Caseflicks

Court of Appeals of Minnesota • 1994

State v. Bachmann

521 N.W.2d 886

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Takeaway

In short, this case holds that valuable household and child-care labor is not statutory “employment” for Minnesota work-release purposes, and a spouse's nominal wage arrangement does not change that result.

Background

Suzanne Margie Bachmann pleaded guilty in November 1993 to second-degree burglary and check forgery. Her sentence included 90 days in county jail.

Bachmann sought work-release privileges during her jail term. She was not employed outside the home, but asked to leave jail on weekdays to care for her four children and perform homemaking services. Her husband proposed paying her $1.50 per hour for those services. The district court held that she was ineligible for work release and denied her postconviction motion. Bachmann appealed.

Issues

Issue #1

Whether a homemaker is eligible for work-release as an employed person under Minn. Stat. § 631.425.

Holding

No. Homemaking is not employment within the meaning of Minnesota's work-release statute, even when the homemaker's spouse proposes to pay an hourly wage for the services.

Reasoning

The court treated the question as one of statutory interpretation rather than an ordinary discretionary decision on whether Bachmann's personal circumstances warranted work release. Although denials of work-release privileges are usually reviewed for abuse of discretion, the meaning of “employment” in the statute was reviewed de novo.

Section 631.425 contemplates continuing a committed person's regular employment or making reasonable efforts to find suitable employment for an unemployed person. It also requires that an inmate working under the statute receive a fair and reasonable wage and work fair and reasonable hours. The court read this language as referring to conventional employment, not the unpaid management and care of one's own household.

The court acknowledged that homemaking has real economic value, including to a family unit. But economic value alone does not make an activity employment. Minnesota precedent had distinguished household upkeep and family care from a trade, business, profession, or occupation because a home is maintained for family life rather than for pecuniary gain or as a means of earning a livelihood.

The proposed arrangement under which Bachmann's husband would pay her $1.50 per hour did not transform her homemaking into employment. Bachmann remained legally obligated to provide for her children regardless of payment, and wages she received during the marriage would be marital property in which her husband had an ownership interest. The purported exchange therefore did not resemble an ordinary arm's-length employment relationship and was economically illusory.

The court also found support in a related statute governing limited driver's licenses. The legislature expressly listed homemakers as eligible in specified circumstances there, while it did not include homemakers in the work-release statute. That contrast indicated that the legislature understood homemaking to be distinct from employment and knew how to provide expressly for homemakers when it intended to do so.