may please court the proceedings in the district court below seek to obtain and have for now several years encumbered funds that are held by the maryland state treasury the district court erred in entertaining those proceedings to garnish property held by the state after the state had moved to quash the writ that's because the proceedings at issue are ones to which the federal judicial power in the words does not extend core principles of sovereign place limitations on federal judicial power and the district court transgress those limitations at the same time the district court transgressed limitations imposed by maryland law which is incorporated into world sixty nine and which forbids the attachment of assets held by the state its agencies officials so the the the district court twice error in allowing the players to maintain the garnishment action  the district court seemingly thought that this was not the typical love in the moment case in fact it's the quintessential eleventh amendment case in the words of the the eleventh member bar are ones where the state is named and required to submit to the jurisdiction of the court and where and especially ones where money is sought for the state try to treasury so the  i don't think it matters for them and then analysis here and it doesn't matter for the maryland law analysis the constitution protects marilyn's right not to be held in federal court without its consent address the question i don't know exactly what and again i was a right the reason i asked is that in looking at sovereign immunity this spring court has held that under bankruptcy law proceeding to set aside a transfer isn't barred by the eleventh i'm in mn because it's bankrupt bankruptcy is in women doesn't implicate state sovereignty to the same degree well as i the late ninety's around this still in the recent aftermath of seminole tribe no longer apply in the bankruptcy context because now it's understood that the states have no immunity to bankruptcy proceedings but that's because in the cat's analysis the there's an implicit waiver there has to either be abrogation or waiver there is waiver and it's implicit in the constitutional design that was you now says that i think justice stevens put forth in the cat's case so we can put bankruptcy to one side and i don't think it's in ram character is necessarily the clincher there it's eighty three suit we're talking about money held by the state whether it's a contract action here the garnish the garnish or the judgment creditors step in the shoes of judgment debtor judgment debtor putting aside for the moment the fact that contract claim against the state but only in state court and only because the state has waged immunity and limited it to state court and otherwise limited it so it's the same money we're talking about in the same analysis should apply  every other element of the course of process of a judicial tribunal that the supreme court is found to be for the touchstone of this analysis is present here we have garnishment is  initiated by the service of us read that must be served in the same manner as a as a summons and complaint in an ordinary civil action it compels in this case the state to come into federal court and to answer t runs the risk of discovery in a jury trial and as in this case prolonged motions practice to resolve threshold questions about whether these assets are really even part of the judgment betters it's clear under well not her i really i mean that just looks at whether or not it to suit the question is also is it a suit against the state of maryland well it clearly is the state is named defendant  and the adjudication of it were just the same and the affront to the state's dignity of having to be held in to another sovereign sports but it is this is then to the suit against maryland it's only  years ago i think was that attack well it's either completely accurate and then pointless or it's inaccurate it's either completely accurate as i say because we the state is the custodian of lots of fun stats what the treasury is but it's not as though we're running a safe deposit box operation here this is money that the state uses it spends it on services benefits programs contractors and vendors and its creditors so it's always using the money for something and that's true when it's if it's a defendant in a tort suit so  money be otherwise available to you i'm sorry would the money at issue be otherwise available to you could you use it in any manner that you chose well yes i mean it's some level here there's a there's a purchase order and so there is a budget item that a lot of the department of health to these things i mean here they were having the roof repaired on the building on the premises of a takes custody not titles that might be a closer case to actually call this a mere custodian situation and i think significantly i mean the same rule that maryland applies the federal government applies goes back to buchanan versus alexander and it's recognized there to be even more ancient origin and the case law has allowed entities that are more more properly viewed as stowed ians that are not the federal government but are administering funds in connection with a government program to resist a garnishment action and do so by asserting sovereign immunity  even those entities that are not sovereign but are and really are custodians get the benefit of this rule and there's no reason that the state should not go a little bit e the language of the lemons amendment says any suit in law or equity and you know on the other side is the district court acknowledged this is a suit  extract money from the state treasury page fifty nine of the of the appendix there is a check from the treasurer of the state of maryland i think representing the first installment of payment on the contract that's where the money comes from and any proceeding regardless of the former caption regardless of whether the state is itself named as a party that seeks to get money from the treasury is also barred by the limits and so on either of and that that was the basis for my line of questioning ok i don't i mean in two thousand and six or two thousand and five the states all filed i am against greece urging the court to stick with the immunity is governed by federal law the question of the scope of the rule sixty nine procedures and whether they can be used to attach state funds is governed by maryland law under will sixty nine the lead thomas versus prince george's county decision cited in our brief i think just for the standard review but relatively recent decision from this court gets into a lengthy analysis and a debate between the dissent and the majority but both sides agree that the question of a lot of the men and immunity is a federal law question the question of whether the state is waived it can be a state law question which in this in that case this court is only ever heard to this  what the department has admitted is that it owes and will pay when these assets are in frozen will see the l l c is not the judgment debtor and that the issue of whether it can be made to answer for the debts of the judgment debtor is one that the district court has stayed at the request of the plaintiff here but it's our position that we should not have to hold our assets and have the conduct of public affairs disrupted while those kinds of issues get worked out between private parties whose dispute we really don't have an interest in thank you  naming the state as garnishee is truly an action against the state because not all proceedings that involve the state are are necessarily ones that the eleventh amendment applied to let's start with is it a proceeding  ok it is a proceeding but i do not believe it is a proceeding against the state while i realized the district court did seem to concede that it was a proceeding against the state i do not believe that that is even correct the reason for that is pursuant to rule sixty nine  procedure is maryland's rule to the six four five rule two six four five g states that the proceeding against the garnishee does not rise to the level of a civil action between the judgment creditor and the garnishee unless and until there is a dispute basically until the garnishee states that they either don't owe the money or they don't have as much as what is believed and then that answer is then disputed by the judgment creditor at that point it does become an action against the state and amendment sovereign immunity would become clickable but prior to that point when there is no dispute about whether or not the money is held it's not truly an action against the state they're really at that point proceed really just a custodian and you're hundreds and that deals with the substance of nature of blue fox with a ninety nine and a plaid the case from eight hundred forty six correct well a lot of these cases when it's talking about money in the states treasury i believe it's more complicated than just that a lot of cases where there is a guy spent against the state there is a reasonable expectation that the state may retain an interest future interest in the money be it because they're the judgment debtor has disclaimed an interest or because the money is merely appropriated and the state could change its mind essentially and not pay the judgment debtor without incurring liability that's not the case here in this case the money is pursuant to a contract that had been performed and is no longer executive or there is no claim that the state of maryland has that it will in any way shape or form retain a future interest in the money all that is at issue is whom the state will pay and if they don't pay the the judgment creditors a plaintiff in this matter they acknowledge that they will pay the l l c so that's the big difference is that the state doesn't retain an interest and while technically it is in the treasury under modern accounting principles this is no longer considered really an asset on the balance sheet this would be under the liabilities column of the state yesterday the state has waived its sovereign immunity with respect t to correct under under principles the statutory construction aren't waivers of sovereign immunity strictly construed yes so if if it's way a sovereign immunity with respect to wage earners would we not infer that it has not waived that sovereign immunity with respect to the kind of creditor you have here i understand and appreciate your question that waiver of a sovereign immunity that deals with the state's public policy against attachments of funds held in the hands of the state or public officials i believe there's a case cited in the briefs of the m t a versus hooper that case basically discusses  how the sovereign immunity at that this is basically a public policy issue and the waiver of sovereign immunity is such that it deals with the sovereign immunity within the state's own courts basically it says when they are able to be held  question in the room and you may have answered this in the record is it clear from the record that the department has this money and will pay it to the l  c i believe that is correct the only question that remains is whether or not the l o c is an alter ego of towel the judgment debtor and that question is still open and the district court well that either is or it is either is clear in the record c so yes thank you but back to the procedural issues that i think that there is an interesting and now assess that can be considered when looking at an analogous situation of removal doctrine if the roles were slightly different and if it were a federal sovereign entity that were named as a garnishee in a state court and there was no dispute over whether or not the money was to the named judgment debtor the federal entity would not be able to remove the action to federal court because it truly would not be an action against the state that issue did come up in the northern district of georgia this was not the case  not found to be an action against the sovereign and it was not one that was able to be removed and also interestingly i know the state makes mention of the fact that a failure under the maryland statute to to file an answer could result in a judgment that was also the case and in georgia under the georgia statute in that west us case and in a footnote the northern district of georgia said that the united states fear of its own negligence basically fear of not responding was not sufficient to convert the action into a cause a claim against the state so for those reasons that both procedurally not an action against the state and as we were discussing previously substantive case from the ninth circuit additionally the state has discussed the public policy issues for several reasons i believe they're not a pleasurable rule sixty nine sixty nine says that it's the procedures of the state that are to be followed the procedures obviously are that in the statute rules i mean the rule rule that's two six four five say i also want to incorporate this broader public policy but that that appears to be an appropriate  the when when considering the procedures of the state district courts must apply only those provisions of state law which specifically govern the enforcement of judgments the state public policy again that had its genesis in the case also in the eighteen hundreds it's broader than the enforcement of judgments is concerned attachments of any assets held in the hands of the state for that reason that that public policy should not be applicable through  abruptly turning to mr hastert last point first about the state's public policy and the suggestion that it it should be ignored or disregarded it would not be disregarded in state court it should not be disregarded in federal court d so the cases that discuss the the limitations on the attachment remedy as a public policy as distinguished from sovereign immunity do so only because it's much broader so that it applies to public officials and municipal corporations that aren't entitled to assert sovereign immunity judge hamilton i want to just pick up your point about the blue army blue fox the parent of army the federal government has waived its protection as it's done for instance like child support under i think it's section four sixty five you can go into state court and get into a federal employees wages  if it's for child support but another case cited in our brief is the automatic sprinkler case in the seventh circuit where the same argument made by mr esther's is made there namely that the federal government really just didn't have that much of an interest in it they had in the money they admitted there in dead deadness and i think it was judge easterbrook said that just doesn't cut much ice the fact is it comes from the treasury and all money in the treasury is destined to go somewhere i occasionally we might be so lucky as to run a surplus but it's it's it's seldom the case where we're paying back our creditors our vendors our contractors we're providing benefits and services to citizens some of them federal program recipients and  not federal policy to somehow override the limitations that are imposed through will sixty nine and through maryland law in fact we've cited in our brief i think other circuits that have  reaffirmed that state law restrictions do apply even when it's the united states that is seeking to do the execution as in rocklin other than  indignity to the sovereignty of the state beyond the need to answer what else would happen to maryland in this lawsuit if it were allowed to proceed perspective that well as it is we are now so subject to multiple  claims one by the l c and one by the judge and creditor and we've had the money tied up for close to three years and we've been drawn into a dispute that honestly i see we are innocent which is why we shouldn't have to be a bystander and that's i think what the sovereign what sovereign immunity protects for us and maryland's limitations on the scope of the remedy protect us from being drawn into those kinds of employees does not apply here and your i think your on his right to suggest that the existence of a an express waiver suggests that no other waiver would is intended no none is intended none would meet their task  dero stringent test and even where there is a waiver it has to be clear that the waiver is both as to sue ability and to the place where it sued that is it has