Opinion ID: 4556840
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: The Doctrine of Intergovernmental Immunity

Text: The United States’ claims against Washington invoke the doctrine of intergovernmental immunity. That doctrine “derive[s] from the Supremacy Clause of the Federal Constitution, U.S. Const., art. VI, which mandates that ‘the activities of the Federal Government are free from regulation by any state.’” United States v. California, 921 F.3d 865, 878 (9th Cir. 2019) (quoting Boeing Co. v. Movassaghi, 768 F.3d 832, 839 (9th Cir. 2014)), cert. denied, —S. Ct.—, 2020 WL 3146844 (U.S. June 15, 2020). The doctrine traces its origins to “the Supreme Court’s decision in McCulloch v. Maryland, which established that ‘the states have no power, by taxation or otherwise, to retard, impede, burden, or in any manner control, the operations of the constitutional laws enacted by congress to carry into execution the powers vested in the general government.’” U.S. v. City of Arcata, 629 F.3d 986, 991 (9th Cir. 2010) (quoting McCulloch v. Maryland, 17 U.S. (4 Wheat.) 316, 436 (1819)). Pursuant to UNITED STATES V. STATE OF WASHINGTON 11 the doctrine, “state laws are invalid if they ‘regulate[] the United States directly or discriminate [ ] against the Federal Government or those with whom it deals.’” Boeing, 768 F.3d at 839 (quoting North Dakota v. United States, 495 U.S. 423, 435 (1990) (plurality decision)). This is so “unless Congress provides ‘clear and unambiguous’ authorization for such regulation.” Goodyear Atomic Corp. v. Miller, 486 U.S. 174, 180 (1988) (quoting EPA v. State Water Res. Control Bd., 426 U.S. 200, 211 (1976)) (emphasis added). By its terms, HB 1723 is a state workers’ compensation law that applies only to individuals who perform work at the Hanford site “directly or indirectly, for the United States.” Wash. Rev. Code § 51.32.187(1)(b). Both sides agree that § 3172 waives the Federal Government’s immunity from state workers’ compensation laws. Our understanding of § 3172’s predecessor statute would support that conclusion. See Begay v. Kerr-McGee Corp., 682 F.2d 1311, 1319 (9th Cir. 1982) (concluding that 40 U.S.C. § 290 “unambiguously permits application of state workers’ compensation laws to all United States territory within the state.”). The United States and Washington disagree, however, about whether § 3172 permits workers’ compensation laws that apply uniquely to the workers of those with whom the Federal Government deals. Our resolution of § 3172’s scope will determine whether HB 1723 falls within the waiver and, thus, whether HB 1723 violates the doctrine of intergovernmental immunity. II. Section 3172’s Waiver of Immunity Encompasses HB 1723 To ascertain § 3172’s scope, we “begin[] with the plain language of the statute.” Jimenez v. Quarterman, 555 U.S. 113, 118 (2009). “[W]e examine not only the specific provision at issue, but also the structure of the statute as a 12 UNITED STATES V. STATE OF WASHINGTON whole, including its object and policy.” United States v. Lillard, 935 F.3d 827, 833 (9th Cir. 2019) (citation omitted). Section 3172(a) provides that: The state authority charged with enforcing and requiring compliance with the state workers’ compensation laws and with the orders, decisions, and awards of the authority may apply the laws to all land and premises in the State which the Federal Government owns or holds by deed or act of cession, and to all projects, buildings, constructions, improvements, and property in the State and belonging to the Government, in the same way and to the same extent as if the premises were under the exclusive jurisdiction of the State in which the land, premises, projects, buildings, constructions, improvements, or property are located. 40 U.S.C. § 3172(a). We do not consider the meaning of this text on a blank slate. In Goodyear Atomic Corp. v. Miller, the Supreme Court addressed the predecessor statute to § 3172. In Goodyear, a private contractor operating a federally owned nuclear production facility challenged an Ohio workers’ compensation law that provided a supplemental workers’ compensation award for injuries resulting from an employer’s violation of a state safety regulation. 486 U.S. at 176. Assuming that the Ohio law was “sufficiently akin to direct regulation . . . to be potentially barred by the Supremacy Clause,” the Court concluded that “§ 290 provides the requisite clear congressional authorization for UNITED STATES V. STATE OF WASHINGTON 13 the application of the provision to workers at the Portsmouth facility.” 5 Id. at 182. To arrive at that conclusion, the Court rejected the argument raised by the private contractor and the United States Solicitor General that the statute’s use of the phrase “workmen’s compensation laws” was “not intended to include the additional-award provision in Ohio’s workers’ compensation law.” Id. at 183. The Court observed that the statute did not define the phrase “workmen’s compensation laws.” Id. Focusing on the essential terms of the statutory text, including the phrase “in the same way and to the same extent as if said premises were under the exclusive jurisdiction of the State,” the Court stated unequivocally that the statute “place[d] no express limitation on the type of workers’ compensation scheme that is authorized.” Id. (emphasis added). Rather than limiting the authorized workers’ compensation laws, the Court explained that “[o]n its face, § 290 compel[led] the same workers’ compensation award for an employee injured at a federally owned facility as the employee would receive if working for a wholly private facility.” Id. at 183–84. As the United States concedes, § 3172 is materially identical to its predecessor. 6 But the United States homes in 5 The United States does not explain here how HB 1723 directly regulates the Federal Government by adopting a presumption to determine whether a given “Hanford site worker” is entitled to receive a workers’ compensation award pursuant to the WIIA. As in Goodyear, we will assume that HB 1723 is “sufficiently akin to direct regulation” of the Federal Government to trigger the doctrine of intergovernmental immunity. 486 U.S. at 182. 6 There are some differences between § 3172 and its predecessor. Unlike its predecessor, § 3172 does not refer to “workmen’s 14 UNITED STATES V. STATE OF WASHINGTON on the phrase “in the same way and to the same extent” to claim that § 3172 is a “very limited waiver” of immunity. The United States reads this text and Goodyear as “strongly suggest[ing]” that § 3172 authorizes only the “extension of generally applicable laws,” rather than “discrete” state laws that “single out” the Federal Government and its contractors. We disagree. The plain text of § 3172 does not purport to limit the workers’ compensation laws for which it waives intergovernmental immunity to only those that are “generally applicable.” We are not free to add text to a statute that is not there. Ariz. State Bd. for Charter Sch. v. U.S. Dep’t of Educ., 464 F.3d 1003, 1007 (9th Cir. 2006). Like its predecessor, § 3172 does not define the phrase “state workers’ compensation laws” and otherwise “places no express limitation on the type of workers’ compensation scheme that is authorized.” Goodyear, 486 U.S. at 183 (emphasis added). The Court’s application of the predecessor statute in Goodyear does not warrant a different reading of the statute. To be sure, the Court considered there a state workers’ compensation law that did not concern a particular employer, or a particular site located in the state, like HB 1723 does. Id. at 183–85. But the Court did not purport to impose the limitation on the statute that the United compensation laws,” but rather “workers’ compensation laws.” And, instead of providing that the state workers’ compensation authority “shall have the power and authority to apply” workers’ compensation laws, Congress has provided that the state authority “may apply” such laws. This change signifies nothing more than that a state may, in its discretion, opt to apply its workers’ compensation laws to federal premises in the state. Fernandez v. Brock, 840 F.2d 622, 632 (9th Cir. 1988) (“‘May’ is a permissive word, and we will construe it to vest discretionary power absent a clear indication from the context that Congress used the word in a mandatory sense.”). UNITED STATES V. STATE OF WASHINGTON 15 States seeks to impose here; indeed, the Court recognized that the statute placed no express limitation on permissible workers’ compensation laws. Id. at 183. We cannot properly construe § 3172 in a way that would conflict with that understanding of a materially identical statutory provision. Equally unavailing is the United States’ assertion that the phrase “in the same way and to the same extent” codifies a nondiscrimination rule that limits § 3172’s waiver. Our decision in United States v. Lewis County, 175 F.3d 671 (9th Cir. 1999), is illustrative. In Lewis County, we considered the application of a federal statute that “waives the immunity of the federal government from state taxation by authorizing state and local governments to tax … property owned by the federal Farm Service Agency (‘FSA’) ‘in the same manner and to the same extent as other property is taxed.’” Id. at 673 (quoting 7 U.S.C. § 1984). In relevant part, the United States challenged a Washington county’s taxation of FSA-owned land. The United States argued that the county had discriminated against a federal agency in violation of § 1984 and the doctrine of intergovernmental tax immunity because the county did not tax a comparable state agency. Id. at 674– 75. We rejected that argument because “Congress ha[d] made its assessment of the federal interest in [] § 1984[.]” Id. at 676. We explained that, by virtue of that statute, Congress had “sufficiently qualifie[d] the intergovernmental immunity of the United States to permit the state to make the distinction it has.” Id. We saw “no reason why state or local governments [had to] engage in a circular process of taxing themselves in order to impose the tax on the federal government that Congress has authorized.” Id. 16 UNITED STATES V. STATE OF WASHINGTON Echoing its arguments in Lewis County, the United States argues here that HB 1723 violates the doctrine of intergovernmental immunity because it discriminatorily applies only to Hanford site workers who work indirectly or directly for the Federal Government, without any application to state or private entities who perform work on or near the Hanford site. As in Lewis County, we are presented with a congressional waiver of immunity that contains similar text—i.e., “in the same way and to the same extent”—that we have already understood to permit a “distinction” based on federal status. “A basic principle of interpretation is that courts ought to interpret similar language in the same way, unless context indicates that they should do otherwise.” Shirk v. United States ex rel. Dep’t of Interior, 773 F.3d 999, 1004 (9th Cir. 2014). The United States identifies no reason why we should depart from our understanding in Lewis County. As with the waiver there, Congress codified the federal interest in § 3172. This statute authorizes the States to apply workers’ compensations laws to federal land located in the state without limitation and thus permits the distinction that HB 1723 draws. In light of the United States’ arguments here, a comparison of § 3172 with another waiver, namely the waiver contained in the Comprehensive Environmental Response, Compensation, and Liability Act (CERCLA), 42 U.S.C. § 9620(a)(4), reinforces the conclusion that § 3172 does not codify a nondiscrimination rule. 7 7 In addition to CERCLA, the district court contrasted § 3172 with 4 U.S.C. § 111, a waiver of intergovernmental tax immunity that expressly does not permit state and local taxation that “discriminate[s]” against United States’ officers or employees simply because of their federal status. Section 3172, indeed, bears no semblance to that UNITED STATES V. STATE OF WASHINGTON 17 CERCLA waives the Federal Government’s immunity from state laws concerning the removal and remediation of hazardous substances, but that waiver “shall not apply to the extent a State law would apply any standard or requirement to [Federal] facilities which is more stringent than the standards or requirements applicable to facilities which are not owned or operated by [the Federal Government].” 42 U.S.C. § 9620(a)(4) (emphasis added). We held in Boeing Co. v. Movassaghi that this waiver did not save a California law that imposed “more stringent standards” on the Federal Government for the cleanup of a federal nuclear site located in California. 768 F.3d at 841–42. Because we could locate no other congressional authorization, we concluded that the California law both directly regulated and discriminated against the Federal Government in violation of the Supremacy Clause and the doctrine of intergovernmental immunity. Id. at 840–43. Here, the United States seeks to import into the statutory phrase “in the same way and to the same extent” the limitation that Congress codified in CERCLA. The United States avers that HB 1723 impermissibly applies “more stringent regulation” to the Federal Government. And it argues that reading § 3172 to “authorize[] a state to enact laws that subject federal contractors, and only federal contractors, to more stringent standards than those of generally applicable state law” is “atextual.” Neither the text on which the United States focuses, nor any other text in § 3172, however, excepts from the waiver those state workers’ compensation laws that are “more stringent” as provision. Contrary to the United States’ objection to this comparison, the comparison merely underscores that Congress knows how to limit a waiver in the same way that the United States asks us to read § 3172. 18 UNITED STATES V. STATE OF WASHINGTON applied to the Federal Government or those with whom it deals. Boeing and its analysis are inapposite. We arrive, finally, to considering the statutory text that the United States’ reading of § 3172 omits: “as if the premises were under the exclusive jurisdiction of the State[.]” 40 U.S.C. § 3172. We, of course, cannot ignore this text. Ariz. State Bd. for Charter Sch., 464 F.3d at 1007 (stating that a court may not “subtract” statutory text). And we must read it with the rest of the statutory text. Davis v. Mich. Dep’t of Treasury, 489 U.S. 803, 809 (1989) (“It is a fundamental canon of statutory construction that the words of a statute must be read in their context and with a view toward their place in the overall statutory scheme.”). When the phrase “in the same way and to the same extent” is read with “as if the premises were under the exclusive jurisdiction of the State,” it is evident that § 3172 removes federal jurisdiction as a barrier to a state’s authority over workers’ compensation laws for all who are located in the state. See Peak v. Small Business Admin., 660 F.2d 375, 376 n.1 (8th Cir. 1981) (“[S]tate workmen’s compensation laws, as applied to private employers working on federal land, are freed from any restraint by reason of the exclusive federal jurisdiction.”); Capetola v. Barclay White Co., 139 F.2d 556, 559 (3d Cir. 1943) (“[T]he purpose and effect of the . . . Act was to free State workmen’s compensation laws from the restraint upon their enforcement theretofore existing by reason of the exclusive federal jurisdiction of lands within the States[.]”), cert. denied, 321 U.S. 799 (1944); Travelers Ins. Co. v. Cardilllo, 141 F.2d 362, 363 (D.C. Cir. 1942) (“[T]he statute . . . revest[s] State jurisdiction which, presumably, Congress thought might be divested by the acquisition and ownership of the land by the United States for Federal purposes. The effect . . . is . . . to UNITED STATES V. STATE OF WASHINGTON 19 restore the status quo ante, and the purpose was to make sure that employees of contractors during work on a Federal building in a Federal area would be able to recover compensation benefits for disability or death.”). By removing federal jurisdiction as a barrier to application of state workers’ compensation laws to those who work on federal land located in the State, § 3172 authorizes the State to apply to such land the authority it has over workers’ compensation in its exclusive jurisdiction. Subject to constitutional constraints, the States possess broad authority to enact laws that are reasonably deemed to be necessary to promote the health, safety, and general welfare of those in its jurisdiction, including workers’ compensation laws. Weber v. Aetna Cas. & Sur. Co., 406 U.S. 164, 172 (1972); Mountain Timber Co. v. Wash., 243 U.S. 219, 238 (1917). We presume that Congress was aware of this authority when it fashioned § 3172 to permit the State to apply its workers’ compensations laws to federal land in the State “as if” it were under the State’s “exclusive jurisdiction,” without exception. Goodyear, 486 U.S. at 184–85. Critically, as it did in the district court, the United States conceded during oral argument that Washington could enforce HB 1723 if the Federal Government were not involved and the Hanford site were a state project. 8 As we read it, § 3172 permitted Washington to enact and apply HB 1723 to federal contractors and their employees at the Hanford site. 8 The State also previously amended its workers’ compensation laws to adopt a presumption applicable only to firefighters. Wash. Rev. Code § 51.32.185. Thus, it is not unprecedented for Washington to exercise its authority to fashion workers’ compensation laws to adopt a presumption tailored to certain employment. 20 UNITED STATES V. STATE OF WASHINGTON It thus follows that, “when Congress chooses not to include any exceptions to a broad rule, courts apply the broad rule.” Bostock v. Clayton Cty., 140 S. Ct. 1731, 1747 (2020). Section 3172 permits the State to apply workers’ compensation laws to federal land located in the State, without limitation, and to make the distinction that it has drawn in HB 1723. Thus, HB 1723 falls within the scope of § 3172’s waiver and does not violate the doctrine of intergovernmental immunity.