Document ID: s3://data.kl3m.ai/documents/govinfo/USCOURTS/USCOURTS-ca8-15-03348/USCOURTS-ca8-15-03348-0/pdf.json

Parties Involved:
Bi-State Development Agency of the Missouri-Illinois Metropolitan District
Appellant
Eager Road and Associates, LLC
Not Party
United States of America
Not Party
United States of America ex rel. Eric Fields
Appellee

Document Text:

United States Court of Appeals

For the Eighth Circuit

___________________________

No. 15-3348

___________________________

United States of America ex rel. Eric Fields

lllllllllllllllllllll Plaintiff - Appellee

v.

Bi-State Development Agency of the Missouri-Illinois Metropolitan District,

doing business as Metro

lllllllllllllllllllll Defendant - Appellant

Eager Road and Associates, LLC

lllllllllllllllllllll Defendant

United States of America

lllllllllllllllllllllMovant

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Appeal from United States District Court 

for the Eastern District of Missouri - St. Louis

____________

 Submitted: April 14, 2016

 Filed: July 13, 2016

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Before GRUENDER, BRIGHT, and KELLY, Circuit Judges.

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Appellate Case: 15-3348 Page: 1 Date Filed: 07/13/2016 Entry ID: 4425295 
GRUENDER, Circuit Judge.

Eric Fields brought a qui tam lawsuit against Bi-State Development Agency

ofthe Missouri-IllinoisMetropolitan District(“Bi-State”) and Eager Road Associates,

LLC (“Eager Road”). Fields alleged that Bi-State and Eager Road made false claims

to receive federal public-transit funds through the Department of Transportation and

the Federal Transit Administration. The district court denied Bi-State’s motion for

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summary judgement. We dismiss Bi-State’s appeal for lack of jurisdiction. 

Bi-State is a “body corporate and politic” created through a compact between

the states of Missouri and Illinois for the purpose of constructing and operating public

transit systems and other public facilities in the St. Louis metropolitan region. See

Mo. Rev. Stat. § 70.370. Fields worked as an engineer for Bi-State from 2003 to

2012. In 2014, Fields sued his former employer under the qui tam provision of the

False Claims Act, 31 U.S.C. § 3730(b) (“FCA”), alleging that Bi-State falsely had

certified its compliance with both the Hatch Act, 5 U.S.C. §§ 7321-7326, and the

Uniform Relocation Assistance and Real Property Acquisition Policies Act of 1970,

42 U.S.C. § 4601, in order to receive federal public-transit funds. 

Bi-State moved for summary judgment on all claims against it, arguing that it

is not a “person” subject to suit under the FCA. See Vt. Agency of Nat. Res. v. U.S.

ex rel. Stevens, 529 U.S. 765, 787-88 (2000) (concluding that states and state

agencies are not “persons” and thus are not subject to liability under the FCA). The

district court disagreed. After conducting the “arm of the state” analysis set forth in

Barket, Levy & Fine, Inc. v. St. Louis Thermal Energy Corporation, 948 F.2d 1084,

1086-88 (8th Cir. 1991), the district court found that Bi-State should be characterized

as a local-government entity rather than an arm of the state. Because such an entity

The Honorable Rodney W. Sippel, Chief Judge, United States District Court

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for the Eastern District of Missouri.

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qualifies as a “person” subject to liability under the FCA, see Cook Cty. v. U.S. ex rel.

Chandler, 538 U.S. 119, 122 (2003), the district court denied Bi-State’s motion for

summary judgment. Bi-State appeals that decision.

Bi-State argues that the district court erred by denying summary judgment

because Bi-State is not a “person” for the purposes of the FCA and because Bi-State’s

status as an “arm of the state” entitles it to sovereign immunity under the Eleventh

Amendment. Despite the general rule that a denial of summary judgment is not a

final order and therefore not appealable, Reich v. ConAgra, Inc., 987 F.2d 1357, 1362

n.6 (8th Cir. 1993), appellate courts have jurisdiction to hear the interlocutory appeal

of a district court’s denial of summary judgment based on sovereign immunity, see

Puerto Rico Aqueduct & Sewer Auth. v. Metcalf & Eddy, Inc., 506 U.S. 139, 144

(1993) (recognizing that such appeals fall within the “small class” of interlocutory

appeals permitted under the collateral order doctrine (quoting Cohen v. Beneficial

Indus. Loan Corp., 337 U.S. 541, 546 (1949))).

Our review of the record, however, reveals that the issue of Bi-State’s

immunity is not properly before us. At no point during the proceedings before the

district court did Bi-State claim that it was entitled to sovereign immunity. Bi-State’s

motion for summary judgment argued only that it is not a “person” under the FCA,

and the district court’s denial of summary judgement addressed only that question. 

We acknowledge that Bi-State’s argument involved the same “arm of the state”

analysis that courts use to determine Eleventh Amendment immunity. See U.S. ex rel.

Lesinski v. S. Fl. Water Mgmt. Dist., 739 F.3d 598, 602 (11th Cir. 2014) (collecting

FCA cases applying the “arm of the state” factors). However, as the Supreme Court

has recognized, whether an entity falls under the scope of the FCA is an issue distinct

from whether the Eleventh Amendment provides the entity with immunity from suit. 

See Vt. Agency, 529 U.S. at 779 (explaining that the Court would determine whether

the FCA permitted the action in question before proceeding to the issue of sovereign

immunity). Indeed, Bi-State’s motion for summary judgment highlighted an

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important difference between these two inquiries when it noted that the FCA places

the burden on the plaintiff to demonstrate that the defendant falls within the scope of

the statute. In contrast, all of our sister circuits to address the issue have recognized

that an entity asserting Eleventh Amendment immunity bears the burden of showing

its entitlement to such immunity. See U.S. ex rel. Oberg v. Pa. Higher Educ.

Assistance Agency, 745 F.3d 131, 147 (4th Cir. 2014) (collecting cases).

This court does not reach issuesthat the parties did not raise below. See Taylor

v. Sw. Bell Tel. Co., 251 F.3d 735, 740 (8th Cir. 2001). Because Bi-State did not

argue before the district court that it was entitled to sovereign immunity under the

Eleventh Amendment, the only issue before usisBi-State’s status as a “person” under

the FCA. We lack jurisdiction to decide this statutory question in the context of BiState’s interlocutory appeal from the district court’s denial of summary judgment.

See Reich, 987 F.2d at 1362 n.6.

For the foregoing reasons, we dismiss this appeal for lack of jurisdiction.

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