Opinion ID: 2077983
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 5

Heading: Statutory Entitlement and Sovereign Immunity

Text: The key legal issue in this case concerns whether the doctrine of sovereign immunity bars plaintiff's claims for monies allegedly due and owing to them pursuant to a statute that entitled them to receive compensation from the commission for their attendance at various commission meetings. We shall also assume, without deciding, that even though the commission is an independent, nonpartisan entity established by the General Assembly pursuant to art. 3, sec. 8, of the Rhode Island Constitution, it still possesses sufficient governmental attributes to invoke sovereign immunity if that doctrine were otherwise applicable to the claims at issue. This Court has held that the Legislature is presumed not to have relinquished any part of the state's sovereign power unless [its] intent to do so [has been] `clearly expressed or arises by necessary implication from the [relevant] statutory language.' International Depository, Inc. v State of Rhode Island, 603 A.2d 1119, 1122 (R.I.1992) (quoting Andrade v. State, 448 A.2d 1293, 1295 (R.I. 1982)). A sovereign is exempt from suit, not because of any formal conception or obsolete theory, but on the logical and practical ground that there can be no legal right as against the authority that makes the law on which the right depends. Kawananakoa v. Polyblank, 205 U.S. 349, 353, 27 S.Ct. 526, 527, 51 L.Ed. 834, 836 (1907) (Holmes, J.). In examining the legislation relied upon by plaintiffs, however, it appears to us that a waiver of the state's sovereign immunity has been accomplished by necessary implication from the very statutory terms that provided for specific compensation to be paid to commission members for attendingcommission meetings during the period of February 15, 1991, through July 14, 1992. In LaBelle v. Hazard, 91 R.I. 42, 46-47, 160 A.2d 723, 725 (1960) this Court stated that [t]he salary of a public official is an incident to the office, and the legal right to receive or enforce the payment thereof goes with the legal title thereto.  (Emphasis added.); cf. State Employees' Association of New Hampshire, Inc. v. Belknap County, 122 N.H. 614, 448 A.2d 969, 972-73 (1982) (Because the existence of a right to receive [government-employment] benefits implies the existence of an appropriate remedy for recovering these benefits, we hold that the    statute contains an implicit waiver of sovereign immunity.). And because [t]he Legislature is [ ] presumed to know the state of existing relevant law when it enacts a statute, State v. Reis, 430 A.2d 749, 752 (R.I.1981), the General Assembly must be deemed to have known that, upon passing legislation providing for compensation to be paid to commission members for attending meetings, it was providing this compensation as an incident to the public offices they held and that their legal right to enforce the payment thereof accompanied their legal title to their offices. Moreover, under the Uniform Declaratory Judgments Act, G.L. 1956 chapter 30 of title 9, public officers are entitled to have their legal rights and duties determined judicially in an action for a declaratory judgment, and the state itself and its public officers now can be joined as proper parties to such an action. See, e.g., Capitol Properties, Inc. v. State, 749 A.2d 1069, 1081 (R.I.1999); see also G.L.1956 § 42-35-8 (Declaratory rulings by agencies. Each agency shall provide by rule for the filing and prompt disposition of petitions for declaratory rulings as to the applicability of any statutory provision or of any rule or order of the agency. Rulings disposing of petitions have the same status as agency orders in contested cases.). Further, claims for affirmative relief, such as those for money damages, may be joined to the declaratory judgment action pursuant to `the liberal provisions of Rule 18 of the Superior Court Rules of Civil Procedure.' Capital Properties, Inc., 749 A.2d at 1080. Tothe extent that Rhode Island Turnpike and Bridge Authority v. Nugent, 95 R.I. 19, 182 A.2d 427 (1962) (holding that one state agency cannot sue another state agency under the declaratory judgment act) might suggest otherwise, or that state agencies and public officials are not subject to suit at all for declaratory or other relief because of their sovereign immunity, we decline to read that decision so broadly, concluding, rather, that its scope should be confined to actions between state agencies. This is not the first time this Court has decided that the state or a municipality has impliedly waived sovereign immunity. See, e.g., Capital Properties, Inc., 749 A.2d at 1081; Donnelly v. Town of Lincoln, 730 A.2d 5, 10 (R.I.1999); Reagan Construction Corp. v. Mayer, 712 A.2d 372, 374 (R.I. 1998). In Donnelly, for example, a municipality voluntarily joined the state workers' compensation system and, in doing so, it received the advantages of participating therein. As a result, we held, the town had impliedly waived sovereign immunity and was not insulated from an award of interest for the money it owed to an injured town employee. In this case, the state voluntarily enacted a statute providing for compensation to be paid to commission members for attending meetings during a specific period. Thereafter, the commission allegedly obtained and retained the benefits of the services provided to it by plaintiffs while the compensation statute was in full force and effect. Allowing the state and its boards and commissions to invoke sovereign immunity when public officials seek to collect the compensation they are statutorily entitled to receive for services rendered would defy the principle that all legislation should be construed in such a manner as to give meaning and substance to each provision of the law. See, e.g., Pullen v. State, 707 A.2d 686, 691 (R.I.1998); see also In re Estate of Gervais, 770 A.2d 877, 880 (R.I. 2001). For this reason, we hold that the very statutory provisions in question entitling plaintiffs to receive such compensation were tantamount to a waiver of the state's sovereign immunity if those provisions are to be saved from a mere nugatory existence or an unconstitutional application of the doctrine in question. See Reis, 430 A.2d at 752 (in enacting a statute the legislature is presumed to have intended that every word, sentence, or provision has some useful purpose and will have some force and effect.); LaBelle, 91 R.I. at 46-47, 160 A.2d at 725 (holding that the legal right of a public official to receive or enforce the payment of compensation to that official goes with the official's legal title to the office); see also National Education Association  Rhode Island v. Retirement Board of Rhode Island Employees' Retirement System, 890 F.Supp. 1143 (D.R.I.1995) (statute extending benefits to employees created implied-in-fact contract which, when extinguished, violated contract and takings clauses). [I]n our opinion justice requires that the public treasury be made to respond in these circumstances, LaBelle, 91 R.I. at 47, 160 A.2d at 725, because we cannot agree that the public good would be served by denying to a public officer that compensation to which he [or she] is entitled by law. Id. Courts in other states have held that the state, by enacting a statute that entitled certain public officials to receive compensation for the services they performed for the state, thereby agreed to be answerable in a declaratory judgment action and, if necessary, in a petition for supplemental relief ([f]urther relief based on a declaratory judgment or decree may be granted whenever necessary or proper, § 9-30-8) for allegedly violating the law requiring such compensation to be paid; and that, by necessary implication, the very enactment of the statute waived the state's immunity from suit  at least after the public officials allegedly had earned the right to be paid and the statute in question was still extant when the court ruled on the claim. See, e.g., Belknap County, 448 A.2d at 972-73. Any otherconclusion would ascribe to the General Assembly an intent to profit the State at the expense of its citizens. George & Lynch, Inc. v. State, 197 A.2d 734, 736 (Del.1964). Indeed, allowing such an official repudiation of earned official compensation would be to sanction the highest type of governmental tyranny. Ace Flying Service, Inc. v. Colorado Department of Agriculture, 136 Colo. 19, 314 P.2d 278, 280 (1957). Moreover, in enacting a statute providing for compensation to be paid to government officials in exchange for services rendered to the state or to one of its agencies, the state, we hold, was acting as a private employer would in arranging to compensate its employees. In doing so, [the state] laid aside its attributes as a sovereign and bound itself substantially as one of its citizens does when he [or she] enters into a contract. Carr v. State ex rel. Du Coetlosquet, 127 Ind. 204, 26 N.E. 778, 779 (1891); cf. Jolicouer Furniture Co. v. Baldelli, 653 A.2d 740, 755 (R.I.1995) (holding that because municipality had acted in a proprietary capacity when it breached a contract to transfer real estate, it was not entitled to assert sovereign immunity).