Opinion ID: 784873
Heading Depth: 3
Heading Rank: 3

Heading: The OSHA Intervention

Text: 28 OSHA also contends that the injunction swept too broadly insofar as it enjoined OSHA from intervening as a party in a subsequent administrative adjudication. Again, we agree. 29 Ports affirms the long-standing principle that States, in ratifying the Constitution, did surrender a portion of their inherent immunity by consenting to suits brought by ... the Federal Government. Ports, 535 U.S. at 752, 122 S.Ct. 1864. When the federal government becomes a party in an administrative adjudication, the adjudication is transformed from a prohibited suit by a private party against a state to a permitted one by the federal government against a state. 30 Ports explicitly notes the right of the government to institute its own administrative proceeding against[ a state or its agencies]. Id. at 768, 122 S.Ct. 1864. Lower federal courts that have analyzed the issue have also concluded that proceedings under the whistle-blower statutes that would otherwise be barred by state sovereign immunity become permissible if the federal government is or becomes a party to the proceedings. See Rhode Island, 304 F.3d at 53-54 (holding that the inability of a private party to proceed in a federal administrative adjudication against a state does not preclude the Secretary from intervening in the enjoined proceedings and removing the sovereign immunity bar); Ohio, 121 F.Supp.2d at 1167-68 (stating that it would be fundamentally unfair to terminate the administrative proceedings before the Department of Labor had an opportunity to exercise its discretion to intervene as a party); Florida, 133 F.Supp.2d at 1290 ([I]f, as would be its right, the Department of Labor determines to pursue this action on its own[,]... the Eleventh Amendment and constitutional sovereign immunity doctrine will pose no obstacle.). In addition, in proceedings not involving the whistle-blower provisions, the intervention of the United States as a party in a suit against a state has been held to render permissible a suit that would otherwise be barred by the doctrine of sovereign immunity. See, e.g., Mille Lacs Band of Chippewa Indians v. Minnesota, 124 F.3d 904, 912-14 (8th Cir. 1997) (holding that state sovereign immunity did not bar an Indian tribe's action against Minnesota because the United States had intervened and sought the same relief as the tribe) (discussed in Seneca Nation of Indians v. New York, 26 F.Supp.2d 555, 564 (W.D.N.Y.1998), aff'd, 178 F.3d 95 (2d Cir.1999), cert. denied, 528 U.S. 1073, 120 S.Ct. 785, 145 L.Ed.2d 662 (2000)). 31 Connecticut's sovereign immunity does not bar OSHA from intervening as a party in a case originally brought by a private citizen against a nonconsenting state agency. We therefore conclude that the injunction was overbroad insofar as it prevented OSHA from doing so.