Ala. Supreme Court Pares Down Prison Officers Suit

The Alabama Supreme Court has pared down a lawsuit filed by five correctional officers against Alabama prison officials.

The officers claimed in the lawsuit filed in 2010 that the Department of Corrections had violated its own regulations concerning overtime pay, how officers were allowed to use earned leave and in the way officers were paid a daily subsistence allowance.

The lawsuit named the department, prisons commissioner Kim Thomas and the Alabama Corrections institution Finance Authority as defendants. The court dismissed the department and Thomas in his capacity as prisons commissioner citing an immunity most state officers have in their official capacity from lawsuits. But the court allowed the officers to continue to pursue their cases against the finance authority and against Thomas as vice president of the authority.