Opinion ID: 6108240
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: Suits Against the State of Arkansas

Text: Indeed, article 5, section 20 presents an ostensibly broad premise: [t]he State of  Arkansas shall never be made defendant in any of her courts. Definitively, however, the drafters did not intend this provision to operate as a total bar to all lawsuits against the State. We know this because the drafters wrote many provisions into the very same constitution creating scenarios in which the State would most assuredly be (and has most assuredly been) sued. We note that article 2, section 22 allows Arkansas citizens to hale the State into court to demand just compensation for property taken by the State. See, e.g. , Bachman v. State , 235 Ark. 339 , 343, 359 S.W.2d 815 , 817 (1962) (The state cannot of course destroy or injure a person's private property without just compensation and without due process of law.). Additionally, article 2, section 11 provides that the privilege of the writ of habeas corpus shall not be suspended except by the legislature in limited circumstances, and article 7, section 49 provides that [a]ll writs and other judicial process, shall run in the name of the State of Arkansas[.] Still another example is found in article 16, section 13, which provides that [a]ny citizen of any county, city or town may institute suit, in behalf of himself and all others interested, to protect the inhabitants thereof against the enforcement of any illegal exactions whatever. See, e.g. , McGhee v. Ark. State Bd. of Collection Agencies , 360 Ark. 363 , 372-73, 201 S.W.3d 375 , 380 (2005) (According to Ark. Const. Art. 5, section 20, 'The State of Arkansas shall never be made a Defendant in any of her Courts.' While this provision generally prohibits suits against the State or a state agency, we have held that the illegal-exaction clause, as the more specific provision, controls the more general prohibition against suit provided in art. 5, § 20, and grants taxpayers the right to sue.). Plainly, the drafters did not intend for the State to be forever immune from suit in its courts. The majority in Andrews , without any factual justification, supported its decision by insisting that its analysis comported with the historical data surrounding the drafting of the 1874 Constitution. The majority then only made a facial comparison between article 5, section 20 of the 1874 Constitution and article 5, section 45 of the 1868 Constitution. The 1868 version provided that [t]he general assembly shall direct by law in what manner and in what courts suits may be brought by and against the state, while the 1874 version provides that [t]he State of Arkansas shall never be made defendant in any of her courts. The majority held that the distinction between article 5, section 45 of the 1868 Constitution and article 5, section 20 of the 1874 Constitution necessarily indicates that the drafters of the latter version intended to prevent any legislatively approved action against the State in a court of law. However, in both Andrews and the case at bar, the majority declines to account for the actual historical context in which the 1874 Constitution was ratified, and altogether fails to consider another far more important distinction between the 1868 and 1874 Arkansas Constitutions: the Declaration of Rights contained in article 2 of the 1874 Constitution. The years between 1863 and 1874 encapsulate a tumultuous period in our State's history. There are different ways to view our state's history during the war years and our state's subsequent military occupation. However, there can be no dispute that the Arkansas state government was known during the Reconstruction Era for fraud, cronyism, martial law, disenfranchisement, and other abuses of government power. Thus, when Arkansas ratified its current constitution in 1874, it included numerous provisions to protect the individual rights and liberties of the people, and to prevent the government, specifically,  from infringing upon those same rights and liberties.