Opinion ID: 512586
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: Qualified Immunity and Eleventh Amendment Defenses

Text: 27 We turn to the merits of the qualified and Eleventh Amendment immunity defenses. The qualified immunity doctrine protects a government official performing discretionary functions from liability to the extent that his conduct does not violate clearly established statutory or constitutional rights of which a reasonable person would have known. Harlow, 457 U.S. at 818, 102 S.Ct. at 2738; see Musso v. Hourigan, 836 F.2d at 741-42. The doctrine protects public officials from personally facing the risk of incurring ruinous liability in the form of money damages, which would deter qualified people from public service. It also safeguards the public interest in having its employees act  'with independence and without fear of consequences.'  Pierson v. Ray, 386 U.S. 547, 554, 87 S.Ct. 1213, 1217, 18 L.Ed.2d 288 (1967) (quoting Scott v. Stansfield, L.R. 3 Ex. 220, 223 (1868)). 28 We held recently that there are several ways in which a public official may establish his qualified immunity defense. See Robison v. Via, 821 F.2d 913, 920 (2d Cir.1987). In that case, we stated that the defense should bar suit if a trial court finds that, at the time when the defendant official acted, it was unclear whether plaintiff's asserted interests were protected by federal law. Id. We also observed that summary judgment on qualified immunity grounds ought to be granted when a district court judge concludes that an official could have reasonably believed that his actions did not contravene an established federal right. Id. at 921. 29 Further, the defense of qualified immunity is not overcome when those federal rights exist only generally in the air, so to speak. In Anderson v. Creighton, --- U.S. ----, 107 S.Ct. 3034, 97 L.Ed.2d 523 (1987), the Supreme Court rejected the notion that alleged violations of abstract rights could defeat the immunity defense. Id. at 3038-39. In short, the boundaries of the supposed right must be sufficiently definite so that the official understood that his actions violated it or, in other words, that the unlawfulness of his actions was evident. 30 It is our practice in this Circuit when a district court fails to address the qualified immunity defense to remand for such a ruling. See, e.g., Francis v. Coughlin, 849 F.2d 778, 780 (2d Cir.1988) (per curiam); Musso, 836 F.2d at 744. In the present case, Judge MacMahon found that Eng's claims raised sufficient issues of fact to preclude summary judgment for Adler and Scully. Accordingly, he did not consider the qualified immunity defenses raised by those two defendants. Consistent with past practice therefore we remand Eng v. Scully and Adler to the district court for it to rule on their claims of qualified immunity. 31 Eng's appeal from summary judgment in favor of Milligan does not require a similar remand. For reasons stated later in this opinion, we agree with Judge MacMahon that Eng's claim against Milligan does not raise any material issues of fact, and summary judgment was properly entered in his favor. Milligan's omissions in 1983 did not then constitute a violation of Eng's clearly established rights, and Milligan could properly invoke the defense of qualified immunity from suit.
32 We turn now to the claim of Eleventh Amendment immunity. The Amendment itself states 33 The Judicial power of the United States shall not be construed to extend to any suit in law or equity, commenced or prosecuted against one of the United States by Citizens of another State, or by Citizens or Subjects of any Foreign State. 34 The Eleventh Amendment was added to the Constitution as a result of the Supreme Court's holding in Chisholm v. Georgia, 2 U.S. (2 Dall.) 419, 1 L.Ed. 440 (1793). In that case the Supreme Court took jurisdiction over a suit by the estate of a citizen of South Carolina against the State of Georgia for war materials supplied during the Revolution, but for which he had not been paid. The Supreme Court's assumption of jurisdiction was speedily overturned by the adoption of the Eleventh Amendment. Although the Amendment's language bars only an action by citizens of one State against another State, nearly 100 years ago it was held that the Amendment also bars suits against a State by its own citizens. See Hans v. Louisiana, 134 U.S. 1, 10 S.Ct. 504, 33 L.Ed. 842 (1890). 35 We start with the proposition that a State's sovereign immunity limits federal judicial power, which leads logically to a rule that a State may not be sued in the federal forum, absent its consent or explicit congressional action abrogating a State's immunity. Where the State itself is not a named defendant, and instead a state official is named, the Eleventh Amendment becomes less coherent. In the landmark case of Ex parte Young, 209 U.S. 123, 28 S.Ct. 441, 52 L.Ed. 714 (1908), railroad stockholders sought a federal injunction against Minnesota Attorney General Edward T. Young to prevent him from imposing Draconian penalties on certain railroads that sought judicial review of state imposed rates. Young claimed immunity from suit under the Eleventh Amendment. The Supreme Court held that the Amendment was not a bar, reasoning that because an unconstitutional state law is void, any action by a state official under it cannot be in his official capacity. Such official must therefore be acting in his individual capacity and not as an agent for the State, in which case the Amendment was not a bar to the suit. Id. at 159-60, 28 S.Ct. at 453-54. The rationale of Young was somewhat narrowed in Pennhurst State School & Hosp. v. Halderman, 465 U.S. 89, 104 S.Ct. 900, 79 L.Ed.2d 67 (1984). In Pennhurst the Court held that the Eleventh Amendment prohibits federal courts from ordering state officials to conform their conduct to state law. Where federal interests are secure, and when the only violations alleged are those of state law, the Eleventh Amendment is a bar to suit. Id. at 105-06, 104 S.Ct. at 910-11. 36 More recently in Papasan v. Allain, 478 U.S. 265, 106 S.Ct. 2932, 92 L.Ed.2d 209 (1986), in a suit brought by school officials and school children challenging Mississippi's distribution of public school land funds, the Supreme Court clarified some of the earlier distinctions in Eleventh Amendment cases. In Papasan the Court held that petitioner's trust claims were barred by the Amendment, but that their equal protection claims were not. Because the latter constituted an ongoing constitutional wrong, a remedy under Ex parte Young could properly be fashioned. Id. at 281-82, 106 S.Ct. at 2942-43. The critical question in determining whether the Eleventh Amendment bars suit is whether it is necessary for federal courts to vindicate the supremacy of federal rights as in Young. Suits brought to end a continuing constitutional violation are permitted, while those seeking compensation for past injuries are prohibited under the Amendment. See Green v. Mansour, 474 U.S. 64, 71, 106 S.Ct. 423, 427, 88 L.Ed.2d 371 (1985). Papasan further instructs us that a suit brought by a party for damages for past injuries against a state official in his official capacity for actions illegal under federal law is barred, even when the state official is the named defendant. It is only when the state official is sued and held liable in his individual capacity that the suit may lie. See Papasan, 478 U.S. at 278 & n. 11, 106 S.Ct. at 2940 & n. 11. 37 From this it can be seen that Eleventh Amendment jurisprudence has not been a model of logical symmetry, but marked rather by a baffling complexity. See J. Orth, The Judicial Power of the United States--The Eleventh Amendment in American History (1987). This is not an appropriate occasion therefore to depart from our usual practice of remanding this unaddressed issue to the district court for it to consider Eleventh Amendment immunity in the first instance. See Smith v. Reagan, 841 F.2d 28, 31 (2d Cir.1988).