Opinion ID: 2978524
Heading Depth: 4
Heading Rank: 3

Heading: Whether Dismissal is Proper

Text: At the final step, Rule 19(b) requires a weighing of the equities. As this court explained in Glancy: Courts are to consider at least four factors in assessing whether the action should be dismissed, including (but not limited to), first, to what extent a judgment rendered in the person’s absence might be prejudicial to the person . . .; second, the extent to which, by protective provisions in the judgment, by the shaping of relief, or other measures, the prejudice can be lessened or avoided; third, whether a judgment rendered in the person’s absence will be adequate; [and] fourth, whether the plaintiff will have an adequate remedy if the action is dismissed for nonjoinder. 373 F.3d at 672 (internal quotation marks omitted). When, however, the absent party is a sovereign, the weighing of the equities is more circumscribed. Kickapoo Tribe v. Babbitt, 43 F.3d 1491, 1498 (D.C. Cir. 1995). This is “because immunity may be viewed as one of those interests compelling by themselves.” Id. (internal quotation marks omitted); cf. Republic of the Philippines, 128 S. Ct. at 2190 (within the Rule 19(b) 4 A state official can be sued in an official capacity in federal court under Ex parte Young, 209 U.S. 123 (1908), again, though, only under certain circumstances, including that the lawsuit not “implicate[] special sovereignty issues.” Idaho v. Coeur d’Arlene Tribe of Idaho, 521 U.S. 261, 281 (1997). Plaintiffs chose not to sue any state officials in their official capacities. No. 05-2708 School District of the City of Pontiac, et al. v. Secretary Page 81 of the United States Dep’t of Educ. context, discussing the importance of the “[c]omity and dignity interests” of a foreign sovereign). As noted above, declaratory or injunctive relief in favor of Plaintiff school districts will undoubtedly call into question the viability and legality of the current statewide plans. Although the States will not strictly speaking be bound by the judgment, in practice the judgment will undoubtedly impact the States’ plans. See Provident Tradesmens Bank & Trust Co. v. Patterson, 390 U.S. 102, 110 (1968) (stating that when considering the “interest of the outsider whom it would have been desirable to join,” the court should consider the “practical” impact of a judgment on that interest). It is certainly plausible that Plaintiffs’ position—that recipients should not have to spend their own money to pay for things mandated by the Act but not fully paid for by the federal government—would be supported by the States. In fact, the State of Vermont has enacted legislation to express that very sentiment. 2005, Adj. Sess., No. 182, § 35 (“[N]either the State nor any subdivision thereof shall be required to spend any funds or incur any costs not paid for under the Act in order to comply with the Act.”). Taking a step back, though, it might very well be that some of the state officials understood that when they agreed to accept federal funds under the Act, they also agreed to use nonfederal funds to help pay for new programs, testing, etc. These officials might also have understood that were the Act read to mean what Plaintiffs contend it means, it is possible (maybe even probable) that Congress would rewrite the law with even less favorable conditions than the current version. Finally, it is also conceivable that state officials understood that meaningful improvement in the educational levels of their most disadvantaged students should not be left to unilateral decisions by local officials who might decide to forgo testing and assessment only after concluding that their students were not in fact making the improvement required by the Act. The other three enumerated factors clearly weigh in favor of dismissal. Given the sweeping nature of Plaintiffs’ claims, there is little room to fashion the relief in a way that would lessen the prejudice to the States (and their disadvantaged students) or otherwise lessen the impact on their plans. As to whether the relief that could be granted No. 05-2708 School District of the City of Pontiac, et al. v. Secretary Page 82 of the United States Dep’t of Educ. would be adequate, the court must consider this from the public’s interest “in settling disputes by wholes” rather than from Plaintiffs’ particular interest in the lawsuit. Provident, 390 U.S. at 111 (“We read the Rule’s third criterion, whether the judgment issued in the absence of the nonjoined person will be ‘adequate,’ to refer to this public stake in settling disputes by wholes, whenever possible, for clearly the plaintiff, who himself chose both the forum and the parties defendant, will not be heard to complain about the sufficiency of the relief obtainable against them.”). The relief that could be granted to Plaintiff school districts would be of little practical value by itself; subsequent changes to the statewide plans would have to be made. The fashioning of these statewide plans are complex and require considerable negotiation; they are not merely ministerial in nature. As Governor Edward G. Rendell (Pa.) explained in his amicus brief, “Educational programming and funding questions are not simply a matter of parroting what Congress has set forth in NCLB.” Amicus Br. at 16. Thus, for the school districts to get any meaningful relief, they would need the States to develop changes to their statewide plans, propose those changes to the Secretary, and negotiate with the Secretary over the appropriateness of those proposals. As to the fourth factor, Plaintiff school districts have other remedies available to them. As discussed above, the Act allows a school district to propose a plan amendment and pursue administrative and judicial remedies pursuant to 20 U.S.C. § 1231b-2 and the APA. Nothing in this justiciability analysis would preclude Plaintiff school districts from taking this route. While this case was filed back in 2005, it is quite young in litigation-terms. The lawsuit is still in its early stages—no answer has been filed, no discovery has been taken, and no trial has occurred. Thus, this is not the case where one party or the court waited until the eleventh hour to raise the absence of the States as a possible ground for dismissal. See Boone v. Warren, 166 F. App’x 818, 819-20 (6th Cir. 2006) (in weighing the equities, finding that the defendant’s failure to raise the Rule 19 issue until after the jury trial was completed and judgment entered for the plaintiff weighed against dismissal). Likewise, while the failure to intervene can weigh against dismissal in the No. 05-2708 School District of the City of Pontiac, et al. v. Secretary Page 83 of the United States Dep’t of Educ. normal course, such failure is not a consideration “where intervention would require the absent party to waive sovereign immunity.” Kickapoo Tribe, 43 F.3d at 1498. It is also true that from the standpoint of efficiency, the court might better just plow ahead regardless of these justiciability concerns, reach the merits of Plaintiffs’ legal claims, and let the chips fall where they may, as a majority of my colleagues would do. But, as this court recognized in Warshak, judicial efficiency must give way in the face of the type of intractable justiciability problems presented here. 532 F.3d at 533. Justiciability doctrines, such as ripeness in Warshak and the absence of a party here, “like all limitations on the judicial Power, prevent[] us from doing today what can be done tomorrow.” Id. (internal quotation marks and brackets omitted). Accordingly, regardless of the merits of the parties’ positions, this lawsuit should be dismissed because of the absence of the States of Michigan, Texas, and Vermont. It is true, of course, that in some other cases a political subdivision like a school district has defended against a claim by raising Spending-Clause arguments similar to those of Plaintiffs’, even though the respective States were not parties. See, e.g., Winkelman v. Parma City Sch. Dist., 550 U.S. 516 (2007); Arlington Cent. Sch. Dist. Bd. of Educ. v. Murphy, 548 U.S. 291, 301 (2006); Jackson v. Birmingham Bd. of Educ., 544 U.S. 167 (2005). The Court in those cases issued holdings that were not only binding on the parties, but also, for all practical purposes, binding as precedent on the respective States. Yet, those and other similar cases are distinguishable on several grounds. In those cases, the issue of whether the lawsuit should be dismissed in the absence of the State was not raised and, because the issue is not a jurisdictional one, the Court was not required to reach the matter on its own motion. See FPP § 1603 (“Even if the court is mistaken in its decision to proceed in the absence of an interested person, it does not by that token deprive itself of the power to adjudicate as between the parties already before it through proper service of process.” (quoting Fed. R. Civ. P. 19 advisory committee’s notes (1966))). In at least one of the cases, moreover, the respective State did participate in the proceeding as amicus curiae. See Jackson, 544 U.S. at 169 (listing the State of Alabama as amicus curiae). No. 05-2708 School District of the City of Pontiac, et al. v. Secretary Page 84 of the United States Dep’t of Educ. More importantly, the controversies in those and similar cases were narrower in scope than those presented in this lawsuit. Winkelman resolved whether parents could pursue claims under the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (“IDEA”) on their own without the assistance of legal counsel. 550 U.S. at 535. The Court specifically noted that its ruling did “not impose any substantive condition or obligation on States they would not otherwise be required by law to observe.” Id. at 534. In Arlington School District, the Court considered whether expert fees were “costs” under the IDEA and thereby recoverable under the act’s fee-shifting provision. 548 U.S. at 304. Even Jackson, arguably the most far-reaching of the decisions listed above, involved the rather isolated question of whether recipients of federal funds could be held liable for intentional sex discrimination in the form of retaliation under Title IX. 544 U.S. at 18384. In contrast, Plaintiffs here pursue a challenge to the fundamental tenets of the Act itself. It cannot be seriously questioned that the Act is markedly different under the parties’ respective views. According to Plaintiffs’ view, after the federal government appropriates funds, after the Department of Education sets its priorities, after the States set their own priorities and spending, then someone gets to decide whether a particular program or requirement is or becomes “underfunded” and, if so, then the district need not spend any funds on that program or requirement. According to the Secretary’s view, though, the federal government offers the States an all-or-nothing proposition—accept the funds and all of the duties, or go it alone without the funds or any of the duties. Every “shall” means “may,” every command simply an option, funding permitting—versus—“shall” means “shall” regardless of funding. It is hard to fathom a more divergent set of views of how a federal-funding statute is supposed to work. This is not a case brought by a recipient or other interested party involving a concrete proposal within a specific factual context. As explained earlier, Plaintiffs could have brought that type of claim after first pursuing their administrative remedies. Having decided to go a different route, they should be confronted with the question of whether they can travel that route alone. I believe that they cannot. No. 05-2708 School District of the City of Pontiac, et al. v. Secretary Page 85 of the United States Dep’t of Educ.