Source: s3://data.kl3m.ai/documents/govinfo/USCOURTS/USCOURTS-cand-3_14-cv-03226/USCOURTS-cand-3_14-cv-03226-6/pdf.json

Nature of Suit Code: 450
Nature of Suit: Interstate Commerce
Cause of Action: 28:1331 Fed. Question: Interstate Commerce Act

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United States District Court

For the Northern District of California

UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT

NORTHERN DISTRICT OF CALIFORNIA

ASANTE, et al.,

Plaintiffs,

v.

CALIFORNIA DEPARTMENT OF 

HEALTH CARE SERVICES, et al.,

Defendants.

Case No. 14-cv-03226-EMC 

ORDER DENYING RETROACTIVE 

RELIEF

Docket Nos. 69, 70

I. INTRODUCTION

On December 21, 2015, this Court issued its order granting Plaintiffs‟ motion for partial 

summary judgment on the grounds that the discrimination in payments to out-of-state hospitals 

violates the dormant Commerce Clause. Asante v. California Dep’t of Health Care Servs., No. 

14-CV-03226-EMC, 2015 WL 9269666, at *26 (N.D. Cal. Dec. 21, 2015). This order addresses 

parties‟ supplemental briefing on the availability of retroactive damages and sovereign immunity. 

II. BACKGROUND

The parties and the Court are familiar with the factual and procedural background in this 

case, and the Court will only discuss the background that is relevant to the supplemental briefing.

In its December 21, 2015 Order, the Court found, inter alia, that the disparity between the 

Medicaid reimbursement amounts the California Department of Health Care Services (“The 

Department”) paid to in-state and out-of-state hospitals serving California Medi-Cal beneficiaries 

violated the dormant Commerce Clause. Id. 

On July 1, 2013, the Department implemented the All Patient Refined Diagnosis Related 

Group (“APR-DRG”). Id. at *3. The APR-ARG reimbursement scheme excluded out-of-state 

hospitals from various wage indices, rural, and policy adjustments:

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(1) The Department increased the labor component of the “base 

price” of each in-state hospital by using the Medicare wage index 

for the geographical area in which the hospital is located, but made 

no such adjustment for out-of-state hospitals;

(2) The Department increased the labor component of the “base 

price” of each in-state hospital by using the California “rural floor” 

wage index, but made no such adjustment for out-of-state hospitals;

(3) The Department increased the labor component of the “base 

price” of each in-state hospital by using the Medicare wage index 

for the area in which the hospital has been reclassified in California, 

but makes no such adjustment for out-of-state hospitals;

(4) The Department had classified 52 in-state hospitals as “remote 

rural” and significantly increased their “base price,” but made it 

impossible for out-of-state hospitals to be classified as “remote 

rural”;

(5) The Department had classified 21 in-state hospitals as “NICUSurgery,” and increased by 75% the payments they receive for 

neonate cases, but made it impossible for out-of-state hospitals to be 

classified as “NICU-Surgery”;

(6) In its outlier calculations the Department used a hospital-specific 

CCR for each in-state hospital, but for out-of-state hospitals applied 

a fixed Medicare CCR of 22% that is much lower than the average 

Medi-Cal CCR of California hospitals.

Id. at *21. 

The Court held that the Department rules under the APR-ARG reimbursement scheme in 

effect until 2015 discriminated against out-of-state hospitals in violation of the dormant 

Commerce Clause.1 Id. On September 29, 2015, the Department obtained the approval of the new 

State Plan Amendment 15-020 (“15-020 Amendment”). Id. at *5. The 15-020 Amendment 

changed the APR-DRG policies concerning the wage index, remote rural base price, NICU policy 

adjustment, and CCR with respect to out-of-state border hospitals:

 

1

“The discrimination here is facial. For example, before the 15-020 Amendment, the Department 

applied a uniform wage index 1.0 to all out-of-state hospitals. Rowan Decl. ¶ 8. Thus, a 

California hospital with a wage index of 1.5 was receiving 34% more per Medi-Cal discharge than 

an out-of-state hospital with the same wage index. Compl. ¶ 16. In addition, a remote rural 

California hospital was receiving a base price of $10,218, while a similarly situated out-of-state 

hospital was receiving a base price of $6,223. Moreover, the Department estimates that the 15-

020 Amendment will increase Medi-Cal out-of-state expenditures by $1.4 million per year. D‟s 

RJN, Ex. C at 1007.” Id. at *21 n.27. 

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(1) For California hospitals and border hospitals, the Department 

will apply the same hospital specific wage area index value that the 

Medicare program applies to that hospital, further adjusted by the 

California Wage Area Neutrality Adjustment of .9797. Rowan 

Decl., Ex. B at 17.49.

(2) If a border hospital is defined as a rural hospital by the federal 

Medicare program and meets the California State Plan definition of 

a “remote” hospital and complies with the State Plan non-combined 

license/provider number standard, it will qualify for the remote rural 

base price. Rowan Decl. ¶ 24.

(3) A border hospital will qualify for the 1.75 policy adjustor for a 

neonate hospital stay if the hospital submits an application for 

neonatal intensive care unit status to California Children‟s Services. 

Rowan Decl. ¶ 25.

(4) For border hospitals, the cost-to-charge ratio used to determine 

outlier payments will be based on a formula using data from the 

Medicare average cost-to-charge ratios for operating and capital 

costs for hospitals in the state in which the border hospital is located. 

Rowan Decl. ¶ 25.

Id. at *5.

The effective date of these changes was July 1, 2015. Id. Plaintiffs asserted that even after 

the enactment of the 15-020 Amendment, out-of-state hospitals did not receive: (1) the California 

“rural” floor wage index; (2) Medicare wage index reclassifications; (3) the “remote rural” 

definition for out-of-state hospitals remains very restrictive; and (4) a cost-to-charge ratio that is 

based on Medicaid (35%), rather than Medicare (22%) patients. Id. at *24. The Court agreed that 

“[t]here remains disparity between in-and out-of-state hospitals because out-of-state hospitals are 

being paid less.”2 Id. at *25. Because even a “„slight disparity in the treatment of in-state and outof-state interests may offend the dormant commerce clause,‟” the Court concluded that the 

Department unconstitutionally discriminates against out-of-state hospitals even after the 15-020

 

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“If out-of-state hospitals received the „rural‟ floor wage index, their base prices would have 

increased by 15.7%. Vaida Decl. ¶ 13. Moreover, the remote rural base price is higher than a 

regular base price by 64%. ($10, 218 v. $6,223). Id.; Compl. ¶ 18. In addition, California hospitals 

receive Medicare wage index reclassifications that increase their wage index values. Vaida Decl. ¶ 

13. Finally, the cost-to-charge ratio for out-of-state hospitals is 22%, whereas for California 

hospitals the cost-to-charge ratio is 35%. P‟s MSJ at 14. A hospital‟s estimated cost on a 

discharge claim is determined by multiplying the Medi-Cal covered charges by a cost-to-charge 

ratio. Vaida Decl. ¶ 22. If there is a loss, then the hospital may qualify for a substantial additional 

payment. The higher the cost-to-charge ratio, the more likely it is that there will be a loss and thus 

an additional outlier payment.” Id. at *25. 

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Amendment. Id. at *26. (quoting Children’s Hosp. & Med. Ctr. v. Bontá, 97 Cal. App. 4th 740, 

766 (2002)).

III. DISCUSSION

At the outset, the Court notes that Plaintiffs expressly waived federal claims, stating that 

the state complaint contains only state law causes of action and seeks only remedies provided for 

under California law. Docket No. 70 at 1 (“P‟s SB”). Plaintiffs expressly now disavow any direct 

federal causes of action, seeking relief solely under writ of mandate pursuant to California Code of 

Civil Procedure § 1085. P‟s SB at 1 (stating that “[t]he Hospitals‟ State Court Complaint contains 

no federal causes of action and seeks no remedies under federal law.”). Moreover, the Department 

only challenges retrospective relief effective prior to the date of this Court‟s summary judgment 

order (December 21, 2015) and does not assert a sovereign immunity defense as to prospective 

relief; in fact, the Department does not assert any other procedural obstacle to prospective relief if 

a commerce clause violation is found.

A. Retrospective Relief

1. Legal Standard

California courts have articulated two basic requirements that are essential to the issuance 

of a writ of mandate under the Code of Civil Procedure section 1085: “(1) A clear, present and 

usually ministerial duty upon the part of the respondent; and (2) a clear, present and beneficial 

right in the petitioner to the performance of that duty. Shamsian v. Department of Conservation,

136 Cal. App. 4th 621, 640 (2006). „However, the writ will not lie to control discretion conferred 

upon a public officer or agency. [Citations].‟” Hulings v. State Dept. of Health Care Services, 159 

Cal. App. 4th 1114, 1120 (2008). Mandamus is the proper remedy only where the act or duty is 

purely ministerial, and the act or duty is one that is clearly and plainly established or imposed by 

law. A ministerial duty is one that is required to be performed in a prescribed manner under the 

mandate of legal authority without the exercise of discretion or judgment. Cty. of San Diego v. 

State, 164 Cal. App. 4th 580, 593 (2008). Issuance of a writ of mandate “„is not necessarily a 

matter of right, but lies rather in the discretion of the court, but where one has a substantial right to 

protect or enforce, and this may be accomplished by such a writ, and there is no other plain, 

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speedy and adequate remedy in the ordinary course of law, [the petitioner] is entitled as a matter of 

right to the writ, or perhaps more correctly, in other words, it would be an abuse of discretion to 

refuse it.”‟ Powers v. City of Richmond, 10 Cal. 4th 85, 114 (1995).

The Department contends that “[w]hile the dormant Commerce Clause establishes a 

general obligation of non-discrimination to out-of-state interests, it does not establish any „clear, 

present, and ministerial‟ duties with respect to the specific acts that Defendants are required to 

take in applying its principles to the highly complex details of Medi-Cal reimbursement to out-ofstate hospitals.” D‟s SB at 14. The Court agrees.

The kinds of conduct violative of “ministerial” duties under § 1085 have been described 

variously: e.g., where “the Department failed to perform an act despite having a clear and present 

ministerial duty to do so,” Riverside Sheriff’s Assn. v. County of Riverside, 106 Cal. App. 4th 

1285, 1289 (2003) (emphasis added); “[w]here a statute requires an officer to do a prescribed act

upon a prescribed contingency, his functions are ministerial . . . .” Rodriguez v. Solis, 1 Cal. App. 

4th 495, 504-05 (1991) (emphasis added); “to compel state officers to disburse funds specifically 

appropriated . . . .” Los Angeles Cty. v. State Dep’t of Pub. Health, 158 Cal. App. 2d at 430 

(emphasis added). 

Typically, these cases invoke a situation where a public entity refuses to release funds in 

accordance with a clear and simple statutory duty. For instance, in Cty. of Sacramento v. Lackner, 

97 Cal. App. 3d 576, 586-87 (Cal. Ct. App. 1979), the county sued the Department seeking to 

force the release of reimbursement monies allegedly withheld in violation of clear statutory duty. 

In that case, the Department declared a fiscal emergency and imposed a 10 percent cutback in 

payments to health care providers. Id. at 581. The Court of Appeal stated: “plaintiffs sought to 

compel the state to disburse funds in the manner provided by the Medi-Cal statutes. While the 

action has the practical effect of awarding plaintiffs money (which has routinely been referred to 

as “damages” by all parties), in law it is simply an action in mandamus to compel by ministerial

act the release of funds, not one for damages from the sovereign.” Id. at 588 (emphasis added). 

Accord County of L.A. v. State Dept. Pub. Health, 158 Cal. App. 2d 425, 430-32 (1958) 

(mandamus appropriate to force state agency to release identified tuberculosis subsidies; there was 

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a statutory duty to pay a subsidy to any city or county maintaining a tuberculosis ward or hospital 

of $1.75 to $2.60 per patient day “for each person in the active stages of tuberculosis cared for 

therein at public expense who is unable to pay for his support.” ); County of Los Angeles v. Riley, 

20 Cal.2d 652, 653-54, 656 (1942) (mandamus to force the state to recalculate credit for aid 

payments prescribed by Welfare and Institutions Code); California Hosp. Ass’n v Maxwell-Jolly, 

188 Cal. App. 4th 559, 566, 578, as modified on denial of reh’g (Sept. 16, 2010) (mandamus to 

reverse the Department‟s attempt to apply a 20 percent exclusion in calculating reimbursement 

rates rather than factors set forth in 42 U.S.C. § 1396a(a)(30)(A)); California Assn. for Health 

Servs. at Home v. State Dep’t of Health Care Servs., 204 Cal. App. 4th 676, 679, 683-84 (2012) 

(mandamus to force the Department to comply with federal Medicaid and Medi-Cal laws to 

review reimbursement rates paid to providers of home health care services as required by 42 

U.S.C. § 1396a(a)(30)(A); Mission Hosp. Reg’l Med. Ctr. v. Shewry, 168 Cal. App. 4th 460, 473-

74, 476 (2008) (mandamus to enjoin the Department from adopting a freeze on the reimbursement 

rates paid to noncontract hospitals for inpatient services without complying with public notice and 

comment period as required by 42 U.S.C. § 1396a(a)(13)(A)(i)-(iii)); Indep. Living Ctr. of S. 

California, Inc. v. Maxwell-Jolly, 572 F.3d 644, 648 (9th Cir. 2009) vacated and remanded sub 

nom. Douglas v. Indep. Living Ctr. of S. California, Inc., 132 S.Ct. 1204 (2012) (mandamus to 

enjoin the Department from reducing payments to certain medical service providers by ten 

percent). 

At oral argument, Plaintiffs argued that the finding of clear and ministerial duty in the case 

at bar exists because damages owed are calculable. The argument is not persuasive. First, 

calculation of damages is not as simple as, e.g., restoring a 10% across-the-board cut or releasing a 

pre-identified fund. Instead, as the briefing on the motions for summary judgment and prospective 

relief demonstrates, as to precisely what level of payments is needed to satisfy the dormant 

Commerce Clause was subject to extensive debate. For example, there was a substantial 

disagreement concerning the use of (1) a weighted or an unweighted average and (2) the “mean” 

or the “median” ratios in calculating the proper cost-to-charge ratios for out-of-state hospitals 

Below is the illustration of some of the highly technical and contested disputes between the 

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parties:

(1) Border hospitals will be assigned a CCR that is equal to the 

sum of (a) the unweighted average of the Medicare reported average 

urban CCR and the Medicare reported average rural CCR of 

operating costs for hospitals in the state in which the border hospital 

is located, and (b) the Medicare reported average CCR of capital 

costs for hospitals in the state in which the border hospital is located. 

State Plan Amendment (SPA) 15-020, approved by CMS on 

September 29, 2015, Attachment 4.19-A at 17.50. In their 

calculations of the unaudited CCRs for 416 California hospitals for 

state fiscal year 2015/2016 Plaintiffs relied only on the “unweighted 

average.” The Department argued, however, that the “unweighted 

average” is not a reliable statistic because it treats “the CCRs of all 

the hospitals the same, regardless of the Medi-Cal days rendered by 

each hospital. For example in an unweighted average calculation, 

the CCR of a hospital that provided only 50 Medi-Cal days would 

be treated the same as the CCR of a hospital that provided 10,000 

Medi-Cal days. An unweighted average is also inflated by 

extremely high and potentially flawed unaudited CCRs. A weighted 

average would weigh each hospital‟s CCR based on the number of 

Medi-Cal days or stays provided.” Docket No. 72; Defendants‟

Exh. 2, fn. 3; see also Defendants‟ Exh. 3 (“Examples of the 

Difference Between Unweighted and Weighted Average”).

(2) In addition to its APR-DRG payments, the Department also 

makes “outlier payments.” According to the Department, “outlier 

payments are appropriate because it is not always possible for the 

DRG grouper to capture the idiosyncrasies of individual stays.” 

Johnson Decl., Ex. 3. Outlier payments are determined by 

calculating a hospital‟s estimated cost and comparing it to the APRDRG payment to see if there is a loss or gain for the hospital for that 

claim. Vaida Decl. ¶ 22. The DRG Hospital‟s estimated cost on a 

discharge claim is determined by multiplying the Medi-Cal covered 

charges by the DRG Hospital‟s most currently accepted cost-tocharge ratio (CCR) from a hospital‟s CMS 2552-10 cost report. 

State Plan Amendment (SPA) 15-020, approved by CMS on 

September 29, 2015, Attachment 4.19-A at 17.49; Rowan Suppl. 

Decl. Ex. A. The CCR is calculated from a hospital‟s Medicaid 

costs divided by the Medicaid charges. Id. The parties debated 

whether to use the “mean” or the “median”3in the outlier 

calculations: “The Department has suggested that for out-of-state 

hospitals the median rather than the mean of California hospital 

cost-to-charge ratios (“CCRs”) should be used in its outlier 

calculations. The median is not the appropriate statistic in this case. 

This is because the median conveys less information than the mean. 

The median only uses the rank ordering of data values, and not the 

individual data values themselves.” Docket No. 72 (“Joint Report 

Regarding Outcome of Meet and Confer”) at 10 (citing Vaida 

Decl.). According to Plaintiffs, “[i]n the context of using CCRs for 

 

3 Defendants have recently determined that the “median” unaudited cost-to-charge ratio for 

California hospitals for 2015/2016 data is 25.89%. Docket No. 72 at 8. 

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outlier payments the mean reflects the aggregate payments made to 

California hospitals, while the median does not. Thus, to create 

parity in outlier payments between in-state and out-of-state hospitals 

the mean is the statistic that should be used. The use of the median 

would not create parity between in-state and out-of-state hospitals.4” 

Docket No. 72 (“Joint Report Regarding Outcome of Meet and 

Confer”) at 10 (citing Vaida Decl.).

(3) Plaintiffs‟ proposal that Defendants be required to apply the 

California “rural floor wage index” adjusted by .9797 to border 

hospitals, would be inconsistent with the benchmark Medicare wage 

index that CMS approved for Medi-Cal in the state plan. It would 

also be inconsistent with what Congress expressly authorized for the 

Medicare program – that the California rural floor wage index only 

applies to California hospitals, and that different wage indexes apply 

to hospitals in other states. Thus, by adopting this Medicare wage 

index policy for the Medi-Cal DRG reimbursement methodology, 

the same wage index policy is applied to both California and border 

hospitals. Id. at 14. 

Second, the issue is not simply the ultimate calculability of damages, but also the clarity of 

the duty breached. The dormant Commerce Clause imposes a broad and somewhat amorphous 

duty not to “discriminate against interstate commerce.” New Energy Co. of Ind. v. Limbach, 486 

U.S. 269, 273 (1988). See L. Tribe, American Constitutional Law 439 (2d ed. 1988) (“The 

Supreme Court‟s approach to commerce clause issues . . . often appears to turn more on ad hoc 

reactions to particular cases than on any consistent application of coherent principles.”). Unlike in 

writ of mandate cases listed above, the court must undertake a close and somewhat complex 

analysis that involves judgment rather than a simple ministerial determination. For instance, in

addition to finding that “a state statute directly regulates or discriminates against interstate 

commerce, or [whether] its effect is to favor in-state economic interests over out-of-state 

interests,” Brown-Forman Distillers Corp. v. N.Y. State Liquor Auth., 476 U.S. 573, 579 (1986), a 

determination that can be complicated where there are dissimilar circumstances between in and 

out-of-state entities, the court must determine if the challenged law advances a legitimate local 

purpose that cannot be adequately served by reasonable nondiscriminatory alternatives. Dep’t of 

Revenue of Ky. v. Davis, 553 U.S. 328, 338 (2008). The court must also determine whether there 

 

4

This is because “the median is used only if the dataset is small in which one very large or very 

small outlier value may unduly skew the mean. In such a situation it may be preferable to use the 

median even if it conveys less information. However, that is not the case [where] there are 416 

different data points in the set of California hospital CCRs.” Docket No. 72 at 10. 

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is Congressional authorization of the challenged scheme which would obviate any Commerce 

Clause problem. See White v. Massachusetts Council of Const. Emp’rs, Inc., 460 U.S. 204, 213 

(1983); Merrion v. Jicarilla Apache Tribe, 455 U.S. 130, 155 (1982). In fact, this Court engaged 

in extensive analysis of this issue before finding a Commerce Clause violation. See Asante, 2015 

WL 9269666, at *14-19.

While a writ of mandate under CCP § 1085 may also issue where the public entity fails to 

compel the exercise of discretion, Common Cause v. Bd. of Supervisors, 49 Cal. 3d 432, 442 

(1989), here the Department did exercise its discretion in establishing a detailed reimbursement 

scheme for out-of-state border hospitals. What Plaintiffs take issue with is the way in which the 

Department exercised that discretion. But as noted above, a writ of mandate under § 1085 does 

“not lie to control the discretion conferred upon a public officer or agency.” Hulings, 159 Cal. 

App. 4th at 1120. It lies only where that exercise violates a clear ministerial duty. To construe § 

1085 to reach any constitutional violation no matter how complex as an abuse of discretion would 

swallow the express limitations of the statute. 

Plaintiffs rely on Children’s Hosp. & Med. Ctr. v. Bontá, 97 Cal. App. 4th 740 (2002). 

Plaintiffs contend that “[i]n Children’s Hospital, a case which presented identical Commerce 

Clause claims to the ones here and is directly on point, the Court awarded petitioners $6,088,263 

in retroactive Medi-Cal reimbursement.” P‟s SB at 11. In that case, 11 out-of-state hospitals from 

Nevada, Oregon, and Arizona sued the Department claiming that the difference between the 

reimbursement of in-state and out-of-state hospitals for treatment of Medi-Cal beneficiaries 

violated the Commerce Clause. Bontá, 97 Cal. App. 4th at 747, 752. The court found that 

defendants had undercompensated plaintiffs, in violation of state and federal constitutional 

standards. Id. at 758-772. However, plaintiffs‟ right to reimbursement in Bontá was not based on 

writ of mandate under CCP § 1085. Instead, Bontá involved a direct cause of action under the 

federal Medicaid Act pertaining to the compensation of out-of-state hospitals. 5Id. at 747-48. 

 

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In Bontá, the Court of Appeal stated: “The Eleventh Amendment only restricts the United Statesthat is, Congress-from subjecting unconsenting states to lawsuits by citizens of the same or 

another state. The Medicaid Act was not designed for and does not achieve that proscribed 

purpose; and the fact that violations of the Medicaid Act may result in or exacerbate violations of 

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Bontá did not address the sole remedial basis asserted here – writ of mandate under CCP § 1085. 

Because there is no clear, ministerial duty in this case, Plaintiffs cannot rely on writ of 

mandate under § 1085 to recover retroactive damages. 

B. Sovereign Immunity

The parties debate whether section 1085 waives sovereign immunity or should be 

interpreted as providing a relief which coexists with it. There is no need to answer this question 

because section 1085 does not apply to this action. In addition to section 1085, Plaintiffs are 

relying on California Code of Civil Procedure § 1095 as an explicit waiver of sovereign immunity. 

Section 1095 states: “If judgment be given for the applicant, the applicant may recover the 

damages which the applicant has sustained, as found by the jury, or as may be determined by the 

court or referee, upon a reference to be ordered, together with costs; and a peremptory mandate 

must also be awarded without delay.” Cal. Civ. Proc. Code § 1095. Because section 1095 

“merely authorizes damages in a mandamus proceeding where such damages are otherwise 

appropriate,” section 1095 does not apply here without a valid writ of mandate claim as a 

predicate.

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 State of California v. Superior Court, 12 Cal. 3d 237, 246 (1974). 

 

constitutional requirements does not in and of itself implicate the doctrine of sovereign immunity. 

Because the rights asserted by respondents in this action derive from the Constitutions of this state 

and nation, not from any private right of action created by Congress, Alden does not subject them 

to the bar of the Eleventh Amendment.” Bontá, 97 Cal. App. 4th at 757-58.

6

Plaintiffs relied on Santa Rosa Memorial Hospital, et al. v. David Maxwell-Jolly, et al., (No 

CPF-09-509658, S.F. Super. Ct., Jan. 19, 2016) to argue that section 1095 is a waiver of sovereign 

immunity as to some form of monetary relief. In that case, Judge Kahn stated:

CCP provides for “damages” against “a public entity” and the 

phrase “public entity” is defined to include “the state . . . or other 

public agency or public corporation.” Though I could not find a 

case so holding, the use of the word “damages” without any 

limitation in the context of a statute that explicitly applies to the 

State of California and all its agencies and officials demonstrates 

that CCP 1095 is a waiver of sovereign immunity as to some form of 

monetary relief that is awarded on a mandamus claim. 

Santa Rosa Memorial Hospital, No CPF-09-509658 at *5. The Court is not convinced that § 1095 

alone waives sovereign immunity, at least when a claim for writ of mandate does not lie under § 

1085. Notably, in State of California v. Superior Court, 12 Cal.3d 237, 115 (1974), the California 

Supreme Court held that imposing liability on the authority of section 1095 alone “would be 

tantamount to a repeal of sections [that immunize a public entity and public employee from 

liability for failure to issue a permit] since a cause of action for damages would be appropriate 

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United States District Court

For the Northern District of California

IV. CONCLUSION

For the foregoing reasons, the Court DENIES Plaintiffs‟ motion for retroactive relief. 

This order disposes of Docket Nos. 69 and 70. 

IT IS SO ORDERED.

Dated: April 12, 2016

______________________________________

EDWARD M. CHEN

United States District Judge

 

each time a permit was denied if the demand for damages was combined with a petition for writ of 

mandate to compel the issuance of the permit.” 

Case 3:14-cv-03226-EMC Document 82 Filed 04/12/16 Page 11 of 11