Opinion ID: 675729
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: The Third-Party Claims Against the State Defendants

Text: 17 The County complains that the district court erred in dismissing its third-party action against the State defendants. In its third-party complaint the County sought monetary and injunctive relief against the State defendants in the event the County was found liable to plaintiffs, as well as attorney's fees. Overcrowding at the jail results from the presence of both traditional county inmates and paper-ready felons awaiting transfer to state facilities. 18 The district court dismissed the State defendants with the following reasoning: 19 The County Defendants, as Third-Party Plaintiffs did not establish that the State Defendants had a legal duty to pick up paper-ready felons within a certain length of time. Further, the State Defendants have reimbursed Angelina County for the expenses of housing paper ready felons in accordance with the statutory formula set out in [TEX.GOV'T CODE ANN. Secs. 499.123-499.124 (Vernon Supp.1994) ]. 20 While we cannot agree with this analysis, we nevertheless hold that the State defendants were properly dismissed. 21 The County alleged in its third-party complaint that the state's refusal to accept paper-ready felons was the cause of plaintiffs' damages, and sought to have the state enjoined to timely accept those felons. Whether the state is making payments to the County for housing state felons, under the state statutory scheme, cannot by itself resolve the question of the state's constitutional obligations under the Eighth Amendment. To hold otherwise would mean that a state could abdicate its constitutional responsibility to its own felons by paying a third party to house them. 22 We addressed the issue of state liability for unconstitutional conditions at a county jail in Alberti. We recognized that liability under Sec. 1983 depends on which state actor is responsible for the civil rights violation, and that this question turns exclusively on state law. Alberti, 937 F.2d at 994 (emphasis in original). We agreed with the district court that, under Texas law, both the state and county are responsible for the conditions at county jails, and both are therefore liable for constitutional violations at such jails. Id. at 996-97. In particular, we noted that by statute the state places primary responsibility for the confinement of felons on a state agency, the TDCJ. Id. In our case, the State defendants can point to no significant changes in state law that would alter the careful analysis and conclusion of the district court and this court in Alberti. 6 The state's current statutory obligation to make payments to counties holding paper-ready felons does not divest the state of its constitutional responsibility for assuring that state felons--felons convicted in state courts of state crimes and sentenced to the state prison system--are not subjected to cruel and unusual punishment. 23 However, our case differs from Alberti, since the plaintiffs in that case brought direct claims against the state defendants to avoid the very problem we face here. Alberti, 937 F.2d at 988, 990. We note that if some of the claims the County asserted against the State defendants (including claims for contribution and other relief under state law) had been brought by a private citizen, they would have been properly dismissed under the Eleventh Amendment. 7 That Amendment however would not appear to bar all such claims. Under the authority of Ex Parte Young, 209 U.S. 123, 28 S.Ct. 441, 52 L.Ed. 714 (1908) and later authority, a Sec. 1983 action seeking prospective injunctive relief based on federal constitutional violations may be brought against state officials in their official capacities. Will v. Michigan Dep't of State Police, 491 U.S. 58, 71 n. 10, 109 S.Ct. 2304, 2312 n. 10, 105 L.Ed.2d 45 (1989); Kentucky v. Graham, 473 U.S. 159, 167 n. 14, 105 S.Ct. 3099, 3106 n. 14, 87 L.Ed.2d 114 (1985) (official-capacity actions for prospective relief are not treated as actions against the State.). 8 24 Our analysis leads us to two questions. The first is whether contribution is generally available to a defendant sued for violation of a plaintiff's civil rights under Sec. 1983. The second is whether, assuming there is such a general right to contribution, a federal court has authority to grant relief in favor of a political subdivision of a state and against the state itself. We need not answer the first question here, although we note that other courts have struggled with it and have reached different conclusions. 9 25 Assuming there is a right to contribution generally under Sec. 1983, no party argues that relief from unconstitutional jail conditions is impossible without enjoining the state. The district court plainly did not believe so either, since it found unconstitutional conditions and entered an injunction to relieve those conditions, but nevertheless dismissed the State defendants. The issue therefore boils down to whether a federal district court in such circumstances, exercising its power to remedy civil rights violations under a federal statute passed pursuant to the Fourteenth Amendment, can grant a county contribution against its state. 26 We have previously held that state subdivisions, such as counties and municipalities, cannot assert constitutional claims in federal court against their creator, the state itself, or other state political subdivisions. E.g. Town of Ball v. Rapides Parish Police Jury, 746 F.2d 1049, 1051 n. 1 (5th Cir.1984); Appling County v. Municipal Elec. Authority of Georgia, 621 F.2d 1301, 1307-08 (5th Cir.1980), cert. denied, 449 U.S. 1015, 101 S.Ct. 574, 66 L.Ed.2d 474 (1980); City of Safety Harbor v. Birchfield, 529 F.2d 1251, 1253-56 (5th Cir.1976). One rationale for these cases is that political subdivisions lack Fourteenth Amendment or other constitutional rights against the creating state. 10 These cases arguably are distinguishable because here the County is not necessarily claiming a constitutional right against the state; instead, it is seeking contribution from the state for the violation of plaintiffs' constitutional rights. 27 Nevertheless, we conclude that the County should not be able to seek relief against the State defendants. A fundamental limit on federal jurisdiction is implicated here. As a general rule states cannot be made parties to a federal court suit. [T]he principle of sovereign immunity is a constitutional limitation on the federal judicial power established in Art. III: 'That a State may not be sued without its consent is a fundamental rule of jurisprudence ... of which the [Eleventh] amendment is but an exemplification.'  Pennhurst State Sch. & Hosp. v. Halderman, 465 U.S. 89, 98-99, 104 S.Ct. 900, 907, 79 L.Ed.2d 67 (1984) (quoting Ex Parte State of New York, 256 U.S. 490, 497, 41 S.Ct. 588, 589, 65 L.Ed. 1057 (1921)). Young represents a necessary exception to this general rule which has not been provided an expansive interpretation, id. 465 U.S. at 102, 104 S.Ct. at 909, and we are not inclined to extend it to cover the County's claim for contribution here. The Supreme Court has concluded that in enacting Sec. 1983, Congress did not intend to override well-established immunities or defenses under the common law. Will v. Michigan Dep't of State Police, 491 U.S. 58, 67, 109 S.Ct. 2304, 2310, 105 L.Ed.2d 45 (1989). 28 In construing the Eleventh Amendment, the Court has recognized that Congress has the power under the Fourteenth Amendment to abrogate Eleventh Amendment immunity for the states, but that congressional intent to negate such immunity must be unequivocally expressed. Id. at 64-66, 109 S.Ct. at 2309; Pennhurst, 465 U.S. at 98-100, 104 S.Ct. at 907. We are unable to find an unequivocal expression of congressional intent to subject states to claims for contribution from their own political subdivisions. In Pennhurst, the court recognized that in applying the Young doctrine, the need to promote the supremacy of federal law must be accommodated to the constitutional immunity of the States. Id. 465 U.S. at 105, 104 S.Ct. at 910. In striking this balance, the Court found it difficult to think of a greater intrusion on state sovereignty than when a federal court instructs state officials on how to conform their conduct to state law. Id. at 106, 104 S.Ct. at 911. Employing like reasoning, we can think of few greater intrusions on state sovereignty than requiring a state to respond, in federal court, to a claim for contribution brought by one of its own counties. Cf. Kelley v. Metropolitan County Bd. of Educ. of Nashville and Davidson County, 836 F.2d 986, 988 (6th Cir.1987) (if a state cannot be sued by its own citizens, a fortiori it cannot be sued by its own political subdivisions, which are creatures of the state and exist only at the state's sufferance.), cert. denied, 487 U.S. 1206, 108 S.Ct. 2848, 101 L.Ed.2d 885 (1988).