaintiff, is not as clear from the first amended
complaint, which merely states that Mr. Burkhart “was
mandated to stay at the [Salvation Army] … as part of his
probation.”18 The first amended complaint does not state who
required him to stay there. Under the circumstances, the
district court should have dealt with this ambiguity by
inviting the plaintiffs to submit evidence or amend their
complaint, rather than by dismissing their claims for lack of
jurisdiction and immediately entering judgment. See Helm v.
Resolution Trust Corp., 84 F.3d 874, 879 (7th Cir. 1996) (stating
16 First Am. Compl. ¶ 200.
17 Id. ¶ 180.
18 Id. ¶ 231. In Michigan, where Mr. Burkhart was sentenced, courts
determine the conditions of probation, see Mich. Comp. Laws § 771.2a(5),
and individuals on probation are placed “under the charge and
supervision of a probation officer.” Id. § 771.1(1); see People v. Kumasi, 795
N.W.2d 149, 149 (Mich. 2011) (discussing condition that probationer
“maintain and/or seek employment as directed by” his probation officer).

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14 No. 23-1218
that “leave to amend defective jurisdictional allegations
should be freely given”); 28 U.S.C. § 1653 (“Defective
allegations of jurisdiction may be amended, upon terms, in
the trial or appellate courts.”).19 If the district court had given
the plaintiffs an opportunity to clear up the confusion, it
would have learned, as the plaintiffs state in their proposed
second amended complaint, that it was Mr. Burkhart’s
“probation officer … [who] directed him to stay at the
[Salvation Army] for three to six months as a condition of
probation.”20 See also Proposed Second Am. Compl. ¶ 164
(“Burkhart’s probation officer dropped him off at the
Salvation Army and told him that he would violate his
conditions of release, and risk reincarceration, if he
left … before the end of the three- to six-month period.”).
The district court seemed to draw its contrary conclusion
from the plaintiffs’ allegation that a “large proportion” of the
Salvation Army’s rehabilitation program participants are
“referred … by court order or as a condition of probation or
parole.”21 By itself, however, that allegation does not indicate
that the three justice-referred plaintiffs named in the
complaint (the only ones before the district court at this stage)
were compelled to participate in this particular program by
court order, and, as we have explained, the allegations
pertaining to the named justice-referred plaintiffs refute that
19 Notably, the Salvation Army’s argument in the district court related to
the Rooker-Feldman doctrine was confined to a short footnote in the briefs
it submitted in support of its motion to dismiss and renewed motion to
dismiss.
20 Proposed Second Am. Compl. ¶ 163.
21 First Am. Compl. ¶ 145.

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No. 23-1218 15
inference. Therefore, based on the record before the district
court and us, none of the named justice-referred plaintiffs
enrolled because they were ordered to do so by a state court.
That clarification eliminates any Rooker-Feldman problem
that might have existed for the justice-referred plaintiffs.
Those plaintiffs are “state-court losers,” and the relevant
state-court judgments (their criminal sentences) were
“rendered before the district court proceedings commenced.”
Exxon Mobil, 544 U.S. at 284. But their criminal sentences are
the “cause[]” of their alleged injuries only in the most tenuous
way. Id. The court orders imposing their criminal sentences,
and even perhaps allowing for parole or probation, did not
impose any specific work requirements or work conditions.
Further, the plaintiffs do not “invit[e] district court review
and rejection of” their sentences, id., and they are not “seeking
what in substance would be appellate review” of their
sentences. Johnson v. De Grandy, 512 U.S. 997, 1005 (1994). The
plaintiffs here do not object to the fact of their criminal
sentences but to the conditions in which they must serve
them. Their case is therefore much more akin to a “conditions
of confinement” case brought independently of a criminal
proceeding. See Copeland v. C.A.A.I.R., No. 21-5024, 2023 WL
3166345, at *14-15 (10th Cir. May 1, 2023) (holding that Rooker-
Feldman did not bar forced labor claims brought by
individuals who were ordered to participate in drug and
alcohol rehabilitation program in lieu of incarceration).
B
1.
We begin our consideration of the merits by setting forth
the basic principles that must guide our determination as to

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16 No. 23-1218
whether the complaint adequately states a claim upon which
relief can be granted.
A claim for relief must be plausible; it cannot be merely
conceivable or speculative. See Ashcroft v. Iqbal, 556 U.S. 662,
678 (2009); Bell Atl. Co. v. Twombly, 550 U.S. 544, 556 (2007).
This principle does not, and under the strictures of Rule 8
cannot, present a high barrier to the pleader. Rather, it sets
forth a practical requirement specifically attuned to the early
stage of litigation that it governs. Its requirement is
straightforward: The plaintiff must “present a story that holds
together.” Swanson v. Citibank, N.A., 614 F.3d 400, 404 (7th Cir.
2010). The complaint must include sufficient details to make
the plaintiffs’ account one that could have happened and, if it
did happen, states a claim cognizable under the governing
law. Runnion v. Girl Scouts of Greater Chi., 786 F.3d 510, 526
(7th Cir. 2015); see also Carlson v. CSX Transp., Inc., 758 F.3d
819, 826 (7th Cir. 2014). As the Supreme Court put it in
Twombly, the complaint must show “enough heft” to
demonstrate that, if the allegations prove to be true, the
pleader is entitled to relief. 550 U.S. at 557.22
When assessing whether a complaint has sufficient “heft,”
practical considerations must predominate. As the Supreme
Court put it in Iqbal, assessing the sufficiency of a complaint
is “a context-specific task” that requires a court “to draw on
22 We therefore cannot accept the dissent’s allegation that we are adopting
a new, and more stringent, standard than the one set forth in Rule 8. We
simply stress, as has the Supreme Court, that the underlying policy
concern of Rule 8 must always be a guiding beacon when we assess the
adequacy of the complaint. See Ashcroft v. Iqbal, 556 U.S. 662, 685 (2009);
Bell Atl. Corp. v. Twombly, 550 U.S. 662, 678 (2009).

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No. 23-1218 17
its judicial experience and common sense.” 556 U.S. at 679. It
also requires that we understand the statutory text on which
the claims of the complaint are predicated. If the cause of
action relies on a broad-gauged statute, more factual
particularity may be required in the complaint to give
adequate notice of the gravamen of the plaintiffs’ grievance.23
Similarly, if the underlying facts of the case present a situation
not within the heartland of those circumstances usually
encountered in litigation under the statute, a more precise
factual rendition may be necessary. Of course, the vantage
point of the plaintiff is also an important factor. Our
expectations at the pleading stage must be commensurate
with the information available at this pre-discovery stage. See
Bausch v. Stryker Co., 630 F.3d 546, 561 (7th Cir. 2015).24
23 Of course, the plaintiff does not have to set forth a legal theory of the
case, Skinner, 562 U.S. at 530, or a specific statute upon which the claim is
based, Johnson v. City of Shelby, 574 U.S. 10, 12 (2014) (per curiam). All that
is required are factual allegations “that give the defendant fair notice of
the claim for relief and show the claim has ‘substantive plausibility.’”
Runnion, 786 F.3d at 517 (quoting City of Shelby, 574 U.S. at 12).
24 The dissent takes issue with our use of the term “broad-gauged statute.”
It appears to suggest that even if we are not introducing a new pleading
standard as a matter of law, we are adopting one as a practical matter. We
cannot accept this criticism. Again, we simply point out one of the oft-
recognized situations where significant sensitivity to the notice
requirement of Rule 8 is necessary. This term must be read in the context
of the entire discussion of pleading standards contained in this opinion
and not in vacuo. Read in that way, the phrase simply describes, in
descriptive short-hand, statutes that can apply in a wide range of
situations and therefore require particular attention to the notice
requirement. See Swanson v. Citibank, N.A., 614 F.3d 400, 405 (7th Cir. 2010)
(“A more complex case involving financial derivatives, or tax fraud that
the parties tried hard to conceal, or antitrust violations, will require more

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18 No. 23-1218
Remembering that our task is a context-specific one and
that the considerations that we have just mentioned will vary
in importance from case to case, we now turn to the complaint
before us. The plaintiffs’ claims are predicated on 18 U.S.C.
§ 1589.25 This section, titled “Forced Labor,” forbids anyone
from “knowingly … provid[ing] or obtain[ing] the labor or
services of any person”:
1) by means of force, threats of force, physical
restraint, or threats of physical restraint to
that person or another person;
2) by means of serious harm or threats of
serious harm to that person or another
person;
3) by means of the abuse or threatened abuse
of law or legal process; or
detail, both to give the opposing party notice of what the case is all about
and to show how, in the plaintiff’s mind at least, the dots should be
connected.”); Limestone Dev. Corp. v. Vill. of Lemont, 520 F.3d 797, 803 (7th
Cir. 2003) (“RICO cases, like antitrust cases, are ‘big’ cases and the
defendant should not be put to the expense of big-case discovery on the
basis of a thread-bare claim.”).
In a similar vein, the dissent criticizes the statement that if “the
underlying facts of the case present a situation not within the heartland of
the circumstances usually encountered in litigation under the statute, a
more precise factual rendition may be necessary.” Again, we are simply
emphasizing the need for adequate notice in circumstances that are
“complicated and counterintuitive.” McCauley v. City of Chicago, 671 F.3d
611, 619 (7th Cir. 2011). For the same reason, the dissent’s criticism of the
term “heartland” is without substance when read in context.
25 See First Am. Compl. ¶¶ 276–316 (asserting claims under 18 U.S.C.
§§ 1589(a), 1589(b), 1590(a), 1594(a), 1594(b)).

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No. 23-1218 19
4) by means of any scheme, plan, or pattern
intended to cause the person to believe that,
if that person did not perform such labor or
services, that person or another person
would suffer serious harm or physical
restraint[.]
§ 1589(a).26 “Serious harm” means “any harm, whether
physical or nonphysical, including psychological, financial, or
reputational harm, that is sufficiently serious, under all the
surrounding circumstances, to compel a reasonable person of
the same background and in the same circumstances to
perform or to continue performing labor or services in order
to avoid incurring that harm.” § 1589(c)(2).
Section 1589 was enacted as part of the Trafficking Victims
Protection Act of 2000, Pub. L. No. 106-386, 114 Stat. 1464. This
section was intended “to address issues raised by the decision
of the Supreme Court in United States v. Kozminski, 487 U.S.
931 (1988).” H.R. Rep. No. 106-939, at 100 (2000) (Conf. Rep.);
see 22 U.S.C. § 7101(b)(13) (legislative findings). In Kozminski,
the Supreme Court had held that, although conduct involving
legal coercion27 or physical coercion could violate the earlier
26 This section may be enforced through civil or criminal penalties. See 18
U.S.C. §§ 1589(d), 1595(a). The case before us is a civil matter.
27 See, e.g., United States v. Reynolds, 235 U.S. 133, 139–40 (1914) (defendants
paid court fines for persons convicted in state court, had those persons
work to pay off the debt, and, when they refused to continue to work, had
them convicted under a state statute making it a crime for a convict
“working out” a fine paid by a surety to refuse to continue to work); Bernal
v. United States, 241 F. 339, 341 (5th Cir. 1917) (defendant threatened that,
if housemaid left his home without repaying a debt, he would call the
immigration authorities, who would put her in jail for five years); United
States v. Ingalls, 73 F. Supp. 76, 77 (S.D. Cal. 1947) (defendant threatened

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20 No. 23-1218
statutory prohibition on involuntary servitude, other forms of
coercion28 were not within the statutory ambit. 487 U.S. at 952.
Congress disagreed with the way the Court “narrowly
interpreted” the involuntary servitude statute, 22 U.S.C.
§ 7101(b)(13) (legislative findings), and so it added Section
1589 to “combat severe forms of worker exploitation that do
not rise to the level of involuntary servitude as defined in
Kozminski.” H.R. Rep. 106-939, at 101. Given the clear
congressional mandate that the statute must be read to
proscribe variations of human exploitation not recognized as
such by pre-existing law, we must be careful in the present
case not to give the statute a crabbed reading that will
undermine Congress’s work. Nor can we be too quick to
assume the legal legitimacy of work relationships which,
while tolerated in days past, exact a significant and
unacceptable burden, albeit not a physical one, that Congress
intended, through the present statutory language, to prohibit.
2.
We now turn to the operative complaint. It recites the
stories of two groups of individuals: (1) the so-called walk-in
individuals who voluntarily sought participation in the
that, if houseworker left the defendant’s estate, the defendant would tell
the police about an abortion that the houseworker had obtained).
28 The coercive techniques used in Kozminski included “disorienting the
victims with frequent verbal abuse … ; inducing poor health by denying
medical care and subjecting the victims to substandard food, clothing, and
living conditions; working the victims from 3 a.m. to 8:30 p.m. with no
days off, leaving them tired and without free time to seek alternative
work; denying the victims any payment for their labor; and [isolating] the
victims from contact with outsiders who might help them.” 487 U.S. at 956
(Brennan, J., concurring).

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No. 23-1218 21
Salvation Army’s program because of problems such as
homelessness or an addiction to alcohol or illicit drugs; and
(2) those individuals who participate in the program as a
required component of a judicially imposed court supervision
program, such as probation, parole, or other form of
supervised release. With respect to each group, the complaint
must plead adequately that the Salvation Army: obtained
their labor or services;29 by the unlawful coercive means
forbidden by the statute; and that the Salvation Army did so
knowingly.
We turn first to the walk-in plaintiffs. These participants
voluntarily joined the program. The gravamen of the
complaint is that the Salvation Army secured their continued
participation in the program by threating a harm “sufficiently
serious … to compel a reasonable person of the same
background and in the same circumstances … to continue to
perform labor or services in order to avoid incurring that
harm.” 18 U.S.C. § 1589(c)(2).
The principal “serious harm” alleged in the complaint is
the Salvation Army’s discontinuation of food, clothing, and
shelter allowances. But, under the terms of the plan, these
allowances are provided only during participation in the
Salvation Army’s program. They are simply components of
participation in the program. The Salvation Army is entitled
to stop providing food, clothing, and shelter to someone who
no longer wishes to participate. It may also remind the
participants that leaving the program results in the cessation
29 We pretermit any discussion of whether work done as part of
participation in the Salvation Army’s rehabilitation program constitutes
“labor or services” within the meaning of the statute.

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22 No. 23-1218
of the benefits of the program. “The former is a legitimate
consequence, the latter a legitimate warning.” Headley v.
Church of Scientology Int’l, 687 F.3d 1173, 1180 (9th Cir. 2012)
(citing United States v. Bradley, 390 F.3d 145, 151 (1st Cir.
2004)). “Neither supports a forced labor claim.” Id.
The plaintiffs also submit that the six-week long “blackout
period” in which external communications are restricted and
the ban on obtaining outside employment magnified the
difficulties of leaving the program. Such restrictions,
however, are fairly standard in rehabilitation programs. See
Scott Collier & Mardell Gavriel, Mobile Phones in Residential
Treatment: Implications for Practice, 55 J. Substance Abuse
Treatment 45, 45 (2015) (“Most [residential substance abuse
programs] do not allow clients to bring mobile devices at all
and restrict Internet and email access as well.”). And as the
district court emphasized, the plaintiffs could have regained
both the ability to do other work, as well as the ability to
access their cell phones and the internet, by leaving the
program early, which they were always free to do. We agree
with the district court that the walk-in plaintiffs in no way
present a plausible basis for concluding that a reasonable
person would not have felt free to leave the program.
Notably, the statute also has a scienter requirement: the
defendant (here the Salvation Army) must intend that the
worker believe that serious harm would befall one who
refused to work. See United States v. Calimlim, 538 F.3d 706, 711
(7th Cir. 2008). As the district court stressed, given the
voluntary nature of participation in the program, it is difficult
to see how the Salvation Army could have harbored such an
intent. The complaint contains no allegations that plausibly
indicate that the Salvation Army had such an intent.

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No. 23-1218 23
The plaintiffs, and the dissent, nevertheless submit that
the account set forth in the complaint tells a plausible story
that the Salvation Army sustained its operation by preying on
the most vulnerable in our society; it entrapped them in a
coercive environment from which, as a practical matter, there
was no realistic escape. There is an “obvious alternative
explanation,” however, for the Salvation Army’s decision to
seek out individuals dealing with homelessness, substance
abuse, and issues with the criminal justice system. Twombly,
550 U.S. at 567. Those are the individuals most likely to choose
to participate in, and to ultimately benefit from, the
residential rehabilitation program. The allegations describe a
responsibly run treatment program designed to assist
individuals who, in order to rid themselves of an alcohol or
drug dependency, need to subject themselves to a safe and
disciplined environment free of the distractions that can
induce so easily retrogressive behavior. The allegations
relating to the walk-in plaintiffs therefore do not plausibly
indicate that the Salvation Army violated the forced labor
provisions at issue in this case, and the district court correctly
concluded that they failed to state a claim.
The second category of participants, referred to as the
“justice-referred” participants throughout this litigation,
presents a different set of analytical problems for the parties
and for us.30 These individuals were not voluntary
participants in the Salvation Army’s program. They
participated while serving criminal sentences, which
deprived them of the “absolute liberty to which every citizen
30 Because the district court dismissed the claims of these parties on the
ground that they were barred by the Rooker-Feldman doctrine, the court
did not address the adequacy of the complaint under Rule 8.

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24 No. 23-1218
is entitled.” Griffin v. Wisconsin, 483 U.S. 868, 874 (1987)
(quoting Morrissey v. Brewer, 408 U.S. 471, 480 (1972)).
As individuals subject to a criminal sentence, and
therefore to the government’s legitimate authority to
effectuate the objectives of criminal justice, these participants
cannot expect to have the same freedom of choice with respect
to their work and living conditions as individuals not subject
to the legitimate penal objectives of the state. This restriction
does not mean, of course, that these individuals have no
protection against excesses in the behavior of their
governmental custodians or of the private actors such as the
Salvation Army to whom the government may delegate some
responsibility. The constitutions and laws of the federal
government and of the several states protect the participants
from such abusive behavior; the reports of every court in the
United States are filled with cases that demonstrate that this
restraint on unbridled government authority is a reality,
although at times an imperfect one. Assuming that Section
1589 even applies to the execution of a lawfully imposed
sentence (a question not presented by the parties), at a
minimum, that section certainly must be applied in a manner
that acknowledges that the liberty interests that it protects
have been curtailed sharply in the case of those subject to the
legitimate restraints of a criminal judgment. Because of this
unique characteristic of justice-referred participants in the
program, such a participant has a responsibility to delineate,
with some clarity and precision, the nature of the alleged
violation. More precisely, such a plaintiff needs to
demonstrate how the conduct alleged in the complaint is
incompatible with the legitimate constraints of the particular
penal judgment imposed on the plaintiff. Without such
information, a private entity participating in the

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No. 23-1218 25
government’s effort at rehabilitation can hardly be expected
to defend itself.
The complaint before us does not meet that obligation. It
does not come to grips with the fact that the justice-referred
participants are in a very different situation from other
participants who have not had their liberty restricted by a
penal judgment. As such, this complaint is hardly a suitable
vehicle for full and fair litigation of this issue.
3.
We turn now to the plaintiffs’ submission that the district
court should have allowed them to amend the complaint a
second time. As noted earlier, the district court denied the
plaintiffs’ Rule 59(e) motion and accompanying request for
leave to amend because the plaintiffs had not satisfied the
requirement that courts typically read into Rule 59(e)—that
the movant demonstrate a manifest error of law or fact or
newly discovered evidence.31 It did not address the question
of whether leave to amend was warranted under the less
demanding Rule 15(a)(2) standard.
As an initial matter, the district court erred in evaluating
the request to amend under the standard courts normally
read into Rule 59(e), rather than under the standard of Rule
15(a)(2). Rule 15(a)(2) provides the standard for evaluating
“post-judgment motions for leave to amend … in situations,
like this one, where a district court enters judgment at the
same time it first dismisses a case.” KAP Holdings, LLC v. Mar-
31 Rule 59(e) provides that “[a] motion to alter or amend a judgment must
be filed no later than 28 days after entry of judgment.” It “does not specify
the available grounds for obtaining such relief.” Rollins v. Home Depot
USA, Inc., 8 F.4th 393, 396 (5th Cir. 2021).

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26 No. 23-1218
Cone Appliance Parts Co., 55 F.4th 517, 528 (7th Cir. 2022)
(quoting NewSpin Sports, LLC v. Arrow Elecs., Inc., 910 F.3d
293, 310 (7th Cir. 2018)). The reason is that “[a] district court
cannot nullify the liberal right to amend under Rule 15(a)(2)
by entering judgment prematurely at the same time it
dismisses a complaint that would be amended.” Gonzalez-
Koeneke v. West, 791 F.3d 801, 808 (7th Cir. 2015) (quoting
Runnion, 786 F.3d at 522).32 The district court concluded that
this approach only applied if the plaintiffs had not had a
previous opportunity to amend. But that is not correct: our
case law provides that, even in such cases, Rule 15(a)(2)
provides the right framework. See O’Brien v. Vill. of
Lincolnshire, 955 F.3d 616, 629 (7th Cir. 2020) (holding that
district court should have evaluated post-judgment request
for leave to file fourth amended complaint under Rule
15(a)(2)).
Although the district court relied on an erroneous
standard, it reached the correct result. A district court “may
deny leave to amend a complaint if the amendment would be
futile,” Glover v. Carr, 949 F.3d 364, 367–68 (7th Cir. 2020), and
our review of the tendered amended complaint makes it clear
that it would not have cured the deficiencies that we have
identified in the complaint before us.
The primary set of new allegations to which the plaintiffs
invite our attention pertains to SNAP benefits. In the first
amended complaint, the plaintiffs stated that, as part of the
intake process, the Salvation Army encouraged them to sign
32 See also Foman v. Davis, 371 U.S. 178, 182 (1962) (relying on Rule 15(a) in
reversing district court’s denial of a plaintiff’s post-judgment request to
amend, which accompanied a motion construed as a Rule 59(e) motion).

-- 26 of 40 --

No. 23-1218 27
up for SNAP benefits and required them to sign over their
SNAP benefits to the Salvation Army. In the proposed second
amended complaint, the plaintiffs supplement that allegation
by stating that, when several of them left the program earlier
than expected, the Salvation Army did not immediately
return their SNAP benefits cards. In addition, according to the
new complaint, one of the plaintiffs was able to get his
benefits card back, but it allegedly had $0 left on it for the
month, even though it was not the end of the month. We
recognize the obvious importance of the SNAP benefits
program to those individuals. But we cannot plausibly infer
solely from these allegations that the Salvation Army used its
control over the SNAP benefits cards to obtain or attempt to
obtain forced labor, as the plaintiffs submit.
The plaintiffs also invite our attention to new allegations
pertaining specifically to the walk-in plaintiffs. According to
the proposed second amended complaint, the walk-in
plaintiffs regularly had to work well over forty hours per
week, and some work they had to do was so strenuous as to
cause them physical pain. In addition, Salvation Army staff
allegedly yelled at Kevin Lewis, one of the walk-in plaintiffs,
when he did not meet demanding productivity quotas. These
allegations still fall short because they do not indicate that the
Salvation Army in any way attempted to prevent the
plaintiffs from leaving the program. If the plaintiffs believed
they were being overworked or did not like their working
conditions, they could have left at any time. See Muchira v. Al-
Rawaf, 850 F.3d 605, 620 (4th Cir. 2017); United States v.
Calimlim, 538 F. 3d 706, 712 (7th Cir. 2008).
Finally, the plaintiffs invite our attention to new
allegations regarding the justice-referred plaintiffs, but those

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28 No. 23-1218
new allegations also fail to provide an adequate foundation
for litigation under this statute. Mr. Taylor now alleges that
he was sometimes required to work seven days a week, for a
total of fifty-six hours per week, and that he was often hungry,
because the bagged lunch the Salvation Army gave him did
not have enough food in it. Mr. Lucas had to lift heavy objects
in a basement with rats; when he complained, Salvation Army
staff told him that if he did not stop complaining, he would
be kicked out of the program and immediately reincarcerated.
As for Mr. Burkhart, Salvation Army staff directed him to
work from 9:30 A.M. to 9:30 P.M. from Monday to Saturday,
every week. Therefore, he was forced to work through the
dinner that was provided to others at the facility, and he did
not have any dinner six out of seven days a week.
Although these allegations paint a more detailed
description of the conditions under which these justice-
referred plaintiffs worked and lived, this statute is not simply
a vehicle for the regulation of living and working conditions
of individuals serving a sentence of parole or probation. Its
aim is to prohibit forced labor under the threat of legal
consequences, and these allegations give the defendants no
better idea of what they must defend against than the
complaint before us. Again, assuming that the statute is at all
applicable to parole and probation arrangements, the
defendants need a more specific description of how, in the
context of probationers and parolees, the actions of the
Salvation Army induced the forced labor proscribed by the
statute.
Conclusion
The first amended complaint fails to allege adequately a
claim under any of the forced labor provisions at issue in this

-- 28 of 40 --

No. 23-1218 29
case. The tendered second amended complaint would not
have cured the deficiencies of its predecessors. The judgment
of the district court is affirmed.
AFFIRMED

-- 29 of 40 --

30 No. 23-1218
J ACKSON-A KIWUMI, Circuit Judge, concurring in part and
dissenting in part. I agree with my colleagues that Plaintiffs
have standing, and that Rooker-Feldman does not bar the jus-
tice-referred Plaintiffs’ claims. I also agree that the district
court erred in evaluating Plaintiffs’ motion to amend under
Rule 59(e) as opposed to Rule 15(a)(2). Despite these areas of
agreement, I must dissent because I cannot join what I view
as the majority opinion’s misreading of Plaintiffs’ First
Amended Class Action Complaint. This case comes to us from
the district court’s dismissal of that complaint, so our review
is limited to whether Plaintiffs have alleged enough to survive
a motion to dismiss. Because I believe they have, I would re-
verse the judgment of the district court and allow this case to
proceed to discovery.
I
Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 8 provides the standard
for this case. Under that rule, a complaint must contain “a
short and plain statement of the claim showing that the
pleader is entitled to relief.” FED. R. C IV. P. 8(a)(2). Rule 8’s
purpose, the Supreme Court has explained, is “to ‘give the de-
fendant fair notice of what the claim is and the grounds upon
which it rests.’” Bell Atl. Corp. v. Twombly, 550 U.S. 544, 555
(2007) (quoting Conley v. Gibson, 355 U.S. 41, 47 (1957))
(cleaned). A plaintiff therefore is not required to provide “de-
tailed factual allegations” to comply with the rule, see id.; all a
plaintiff must do is plead “sufficient factual matter, accepted
as true, to ‘state a claim to relief that is plausible on its face,’”
Ashcroft v. Iqbal, 556 U.S. 662, 678 (2009) (quoting Twombly, 550
U.S. at 570). If a complaint does that, it may proceed “even if
it strikes a savvy judge that actual proof of . . . facts [support-
ing relief] is improbable, and ‘that a recovery is very remote

-- 30 of 40 --

No. 23-1218 31
and unlikely.’” Twombly, 550 U.S. at 556 (quoting Scheuer v.
Rhodes, 416 U.S. 232, 236 (1974)).
Our cases have made the point more succinctly. At the mo-
tion to dismiss stage, we have said, “the factual allegations in
the complaint need not prove the claim.” G.G. v.
Salesforce.com, Inc., 76 F.4th 544, 551 (7th Cir. 2023). “They
need to show only that the claim is ‘plausible on its face’ and
that [assuming] the allegations are true, the plaintiff is entitled
to relief.” Id. (quoting Roldan v. Stroud, 52 F.4th 335, 339 (7th
Cir. 2022)). This standard is “not demanding,” id., and Plain-
tiffs’ allegations easily meet it.
Plaintiffs are former participants in the Salvation Army’s
Adult Rehabilitation Centers (ARCs). Some of them found
their own way to the ARCs, but others were “justice-re-
ferred,” meaning that participating in the program was “a re-
quirement of their probation, or the stable housing the ARC
provides [was] a necessity of their parole.” Plaintiffs, “walk-
ins” and “justice-referred” alike, allege that the Salvation
Army forced them to labor through “sustained and targeted
psychological coercion and threats of serious harm.”
As Plaintiffs tell it, the coercive forced labor scheme began
before they ever got to an ARC. They allege that the Salvation
Army “target[s]” people who have substance abuse issues or
are unhoused, food-insecure, experiencing poverty, or in-
volved in the justice system. Once these people are recruited
to an ARC, they are expected to “perform strenuous, often
dangerous labor, including in its warehouses, kitchens,
stores, and on its donation collection trucks,” for “at least 8
hours per day, and at least 40 hours per week,” for as little as
“$0.02 and $0.62 per hour.” If participants do not perform
these tasks (or do not perform them to the Salvation Army’s

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32 No. 23-1218
satisfaction), the Salvation Army “threaten[s] [them] with loss
of access to food and shelter.”
These threats were real for the walk-in Plaintiffs, the com-
plaint alleges, because the provisions supplied by the Salva-
tion Army were all they had after joining an ARC. That is be-
cause the Salvation Army requires that “members of the ARC
workforce assign their rights and/or sign over their govern-
mental support benefits and/or vouchers, including Supple-
mental Nutritional Assistance Program (SNAP) and social se-
curity disability benefits, to The Salvation Army and forfeit
any discretion over how they are spent.” The Salvation Army
also requires participants to “forfeit their personal items in-
cluding clothing, jewelry, cell phones, electronics, and many
prescribed medications.” Because of these conditions, walk-in
Plaintiffs became “fully reliant on the ARC program for food,
clothing, and housing,” which “directly impede[d] [their]
ability to flee The Salvation Army’s ARC facilities.”
The complaint explains, too, that the threats of loss of food
and shelter were not idle for the walk-in Plaintiffs. “Workers
in the ARC program were abruptly kicked out of the program
for not following the rules, often with no other place to live.”
For plaintiff Kevin Lewis, that vulnerability “cultivated” a
“reliance on the ARC for necessities, including food and shel-
ter.”
The threat for justice-referred ARC participants was dif-
ferent but no less real, according to the complaint. “In addi-
tion to the conditions faced by the walk-in workforce, justice-
referred workers face[d] the threat of incarceration for not
complying with SA Central Territory’s forced labor pro-
gram.” For justice-referred Plaintiffs, the threats included
“submitting negative probation reports, calling a worker’s

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No. 23-1218 33
probation or parole officer directly to report ‘misbehavior,’
calling the police on a worker, and simply kicking the worker
out of the ARC, causing the worker to violate the terms of
their probation or parole.” Plaintiffs allege that the Salvation
Army also used these threats “to obtain or coerce labor from
members of the walk-in ARC workforce who are on parole or
probation.” Whenever Plaintiffs “d[id] not perform required
work, work[ed] too slowly, or work[ed] below [the Salvation
Army’s] standards,” they were threatened. “Both parole or
probation officers and [Salvation Army] employees reiterated
to [justice-referred Plaintiffs] that if they did not follow the
rules, including working, they would be kicked out of the pro-
gram and would likely be incarcerated.”
These are just a few of the details Plaintiffs allege in their
46-page complaint, but these details sufficiently demonstrate
that the complaint has “heft,” so I depart from the majority
opinion’s contrary conclusion. Ante, at 16.
At the end of the day, we do not have to view Defendant’s
actions the same way Plaintiffs do or believe in Plaintiffs’ like-
lihood of success, but that does not mean they have failed to
“present a story that holds together.” Ante, at 16 (citing Swan-
son v. Citibank, N.A., 614 F.3d 400, 404 (7th Cir. 2010)). From
Plaintiffs’ complaint, we know exactly what their theory of
this case is and the facts they think prove that theory. That is
all that is required at this early stage in the litigation.
II
The majority opinion reaches the opposite conclusion by
(a) raising the pleading standard for Trafficking Victim Pro-
tection Reauthorization Act (TVPRA) claims, (b) misappre-
hending the totality of the harm Plaintiffs alleged, and (c)

-- 33 of 40 --

34 No. 23-1218
holding that the Plaintiffs did not plead scienter and the lack
of an exit option. I find each of these moves problematic.
A
To begin, the majority opinion attempts to impose a
heightened pleading standard for TVPRA claims. Under the
majority opinion’s new standard, if a plaintiff’s cause of ac-
tion “relies on a broad-gauged statute, more factual particu-
larity may be required . . . to give adequate notice of the gra-
vamen of the plaintiffs’ grievance.” Ante, at 17. And if “the
underlying facts of the case present a situation not within the
heartland of those circumstances usually encountered in liti-
gation under the statute, a more precise factual rendition may
be necessary.” Id. Both of these are novel pleading require-
ments.
It will not be lost on the reader that the majority opinion
never cites any authority for requiring something greater than
the normal Rule 8 pleading standard in these cases. But that
is not the only issue I see.
The majority opinion’s new standard is unhelpful because
it never explains how plaintiffs (and district courts) should
decide if a plaintiff’s claims fit “within the heartland” of a stat-
ute. Indeed, a “heartland” analysis would be a particularly
awkward requirement for a statute like the TVPRA because
Congress designed the statute to reach a wide array of activity
beyond trafficking. Both the text of the statute and the legis-
lative history confirm this.
By its terms, the statute broadly prohibits “obtain[ing] the
labor or services of a person” by means of force, serious harm,
threats of harm, or abuse of legal process, among other things.
18 U.S.C. § 1589(a). The legislative history makes clear

-- 34 of 40 --

No. 23-1218 35
Congress broadened the statute to reach other forms of
“worker exploitation that do not rise to the level of involun-
tary servitude.” H.R. R EP. No. 106–939, at 101 (2000) (Conf.
Rep.). To aid in pursuit of that goal, Congress also broadened
the statutory meaning of “trafficking.” Under the new lan-
guage, trafficking includes “violations of other laws, includ-
ing labor and immigration codes and laws against kidnap-
ping, slavery, false imprisonment, assault, battery, pandering,
fraud, and extortion.” Id. at 4.
The majority opinion’s new pleading standard strikes me
as unwise for another reason. As it is currently written, the
standard would establish one pleading threshold for, say, a
sex trafficking claim, which would likely constitute the
“heartland” of the statute, and another for a forced labor
claim. That is so even though both claims would arise under
the same section of the same statute and even though nothing
in the statute or its history suggests that Congress meant for
those claims to be treated differently. In fact, the text and his-
tory of the statute prove the opposite: Congress wanted to ex-
pand the conduct covered by the statute and make it easier to
bring other types of claims. See H.R. R EP. No. 108-264, pt. 1, at
8 (2003). Requiring a “heartland” analysis would put the stat-
ute at war with that goal by making it harder to bring the
types of claims that Congress’s expansion was designed to
reach.
But even if the majority opinion were correct that a height-
ened standard should apply, I would still dissent from its
analysis because the “factual particularity” in Plaintiffs’ alle-
gations easily satisfies the majority’s new standard. As ex-
plained above, the complaint contains detailed factual allega-
tions about how the Salvation Army’s ARCs are designed to

-- 35 of 40 --

36 No. 23-1218
“purposefully target and recruit marginalized individuals,”
induce them to “rel[y] on the ARC program for food, clothing,
and housing,” and then threaten to kick them out (without
food, clothing, or housing) if they do not work as often or as
hard as Salvation Army employees want them to. Those de-
tailed allegations are more than sufficient to put Defendants
on notice of the precise nature of Plaintiffs’ claims, even if
those claims may not fall “within the heartland” of the
TVPRA.
B
The majority opinion’s introduction of a new pleading
standard is not the only shortcoming I see. The opinion also
overlooks the psychological harms Plaintiffs alleged. The
opinion frames Plaintiffs’ “principal” harm as “the Salvation
Army’s discontinuation of food, clothing, and shelter allow-
ances” and the “six-week long ‘blackout period’” to which
ARC participants are subjected. Ante, at 21–22. And those
components, the opinion decides, do not qualify as “harm”
for TVPRA purposes; they are “simply components of partic-
ipation in the program.” Id. The opinion nowhere acknowl-
edges the psychological element of the Plaintiffs’ alleged
harms. By failing to do so, the majority opinion reads those
allegations out of Plaintiffs’ complaint altogether.
Plaintiffs were clear in both their complaint and at oral ar-
gument that the harm they allege is, in no small part, psycho-
logical. The complaint alleges that the Salvation Army en-
gaged in “sustained and targeted psychological coercion” to
extract Plaintiffs’ labor. The complaint describes how the Sal-
vation Army caused previously food-insecure, unhoused,
and impoverished Plaintiffs to rely on the organization for
food, clothing, and shelter. The Salvation Army allegedly

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No. 23-1218 37
induced that reliance by taking whatever possessions and
benefits Plaintiffs had before they entered the program. Then,
once Plaintiffs became dependent on the Salvation Army to
meet their basic needs, the organization would deploy the
threat of withdrawing those provisions to keep Plaintiffs en-
gaged in labor they did not want to perform.
To the extent there is any debate about whether this kind
of harm constitutes psychological harm under the TVPRA,
that is a fact question for a factfinder. The question before us
is limited to whether these allegations pass muster at this mo-
tion to dismiss stage. Given the statutory language, I think
they easily do. The TVPRA defines “serious harm” as any
harm, “whether physical or nonphysical, including psycholog-
ical, financial, or reputational harm, that is sufficiently seri-
ous, under all the surrounding circumstances, to compel a
reasonable person of the same background and in the same
circumstances to perform or to continue performing labor or
services in order to avoid incurring that harm.” 18 U.S.C. §
1589(c)(2) (emphasis added).
That definition obligates us to consider Plaintiffs’ “back-
ground” and “circumstances.” Id. But the analysis in the ma-
jority opinion lacks any consideration of Plaintiffs’ circum-
stances. Rather, the opinion proclaims that Plaintiffs “could
have left at any time” if they “did not like their working con-
ditions.” Ante at 26. This conclusion is contrary to the allega-
tions in Plaintiffs’ complaint, which describes a situation
where psychological coercion prevented Plaintiffs from leav-
ing. By substituting some other reality for that described by
Plaintiffs, the majority opinion not only reads the alleged psy-
chological harm out of Plaintiffs’ complaint; it also reads out

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38 No. 23-1218
of the statute Congress’s command to consider Plaintiffs’
background and circumstances.
C
I see two additional issues with the majority opinion’s
reading of Plaintiffs’ complaint; both relate to what the opin-
ion says Plaintiffs needed to plead but did not. First, the opin-
ion holds that Plaintiffs’ allegations do not meet the TVPRA’s
scienter requirement. Ante, at 22. Second, the opinion holds
that Plaintiffs were required to plead that the Salvation Army
attempted to prevent them from leaving the program. Ante, at
27. I disagree on both counts.
First, scienter. The majority opinion is correct that § 1589
contains a scienter requirement: a plaintiff must prove that
the defendant intended to cause the victim to believe that se-
rious harm would result if they did not engage in forced labor.
Ante, at 22 (citing United States v. Calimlim, 538 F.3d 706, 711
(7th Cir. 2008)). Plaintiffs’ complaint meets this requirement.
Again, the allegations are that the Salvation Army sought out
vulnerable workers, required those workers to turn over their
possessions and benefits, and used the threat of ejecting the
workers from the program to force their labor. Plaintiffs fur-
ther allege that some workers were kicked out and had to live
on the street, which reinforced the threat. Taking these allega-
tions as true, it is easy to see how the Salvation Army inten-
tionally manufactured and sustained a coercive environment
that kept Plaintiffs engaged in work they did not want to do.
Thus, I would find that Plaintiffs adequately pled scienter.
Second, the majority opinion says Plaintiffs cannot state a
claim under § 1589 because they did not plead that the Salva-
tion Army attempted to prevent them from leaving. Ante, at

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No. 23-1218 39
27. But that is not a requirement of the statute. As the Third
Circuit recently recognized, the TVPRA “encompasses cir-
cumstances in which the person whose labor is being ex-
ploited is faced with any number of choices as an alternative
to working, including actual or threatened physical restraint,
serious harm, and abuse of law or legal process.” Burrell v.
Staff, 60 F.4th 25, 37 (3d Cir.), cert. denied sub nom. Lackawanna
Recycling Ctr., Inc. v. Burrell, 143 S. Ct. 2662, (2023) (citing 18
U.S.C. § 1589(a)). Under § 1589(a), “a victim can face more
than a binary choice and remain protected by the statute.” Id.
After all, in expanding the TVPRA, Congress sought to in-
clude “more-expansive definitions of coercion [that] reflect
the ‘increasingly subtle’ ways by which labor may be forced.”
Id. (citing United States v. Dann, 652 F.3d 1160, 1169 (9th Cir.
2011)).
The majority opinion locates its restraint requirement in
Muchira v. Al-Rawaf, 850 F.3d 605, 620 (4th Cir. 2017), and
United States v. Calimlim, 538 F. 3d 706, 712 (7th Cir. 2008), but
both are inapposite.
The first thing to note about these two cases is that they
were decided further along in the litigation than the case we
have before us. Calimlim, a criminal case, avoided dismissal
and proceeded to a jury trial on the § 1589 charge. Muchira, a
civil case like this one, was decided at summary judgment.
That means, unlike here, the court allowed Muchira’s claims
to proceed beyond the motion to dismiss stage and gave her
the opportunity to develop the factual record. It was only
when Muchira could not prove her claim after discovery that
the court held that she did not “present sufficient evidence
upon which a jury could reasonably conclude that the Saudi
family knowingly or intentionally engaged in actions or

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40 No. 23-1218
made threats that were sufficiently serious to compel a rea-
sonable person in Muchira’s position to remain in the Saudi
family’s employ.” Muchira, 850 F.3d at 620 (emphasis omit-
ted).
We should also not overlook the scope of Muchira’s hold-
ing. In analyzing Muchira’s § 1589 claim, the Fourth Circuit
suggested that Muchira could have prevailed in one of three
ways: she could have shown that her employer (1) “know-
ingly forced [her] to provide her labor or services by means of
serious harm or threats of serious harm, [(2)] that she contin-
ued to labor in order to avoid physical or psychological harm,
or [(3)] that the conditions of her employment were such that
she reasonably believed that she had no viable exit option.”
Id. (emphasis added). By focusing on the third route, the ma-
jority opinion ignores the other permissible means the Fourth
Circuit identified. And, here, Plaintiffs’ claims would satisfy
either.
In requiring § 1589 plaintiffs to prove that they were effec-
tively restrained from leaving, the majority opinion reads the
statute far more narrowly than our sister circuits have. But
even under that strained reading, Plaintiffs in this case should
move forward because, as I explained earlier, they did allege
that the Salvation Army prevented them from leaving.
* * *
In sum, I disagree with the majority opinion’s unsup-
ported and unjustified raising of the pleading standard for
TVPRA claims and its narrowing of the statutory cause of ac-
tion. I respectfully dissent.

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