When “Work Therapy” Starts To Look Like Work: Spilman v. The Salvation Army

In Spilman v. The Salvation Army, 117 Cal.App.5th 913 (2026), three participants in the Salvation Army’s six‑month rehab program claimed they weren’t just doing “work therapy” for their souls—they were doing full‑time labor that should have come with California minimum wage and overtime.

The Salvation Army runs residential drug and alcohol rehab centers with housing, meals, clothing, counseling, and church/AA‑style programming.  As a condition of staying, participants must perform “work therapy” in warehouses and thrift stores: loading and unloading trucks, sorting donations, helping customers, running inventory, operating machinery, cleaning, and staffing front desks—often 40+ hours a week, with no outside jobs allowed.  In return, they received room and board, clothing, and “gratuities” like canteen cards and small cash amounts, which the Salvation Army described as gifts, not wages.

The trial court granted summary judgment for the Salvation Army, reasoning that an employment relationship requires an express or implied agreement for compensation, and these participants had no reasonable expectation of wages, especially after signing documents stating they were not employees.

The Court of Appeal reversed, holding the trial court applied the wrong legal standard and ignored key factual disputes.  Drawing on California’s broad “suffer or permit to work” definition and the Dynamex emphasis on clear, protective tests, the court adopted a **two‑part test** for nonprofits claiming a worker is an unpaid volunteer: the nonprofit must show (1) the worker freely agreed to work to obtain a personal or charitable benefit, rather than compensation, and (2) the nonprofit’s use of that labor is not a subterfuge to evade wage laws.  Nonprofits now bear the burden of proving true volunteer status once a worker makes a prima facie showing of employment.

The decision doesn’t declare that Spilman and his co‑plaintiffs are employees, but it sends the case back for a facts‑heavy look at whether room, board, and gratuities functioned as “wages in another form,” and whether unpaid participants were displacing paid workers in a commercial‑like thrift operation.  For nonprofits, the lesson is simple: calling something “work therapy” and handing out canteen cards doesn’t automatically turn full‑time, mandatory labor into volunteering—California courts will now look under the hood.