Opinion ID: 3051722
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: Self-Execution and the Eleventh Amendment

Text: [4] The Supreme Court has long recognized that the just compensation clause of the Fifth Amendment is selfexecuting: “ ‘the right to recover just compensation . . . [i]s guaranteed by the Constitution’ ” and “ ‘[s]tatutory recognition [i]s not necessary.’ ” First English Evangelical Lutheran Church v. County of Los Angeles, 482 U.S. 304, 315 (1987) (emphasis omitted) (quoting Jacobs v. United States, 290 U.S. 13, 16 (1933)). From this fact, the Venture argues that the constitutional right to compensation overcomes the state’s Eleventh Amendment immunity. We reject this contention; we conclude that the constitutionally grounded self-executing nature of the Takings Clause does not alter the conventional application of the Eleventh Amendment. [5] The Supreme Court’s reverse condemnation cases have not spoken directly to our question. Neither First English, a suit against a county, nor City of Monterey v. Del Monte Dunes at Monterey, Ltd., 526 U.S. 687 (1999), a suit against a municipality, controls the Eleventh Amendment analysis, for both cases involved state entities not protected by the Amendment. See, e.g., Lake Country Estates, Inc. v. Tahoe Regional Planning Agency, 440 U.S. 391, 401 & n.19 (1979) (“[T]he Court has consistently refused to construe the Amendment to afford protection to political subdivisions such as counties and municipalities, even though such entities exer- 5 At least two cases decided since Broughton contained dicta suggesting that it was an open question in this circuit whether reverse condemnation actions could be brought against an unconsenting State in federal court. See Spoklie v. Montana, 411 F.3d 1051, 1058 (9th Cir. 2005); Taylor v. Westly, 402 F.3d 924, 936 (9th Cir. 2005). 4168 SEVEN UP PETE VENTURE v. SCHWEITZER cise a ‘slice of state power.’ ”).6 In sum, First English expounds the self-executing character of the Takings Clause and the resulting obligation by the states to provide a specific remedy for takings in their own courts, but does not directly address its interplay with the Eleventh Amendment. See Richard H. Seamon, The Asymmetry of State Sovereign Immunity, 76 Wash. L. Rev. 1067, 1072-80 (2001). This is the issue to which we now turn.
[6] The Supreme Court addressed the interplay of sovereign immunity and another “self-executing” constitutional provision in Reich v. Collins, 513 U.S. 106 (1994), a case addressing the remedy required under the Due Process Clause for unconstitutionally levied taxes. The Court concluded that a state court could not wholly deny a remedy, stating that “ ‘a denial by a state court of a recovery of taxes exacted in violation of the laws or Constitution of the United States by compulsion is itself in contravention of the Fourteenth Amendment,’ the sovereign immunity States traditionally enjoy in their own courts notwithstanding.” Id. at 109-10 (quoting Carpenter v. Shaw, 280 U.S. 363, 369 (1930)). The Court also observed parenthetically that, although the State could not invoke its sovereign immunity to avoid refunding an unconstitutional tax, the Eleventh Amendment nevertheless ordinarily barred such actions from federal court. Id. at 110. If sovereign immunity may not stand in the way of recovery in state court for unconstitutionally levied taxes because of the “self-executing” character of the Due Process 6 Unsurprisingly, then, the First English Court did not place any analytical weight on sovereign immunity, mentioning the term only once and, even then, only to paraphrase the government’s argument. First English, 482 U.S. at 316 n.9 (“The Solicitor General urges that the prohibitory nature of the Fifth Amendment, combined with principles of sovereign immunity, establishes that the Amendment itself is only a limitation on the power of the Government to act, not a remedial provision.” (citation omitted)). SEVEN UP PETE VENTURE v. SCHWEITZER 4169 right at stake, it follows that the state courts must also be available to adjudicate claims brought under the federal Takings Clause, which is also self-executing. And, as Reich states, this constitutionally enforced remedy against the States in state courts can comfortably co-exist with the Eleventh Amendment immunity of the States from similar actions in federal court. [7] It is not surprising, then, that every court of appeals to have faced this question has expressly or implicitly applied the Reich rationale and held that the Eleventh Amendment bars Fifth Amendment reverse condemnation claims brought in federal district court. See DLX, Inc. v. Kentucky, 381 F.3d 511, 526-28 (6th Cir. 2004) (“[The State] enjoys sovereign immunity in the federal courts from [a] federal takings claim . . . .”); John G. & Marie Stella Kenedy Mem’l Found. v. Mauro, 21 F.3d 667, 674 (5th Cir. 1994) (“[A] Fifth Amendment inverse condemnation claim brought directly against the State . . . is . . . barred by the Eleventh Amendment.”); Robinson v. Ga. Dep’t of Transp., 966 F.2d 637, 640 (11th Cir. 1992) (same); Citadel Corp. v. Puerto Rico Highway Auth., 695 F.2d 31, 33 n.4 (1st Cir. 1982) (per curiam) (same); Garrett v. Illinois, 612 F.2d 1038, 1040 (7th Cir. 1980) (same). At least one commentator has agreed. See Richard H. Seamon, supra, at 1080-87.7 There is one additional wrinkle that must be added to the analysis, however. Five years after its decision in Reich, the Supreme Court decided Alden v. Maine, 527 U.S. 706 (1999). Alden held that the immunity of the States from suit without their consent was a fundamental aspect of sovereignty, which 7 Some earlier articles, written before the Supreme Court’s decision in Reich, took a different view. See Vicki C. Jackson, The Supreme Court, the Eleventh Amendment, and State Sovereign Immunity, 98 Yale L.J. 1, 115 n.454 (1988); Jack M. Beermann, Government Official Torts and the Takings Clause: Federalism and State Sovereign Immunity, 68 B.U. L. Rev. 277, 338-39 (1988). 4170 SEVEN UP PETE VENTURE v. SCHWEITZER the States enjoyed before the adoption of the Constitution and retained thereafter “except as altered by the plan of the [Constitutional] Convention or certain constitutional Amendments.” Id. at 713. Accordingly, Congress lacked the power under Article I of the Constitution to enact legislation subjecting the States to suit in state courts. See id. at 712. The Eleventh Amendment was simply a recognition of a two-part presupposition underlying the Constitution: (1) that each State is sovereign, and (2) that immunity from suit without the State’s consent is inherent in sovereignty. Id. at 729. From this formulation, the Venture draws some interesting arguments. First, the Venture assumes, justifiably enough, that there must be some forum in which the self-executing constitutional guarantee of just compensation for taking of property may be enforced. Thus, the Takings Clause must be capable of overcoming State sovereignty. Alden, however, makes it clear that Eleventh Amendment immunity is not unique, but is simply one expression of the total sovereign immunity of the States, applicable equally in federal and state court. Therefore, the Venture reasons, the self-executing dominance of the Takings Clause over State immunity applies equally in state and federal court. We decline to adopt the Venture’s “forum-neutral” conception of sovereign immunity for several reasons. First, although the Court in Alden viewed the Eleventh Amendment as a recognition of, rather than the origin of, sovereign immunity of the States, it nowhere commanded that the immunity be treated exactly the same for all purposes in both federal and state courts. It certainly did not purport to repudiate the command of the Eleventh Amendment precluding suits by private parties against unconsenting States in federal court. Moreover, the Court discussed Reich with approval, noting that the remedy against the State in Reich arose “from the Constitution itself; Reich does not speak to the power of Congress to subject States to suits in their own courts.” Alden, 527 U.S. at 740. Nothing in this passage suggests or requires a change SEVEN UP PETE VENTURE v. SCHWEITZER 4171 in the regime addressed in Reich: that the State may be sued in its own courts (but not in federal court) for damages arising from violation of a self-executing constitutional clause. [8] We therefore conclude that the Eleventh Amendment bars reverse condemnation actions brought in federal court against state officials in their official capacities.8 In reaching this conclusion, we join the only sister circuit to have addressed the interplay of the Takings Clause and the Eleventh Amendment since Alden. See DLX, Inc., 381 F.3d at 528 (quoting Alden, 527 U.S. at 712).