Opinion ID: 197448
Heading Depth: 3
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: The FLSA Amendments and Equal Protection

Text: 19 Section five of the Fourteenth Amendment, which provides that [t]he Congress shall have power to enforce, by appropriate legislation, the provisions of [this Amendment], is a congressional enforcement clause that is by no means unique. Virtually identical language is also found in the Thirteenth, Fifteenth, Eighteenth, Nineteenth, Twenty-third, Twenty-fourth, and Twenty-sixth Amendments. When determining whether congressional enactments are appropriate and valid exercises of enforcement clause powers such as the one at issue here, Supreme Court precedent indicates that we look to whether the act is a rational means to an end that is comprehended by the underlying constitutional amendment. South Carolina v. Katzenbach, 383 U.S. 301, 324, 326, 86 S.Ct. 803, 817-18, 15 L.Ed.2d 769 (1966) (upholding Voting Rights Act of 1965 under the Fifteenth Amendment's enforcement clause); see also James Everard's Breweries v. Day, 265 U.S. 545, 558-59, 563, 44 S.Ct. 628, 631, 633, 68 L.Ed. 1174 (1924) (upholding Supplemental Prohibition Act of 1921 under the Eighteenth Amendment's enforcement clause). 20 The classic touchstone for determining whether a congressional enactment is rationally related to a proper end comprehended by a constitutional provision is Chief Justice Marshall's formulation in McCulloch v. Maryland: 21 We admit, as all must admit, that the powers of the government are limited, and that its limits are not to be transcended. But .... [l]et the end be legitimate, let it be within the scope of the constitution, and all means which are appropriate, which are plainly adapted to that end, which are not prohibited, but consist with the letter and spirit of the constitution, are constitutional. 22 17 U.S. (4 Wheat.) 316, 421, 4 L.Ed. 579 (1819). 23 The Supreme Court has specifically turned to Chief Justice Marshall's exposition in discussing the reach and limits of congressional power under section five of the Fourteenth Amendment, and has concluded that congressional power under this enforcement provision ha[s] th[e] same broad scope as that sketched in McCulloch. Katzenbach v. Morgan, 384 U.S. 641, 650, 86 S.Ct. 1717, 1723, 16 L.Ed.2d 828 (1966). The operative Fourteenth Amendment test is indeed little more than a paraphrasing of Chief Justice Marshall's formulation. See id. at 650-51, 86 S.Ct. at 1723-24; Ex parte Virginia, 100 U.S. 339, 345-46, 25 L.Ed. 676 (1879) (interpreting scope of congressional power under the enforcement clauses of the Reconstruction Amendments). In Morgan, the Supreme Court articulated a three-pronged test for determining whether congressional legislation is enacted to enforce the Fourteenth Amendment's Equal Protection Clause. Specifically, the Court determined that a congressional enactment is appropriate legislation under section five for Equal Protection purposes in the following circumstances: (1) if it may be regarded as an enactment to enforce the Equal Protection Clause, (2) if it is 'plainly adapted to that end,'  and (3) if it is not prohibited by but is consistent with 'the letter and spirit of the constitution.'  Morgan, 384 U.S. at 651, 86 S.Ct. at 1724 (quoting McCulloch, 17 U.S. (4 Wheat.) at 421). 2 24 The Sixth Circuit has concluded that the three Morgan factors effectively reworked the longstanding constitutional test we have outlined above by requiring something more than a rational relationship between a congressional enactment and the ends comprehended by the Fourteenth Amendment. See Wilson-Jones, 99 F.3d at 209 (It is clear to us that these three ... factors cannot be kept so permissive as to make them collapse into the 'rationally related' test generally used for the enforcement clauses of other constitutional amendments.). What was clear to the Sixth Circuit panel is not so easy to discern because our review of Supreme Court precedent, as indicated above, convinces us that Morgan does not treat section five differently than other enforcement clauses and does not depart from the traditional formulation of such clauses' broad scope. Were the Sixth Circuit panel correct, we would have to conclude that Morgan essentially overruled Ex parte Virginia and its progeny sub silentio. 25 We do not read Morgan to accomplish what the Sixth Circuit suggests. See Ramirez 715 F.2d at 698 (The sweep of [Ex parte Virginia 's] mandate was reaffirmed in Katzenbach v. Morgan.). Pointing to Ex parte Virginia, the Morgan Court explained that congressional power under § 5 ha[s] th[e] same broad scope as McCulloch determined Congress has under the Commerce Clause, as South Carolina v. Katzenbach determined Congress has under section two of the Fifteenth Amendment, see 383 U.S. at 326, 86 S.Ct. at 817-18, and as James Everard's Breweries, see 265 U.S. at 558-59, 44 S.Ct. at 631, determined Congress had under the enforcement clause of the now-repealed Eighteenth Amendment. See Morgan 384 U.S. at 650-51, 86 S.Ct. at 1723-24 (discussing cases). On our reading of the case, we cannot agree with the Sixth Circuit that a rearticulated and heightened Fourteenth Amendment standard now applies by virtue of Morgan. We thus see no reason to doubt the correctness of our decision in Ramirez regarding Morgan and the rational basis standard enunciated therein, which we reaffirm as controlling in this circuit. See 715 F.2d at 698. 26 The scope of the rational basis test, however, requires some clarification. The Sixth Circuit defends its rearticulated Fourteenth Amendment standard by highlighting the unacceptable consequences that it believes would be attendant upon retaining the rational basis standard. See Wilson-Jones, 99 F.3d at 209 (If we were to say that an act is valid if it is rationally related to achieving equal protection of the laws, then § 5 becomes a license to Congress to pass any sort of legislation whatsoever.). We do not agree that the rational basis test regarding enforcement of the Fourteenth Amendment's equal protection guaranty gives Congress a license to pass any sort of legislation whatsoever. The Fourteenth Amendment does not render every discrimination between groups of people a constitutional denial of equal protection. Oregon v. Mitchell, 400 U.S. 112, 127, 91 S.Ct. 260, 266, 27 L.Ed.2d 272 (1970) (opinion of Black, J.). Similarly, every congressional action that enlargens the scope of a law to encompass a new class of people--thereby eliminating a previous 'discrimination' that the law had made--is not, ipso facto, a means towards enforcing section five of the Fourteenth Amendment, because that provision does not permit Congress to prohibit every discrimination between groups of people. Id. Put in a different fashion,  '[t]he Fourteenth Amendment does not profess to secure to all persons in the United States the benefit of the same laws and the same remedies.'  Holden v. Hardy, 169 U.S. 366, 388, 18 S.Ct. 383, 386, 42 L.Ed. 780 (1898) (quoting Missouri v. Lewis, 101 U.S. 22, 31, 25 L.Ed. 989 (1879)). 27 When the Supreme Court first examined the Fourteenth Amendment's equal protection guaranty in the Slaughter-House Cases, it suggested that the racial concern exhausted the meaning of the clause. Gerald Gunther, Constitutional Law 601 (12th ed.1991); see 83 U.S. (16 Wall.) 36, 71-72, 21 L.Ed. 394 (1873) (5-4 decision) ([N]o one can fail to be impressed with the one pervading purpose found in [the Reconstruction Amendments], lying at the foundation of each, and without which none of them would have been even suggested; we mean the freedom of the slave race, the security and firm establishment of that freedom, and the protection of the newly-made freeman and citizen from the oppressions of those who had formerly exercised unlimited dominion over him.... [I]n any fair and just construction of any section or phrase of these amendments, it is necessary to look to the purpose which ... was the pervading spirit of them all, [and] the evil which they were designed to remedy.). 28 The Court has since moved away from this narrow conception of the Fourteenth Amendment. The Supreme Court has struck down state statutes under the Equal Protection Clause that did not classify or 'discriminate' on the basis of race, but rather on some other impermissible basis, such as sex, alienage, illegitimacy, indigency, criminal conviction, or unreasonable arbitrariness. See, e.g., Mitchell, 400 U.S. at 150-52, 91 S.Ct. at 278-79 (opinion of Douglas, J.) (collecting cases); New York City Transit Auth. v. Beazer, 440 U.S. 568, 592 n. 39, 99 S.Ct. 1355, 1369 n. 39, 59 L.Ed.2d 587 (1979) ( '[L]egislative classifications are valid unless they bear no rational relationship to the State's objectives.' ) (quoting Massachusetts Bd. of Retirement v. Murgia, 427 U.S. 307, 314, 96 S.Ct. 2562, 2567, 49 L.Ed.2d 520 (1976) (per curiam)); Smith v. Cahoon, 283 U.S. 553, 566-67, 51 S.Ct. 582, 586-87, 75 L.Ed. 1264 (1931) (unanimous decision) ([T]he constitutional guaranty of equal protection of the laws is interposed against discriminations that are entirely arbitrary.) Gulf, Colo. & Santa Fe Ry. Co. v. Ellis, 165 U.S. 150, 165-66, 17 S.Ct. 255, 260-61, 41 L.Ed. 666 (1897) (explaining that the mere fact of classification in legislation does not violate the equal protection guaranty, but a mere arbitrary selection does); Atchison, Topeka & Santa Fe Ry. Co. v. Vosburg, 238 U.S. 56, 62, 35 S.Ct. 675, 677, 59 L.Ed. 1199 (1915) (same). 29 The scope and thrust of such decisions indicate that Equal Protection jurisprudence is not narrowly confined to traditional suspect or quasi-suspect classifications. Whereas, as is well-known, classifications aimed at suspect classes or those aimed at fundamental interests must pass strict scrutiny, see, e.g., Loving v. Virginia, 388 U.S. 1, 11-12, 87 S.Ct. 1817, 1823-24, 18 L.Ed.2d 1010 (1967), or, in the case of sex discrimination, intermediate review, see, e.g., Craig v. Boren, 429 U.S. 190, 197-99, 97 S.Ct. 451, 456-58, 50 L.Ed.2d 397 (1976), more mundane government classifications that do not target such groups or interests are subject only to more deferential rational basis review. Accordingly, government legislation or action [i]n the area of economics and social welfare does not violate the Equal Protection Clause merely because the classifications [it makes] are imperfect, Dandridge v. Williams, 397 U.S. 471, 485, 90 S.Ct. 1153, 1161, 25 L.Ed.2d 491 (1970), because [i]t is no requirement of equal protection that all evils of the same genus be eradicated or none at all. Railway Express Agency, Inc. v. New York, 336 U.S. 106, 110, 69 S.Ct. 463, 466, 93 L.Ed. 533 (1949). Instead, in this subset of concerns, the Equal Protection Clause requires that cities, states and the Federal Government must exercise their powers so as not to discriminate between their inhabitants except upon some reasonable differentiation fairly related to the object of regulation. Id. at 112, 69 S.Ct. at 466 (Jackson, J., concurring). Viewed against this backdrop, [e]qual protection of the laws means that 'no person or class of persons shall be denied the same protection of the laws which is enjoyed by other persons or other classes in the same place and under like circumstances.'  Walsh v. Massachusetts, 618 F.2d 156, 158 (1st Cir.1980) (emphasis added) (quoting Lewis, 101 U.S. at 31). 30 Supreme Court precedent, however, does not narrowly limit congressional power to enforce the Equal Protection Clause to what the Clause itself prohibits. The Court has explained that legislation enacted pursuant to section five would be upheld so long as the Court could find that the enactment 'is plainly adapted to [the] end' of enforcing the Equal Protection Clause and 'is not prohibited by but is consistent with the letter and spirit of the constitution,' regardless of whether the practices outlawed by Congress in themselves violated the Equal Protection Clause. City of Rome v. United States, 446 U.S. 156, 176, 100 S.Ct. 1548, 1561, 64 L.Ed.2d 119 (1980) (quoting Morgan, 384 U.S. at 651, 86 S.Ct. at 1724). Accordingly, we have previously explained that it is irrelevant whether the activities which Congress seeks to forbid by legislation are themselves unconstitutional either under the Equal Protection Clause or under other provisions of the Fourteenth Amendment, for Congress' reach under the Civil War Amendments has been enlarged in order to make these accretions fully effective. Ramirez, 715 F.2d at 698 (citing City of Rome, 446 U.S. at 179, 100 S.Ct. at 1562-63; Morgan, 384 U.S. at 648-49, 86 S.Ct. at 1722-23). 31 In the instant case, it would be difficult to conclude that the probation officers constitute a class of persons characterized by some unpopular trait or affiliation ... [that would] reflect any special likelihood of bias [against them] on the part of the ruling majority. Beazer, 440 U.S. at 593, 99 S.Ct. at 1369. In other words, the state employees are neither a suspect class nor do they allege a state infringement of a fundamental interest, as those terms have been defined in Fourteenth Amendment jurisprudence. Insofar as any congressional enforcement of the Equal Protection Clause concerns the plaintiff probation officers, therefore, it would be as against unreasonable and arbitrary state action. To be a legitimate expression of Congress' section five power to enforce the Fourteenth Amendment, therefore, the 1974 amendments at issue in this case, which extended the FLSA's wage and hour provisions to states and state employees, have to be rational means towards the end comprehended in this context by the Equal Protection Clause, South Carolina, 383 U.S. at 324, 326, 86 S.Ct. at 816, 817-18, namely, the guaranty against irrational, and therefore unjustified, government action. Ramirez, 715 F.2d at 699. 32 The relevant Supreme Court precedents we have considered above indicate that Congress, when acting pursuant to section five of the Fourteenth Amendment, can prohibit or take measures designed to remedy unreasonable and arbitrary classifications made by states, or the effects of such classifications, and when doing so can, consistent with Seminole Tribe, abrogate the states' sovereign immunity to suit in federal court. Conversely, these precedents indicate that Congress' section five enforcement power, as it pertains to the Equal Protection Clause in cases not involving suspect or quasi-suspect classes or fundamental interests, is limited to the elimination of arbitrariness or the effects of arbitrary government action, and does not permit Congress to prohibit or otherwise target reasonable state decisions or practices. We believe that this limitation on Congress' power to enforce the Equal Protection Clause follows from the end that the Clause comprehends in this specific context and the corollary fact that the Fourteenth Amendment does not render every discrimination between groups of people a constitutional denial of equal protection. Mitchell, 400 U.S. at 127, 91 S.Ct. at 266 (opinion of Black, J.). To reiterate, the cases discussed above indicate that every congressional action that enlargens the scope of a law to encompass a new class of people--thereby eliminating a previous 'discrimination' that the law had made--is not, ipso facto, a means of enforcing the Fourteenth Amendment because section five does not permit Congress to prohibit every discrimination between groups of people. Id. 33 We evaluate the FLSA amendments at issue against this framework to determine whether, in addition to being enactments made pursuant to Congress' Commerce Clause powers, they can be viewed appropriately as legislation that enforces the Equal Protection Clause. In our estimation, one would be hard-pressed to conclude that the FLSA amendments at issue here are rationally related to eliminating any arbitrary or unreasonable state action. Differences in the manner, method, and amount of payment that private sector and state employees receive, to the extent they exist, usually flow from a myriad of factors, including state budgetary concerns and the levels of public expenditure and taxation deemed proper by normal political processes. However, nothing in the record indicates that anything arbitrary or irrational explains or characterizes the states' practices in this area to the extent they may be prejudicial to state employees. Nor do we think, as the plaintiff probation officers would have us believe, that state employees and private sector employees are so similarly situated that differences in how and when they accrue premium pay for overtime violates the Equal Protection Clause's requirement that  'no person or class of persons shall be denied the same protection of the laws which is enjoyed by other persons or other classes in the same place and under like circumstances.'  Walsh, 618 F.2d at 158 (emphasis added) (quoting Lewis, 101 U.S. at 31); see, e.g., Employees, 411 U.S. at 286, 93 S.Ct. at 1618 (noting the significant difference between private employers and states as employers owing to federalism concerns). Accordingly, we conclude that we will not attribute to Congress an unstated intent to act under its authority to enforce the Fourteenth Amendment, Pennhurst, 451 U.S. at 16, 101 S.Ct. at 1539, because on the record before us there is no evidence that the 1974 FLSA amendments are rationally related to the elimination of any unreasonable and arbitrary state action, or the effects of such action, which Congress is empowered to remedy pursuant to section five of the Fourteenth Amendment. Thus, we do not believe that Congress can, consistent with Seminole Tribe and Fitzpatrick v. Bitzer, abrogate the states' sovereign immunity to suit in federal court in this context. 34 In arriving at this conclusion, our analysis does not suggest any reason or need for us to revisit our earlier pronouncements regarding the FLSA wage and hour provisions at issue here. Specifically, we have previously determined that Congress' authority to impose on the states the FLSA's wage and hour requirements was squarely bottomed on the commerce clause. New Hampshire Dep't of Employment Sec. v. Marshall, 616 F.2d 240, 247 (1st Cir.1980). In so doing, we indicated that the FLSA provisions at issue here differed from other congressional legislation, like the Equal Pay Act, which, we explained, was applied to the states as a legitimate exercise of congressional authority to adopt legislation enforcing the fourteenth amendment's guaranty of equal protection of the law. Id. (citing Usery v. Charleston County Sch. Dist., 558 F.2d 1169 (4th Cir.1977); Usery v. Allegheny County Institution Dist., 544 F.2d 148 (3d Cir.1976)). Today we state the corollary that we did not explicitly state in so many words in Marshall: whatever constitutional basis they may have in the Commerce Clause, the 1974 amendments to the FLSA in dispute again here did not apply the Act's wage and hour provisions to the states and state employees as a legitimate exercise of congressional authority to adopt legislation under section five of the Fourteenth Amendment. 35 This conclusion, of course, is fatal to the plaintiff probation officers' argument on appeal because in Seminole Tribe, see 517 U.S. at ---- - ----, 116 S.Ct. at 1131-32, the Supreme Court held that Congress cannot exercise its Commerce Clause power, or any of its other Article I powers, to abrogate a state's Eleventh Amendment immunity from suit in federal court, thereby overruling the contrary rule of Union Gas. See 491 U.S. at 15, 109 S.Ct. at 2282 (plurality opinion). 36 The force of the above line of reasoning helps to explain why every post-Seminole Tribe federal district court decision of which we are aware has dismissed private FLSA actions for lack of subject matter jurisdiction, even if the reasons stated were summary or did not always squarely address the section five, Fourteenth Amendment argument that we reject here today. See, e.g., Raper v. Iowa, 940 F.Supp. 1421 (S.D.Iowa 1996) (dismissing case and rejecting Fourteenth Amendment theory of the FLSA); Chauvin v. Louisiana, 937 F.Supp. 567, 570 (E.D.La.1996) (same); Powell v. Florida, No. 95-6233-CIV-ZLOCH (S.D.Fla. August 6, 1996) (same); Walden v. Florida Dep't of Corrections, TCA 95-40357-WS (N.D. Fla. June 23, 1996) (same); Moad v. Arkansas State Police Dep't, No. LR-C-94-450, 1996 WL 819805 (E.D.Ark. May 15, 1996), aff'd by Moad v. Arkansas State Police Dep't, 111 F.3d 585 (8th Cir.1997) (declining to consider whether FLSA could have been enacted under Fourteenth Amendment where issue was not raised in district court and raised on appeal only in reply brief); Bergemann v. Rhode Island, 958 F.Supp. 61 (D.R.I. 1997) (dismissing case but not addressing Fourteenth Amendment theory); Close v. New York, No. 94-CV-0906, 1996 WL 481550 (N.D.N.Y. August 19, 1996) (same); Arndt v. Wisconsin Dep't of Corrections, No. 95-C-937-C, 1996 WL 911227 (W.D. Wisc. June 20, 1996) (same); Stuhr v. Oregon, No. 95-6118-TC, 1996 WL 888187 (D.Or. June 14, 1996) (same); Ross v. Middle Tenn. St. Univ., No. 3-95-1203, 1996 WL 888185 (M.D. Tenn. July 17, 1996) (same). 37 In sum, we see no reason to doubt the correctness of these results, the Sixth Circuit's result in Wilson-Jones, see 99 F.3d at 211, or the conclusions of commentators who view with skepticism post-Seminole attempts to rescue private FLSA actions against states by recourse to arguments about section five of the Fourteenth Amendment. See, e.g., Daniel J. Meltzer, The Seminole Decision and State Sovereign Immunity, 1996 Sup.Ct. Rev. 1, 49 & n. 230 (noting that the merits of the section five strategy, while varying with different statutes, would be hard to execute as to the Fair Labor Standards Act, in part because it is doubtful that the Supreme Court would accept an argument that would so sharply limit the effective scope of Seminole ). The Retroactivity of Seminole Tribe 38 Having concluded that Seminole Tribe controls, we next consider whether we should apply it retroactively to this case, which was properly pending in federal court before the Supreme Court overruled Union Gas. The plaintiff probation officers ask that in the event we do not agree with their section five, equal protection argument, we refrain from dismissing their federal suit by applying the equitable standards articulated in Northern Pipeline Constr. Co. v. Marathon Pipe Line Co., 458 U.S. 50, 102 S.Ct. 2858, 73 L.Ed.2d 598 (1982), and Chevron Oil v. Huson, 404 U.S. 97, 92 S.Ct. 349, 30 L.Ed.2d 296 (1971). Those cases articulated a three-pronged analysis that seeks to minimize the visit[ation of] substantial injustice and hardship upon those litigants who relied upon a congressional statute's grant of jurisdiction. Marathon Pipe Line, 458 U.S. at 88, 102 S.Ct. at 2880 (plurality opinion) (Brennan, J.) (construing Huson ). 39 There are several difficulties with the probation officers' argument. First, the Supreme Court in recent years has largely rejected the pertinent propositions in both Marathon Pipe Line and Huson. See Reynoldsville Casket Co. v. Hyde, 514 U.S. 749, 752, 115 S.Ct. 1745, 1748, 131 L.Ed.2d 820 (1995) (describing Huson as having been overruled in part as stated by Harper v. Virginia Dep't of Tax'n, 509 U.S. 86, 113 S.Ct. 2510, 125 L.Ed.2d 74 (1993)). Second, subject matter jurisdiction and Eleventh Amendment immunity can be raised at any time, and when raised, the issue is not whether the court had jurisdiction at some time in the past, but whether the court today still has jurisdiction. Thus, in a decision that postdates the two largely discredited cases on which the state employees in this dispute so heavily rely, the Supreme Court has emphasized that  'a court lacks discretion to consider the merits of a case over which it is without jurisdiction, and thus, by definition, a jurisdictional ruling may never be made prospective only.'  Budinich v. Becton Dickinson & Co., 486 U.S. 196, 203, 108 S.Ct. 1717, 1722, 100 L.Ed.2d 178 (1988) (unanimous decision) (quoting Firestone Tire & Rubber Co. v. Risjord, 449 U.S. 368, 379, 101 S.Ct. 669, 676, 66 L.Ed.2d 571 (1981)). Finally, the probation officers' request contravenes our own recent pronouncement on this issue. See Stella v. Kelley, 63 F.3d 71, 74 (1st Cir.1995) (When dealing with matters that govern a court's jurisdiction, there is no conceivable bar to retroactive application of a 'new,' judicially declared rule.). 40 The Denial of Plaintiffs' Discovery Request 41 We next consider the probation officers' argument that the district court improperly denied their request to conduct discovery on whether Maine waived its Eleventh Amendment immunity by voluntarily participating in a federal program that expressly conditions state participation upon a state's consent to suit in federal court. We review a district court's decision to deny discovery on a dispositive motion for abuse of discretion. See Fennell v. First Step Designs, Ltd., 83 F.3d 526, 530 (1st Cir.1996) (interpreting Fed.R.Civ.P. 56(f)). 42 The probation officers argue that a state is subject to suit in federal court where it has waived its Eleventh Amendment sovereign immunity, either expressly or implicitly by participating in a federal program conditioned on a state's consent to suit in federal court. See Atascadero State Hosp. v. Scanlon, 473 U.S. 234, 241, 105 S.Ct. 3142, 3146-47, 87 L.Ed.2d 171 (1985). The probation officers also argue that litigants are generally afforded the right to undertake discovery when they are faced with a jurisdictional bar. See Gould, Inc. v. Pechiney Ugine Kuhlmann, 853 F.2d 445, 451 (6th Cir.1988); Majd-Pour v. Georgiana Community Hosp. Inc., 724 F.2d 901, 903 (11th Cir.1984) (Although the plaintiff bears the burden of proving the court's jurisdiction, the plaintiff should be given the opportunity to discover facts that would support his allegations of jurisdiction.). 43 Maine law authorizes the Maine Department of Corrections to receive federal funds to carry out federal law. See Me.Rev.Stat. Ann. tit. 34-A, §§ 1403(4), 1209(2)(B) & (4)(F). The probation officers contend that these statutes, even standing alone, support a finding that Maine has voluntarily subjected itself to federal court jurisdiction in lawsuits brought pursuant to the FLSA. At the very least, they contend, they should have the opportunity to undertake discovery on Maine's participation in federal programs because the State controls the information about the federal programs in which it actually participates. 44 In evaluating the merits of the probation officers' argument on this point, we begin by noting that [t]he test for determining whether a State has waived its immunity from federal-court jurisdiction is a stringent one. Atascadero, 473 U.S. at 241, 105 S.Ct. at 3146. We have had previous occasion to explain that a waiver must be unambiguously manifested, and because of that requirement a state's mere participation in a federal program ... has been held insufficient to demonstrate a state's waiver of its immunity. WJM, Inc. v. Massachusetts Dep't of Pub. Welfare, 840 F.2d 996, 1002 (1st Cir.1988) (citing Atascadero, 473 U.S. at 244-46, 105 S.Ct. at 3148-49). 3 45 Courts that have considered the waiver theory have confronted plaintiffs who at least had identified some federal program or statute that supposedly required a waiver of state immunity as a condition for state participation or receipt of federal money. Cf. Manypenny v. United States, 948 F.2d 1057, 1066-67 (8th Cir.1991) (plaintiffs identify White Earth Land Settlement Act); Yorktown Med. Lab., Inc. v. Perales, 948 F.2d 84, 88 (2d Cir.1991) (plaintiff identifies Boren Amendment to the Medicaid Act). But cf. Baxter v. Vigo County Sch. Corp., 26 F.3d 728, 731-32 (7th Cir.1994) (plaintiffs fail to name federal program or statute). The plaintiffs in this case want to undertake discovery to identify the federal programs in which Maine participates. In other words, Maine argues, the plaintiffs not only want to conduct a fishing expedition, they want to conduct discovery in order to locate the lake in which to conduct the fishing expedition. We believe that this assessment, whatever else it may be, sufficiently describes the situation confronting us, and on these facts we cannot conclude, particularly given the stringent waiver standard articulated in Atascadero and WJM, that the district court abused its discretion in deciding to deny discovery on the plaintiffs' motion. See Fennell, 83 F.3d at 530. The State Transfer Issue 46 We next consider the appellants' argument that, assuming Seminole Tribe precludes federal jurisdiction in this FLSA action, the district court improperly dismissed the case rather than transfer it to state court. Whether a district court had authority to transfer a case to a state court is a legal question we review de novo. See Industrial Gen. Corp. v. Sequoia Pac. Sys. Corp., 44 F.3d 40, 43 (1st Cir.1995). Whether the district court should have exercised its authority to transfer a case to another court is a question we review for abuse of discretion. See Service Employees Int'l Union v. Local 1199 N.E., 70 F.3d 647, 655 (1st Cir.1995). 47 The probation officers' argument is flawed in several respects. First, the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure mandate that a federal court that determines it lacks subject matter jurisdiction has only one course of action left open to it: Whenever it appears by suggestion of the parties or otherwise that the court lacks jurisdiction of the subject matter, the court shall dismiss the action. Fed.R.Civ.P. 12(h)(3) (emphasis added). 48 Second, the probation officers' request runs afoul of earlier pronouncements from this and other circuits. See Dantes v. Western Found. Corp., 614 F.2d 299, 301 (1st Cir.1980) ( 'Where, as here, the court lacks jurisdiction over the subject matter ... [a defect] which precludes it from acting at all, a fortiori, a court lacks power to transfer.' ) (quoting Atlantic Ship Rigging Co. v. McLellan, 288 F.2d 589, 591 (3rd Cir.1961) and citing Panhandle E. Pipe Line Co. v. FPC, 343 F.2d 905, 908 (8th Cir.1965)); Klett v. Pim, 965 F.2d 587, 591 n. 7 (8th Cir.1992) ([A] court without subject matter jurisdiction cannot transfer a case to another court.). 49 Third, the probation officers overlook 28 U.S.C. § 1631, which limits a federal court's power to transfer a case to any other such court defined in 28 U.S.C. § 610, which, in turn, includes only other federal courts. See Moravian Sch. Advisory Bd. v. Rawlins, 70 F.3d 270, 274 (3d Cir.1995) (citing McLaughlin v. ARCO Polymers, Inc., 721 F.2d 426, 429 (3rd Cir.1983)). 50 Finally, we are unpersuaded by the probation officers' reliance on a Third Circuit decision, Weaver v. Marine Bank, 683 F.2d 744 (3rd Cir.1982). In Weaver, the Third Circuit confronted an arguably similar situation in which plaintiffs had originally filed their claim in federal court believing that the court had subject matter jurisdiction under federal securities law. The Supreme Court subsequently ruled that the plaintiffs had no such claim. See Marine Bank v. Weaver, 455 U.S. 551, 559, 102 S.Ct. 1220, 1225, 71 L.Ed.2d 409 (1982). On remand, there was no other federal question upon which to base jurisdiction, diversity was lacking, and the Third Circuit faced the possibility that the plaintiffs' cause of action in state court would be time-barred. See 683 F.2d at 745-46. In this set of circumstances, the Third Circuit took the step of transferring the matter to state court pursuant to a Pennsylvania enabling statute. See id. at 748. 51 Maine does not have a statute identical to the Pennsylvania law upon which the Third Circuit relied, but the probation officers indicate that Maine has a savings statute that permits cases to be transferred to the proper court when the original action fails for any matter of form. Me.Rev.Stat. Ann. tit. 14, § 855. The probation officers argue that the savings statute should be read to permit transfer of an action from a federal district court to a state court. 52 We believe this argument underestimates the importance that the Third Circuit attached to the unique nature of the Pennsylvania statute on which it relied in transferring the case to state court. The Third Circuit explained that this statute, on its face, expressed Pennsylvania's willingness to accept jurisdiction over cases improvidently brought in the federal courts, and specifically provide[d both] that a federal court within the state may transfer erroneously filed cases to the state courts, and that matters transferred under the statute's provisions  'shall be treated ... as if originally filed in the transferee court ... on the date first filed in a [federal] court.'  683 F.2d at 748, 745, 746 (quoting 42 Pa. Cons.Stat. § 5103(a)). 53 In transferring the case, the Third Circuit explained that it had the authority to do so as a result of this specifically worded Pennsylvania statute and its underlying power as a federal court to elect to use such a state mechanism, if available. Id. at 747. In this regard, the Third Circuit analogized the transfer to a situation in which a federal court certifies a question of doubtful state law to a state supreme court authorized by state law to accept it, and noted that the Supreme Court had approved certification, despite a lack of federal statutory authorization for the practice, because it  'helps build a cooperative judicial federalism.'  Id. (quoting Lehman Bros. v. Schein, 416 U.S. 386, 391, 94 S.Ct. 1741, 1744, 40 L.Ed.2d 215 (1974)). 54 The Pennsylvania enabling statute that rests at the heart of Weaver bears no resemblance to the Maine general savings statute in this case from which the appellants seek succor. See Me.Rev.Stat. Ann. tit. 14, § 855. The Maine statute makes no mention of transfer and only permits a re-filing in state court of a case that has been defeated for any matter of form. Id. Neither the parties' nor our own research has uncovered any Maine caselaw that addresses whether this description would encompass the case at bar as a matter of state law. We note, however, that on our reading of the statute we glean no manifestation of a willingness on the part of the State of Maine analogous to that of the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania to accept jurisdiction over cases improvidently filed in federal court with relation back to the time of the filing of the case in federal court. The importance of the Pennsylvania statute and its specialized provisions to the outcome in Weaver is evident when one considers that the Third Circuit subsequently has explicitly stated that [a]bsent statutory authority, the traditional general rule that a court may not transfer a matter over which it lacks jurisdiction governs. Shendock v. Director, Office of Workers' Comp. Programs, 893 F.2d 1458, 1467 (3rd Cir.1990) (en banc). 55 While we express no view on the question of whether the Third Circuit's analysis in Weaver warrants our agreement, 4 we believe that there can be no question that, in the absence of any specialized state statute, it is the duty of the trial court, if it finds that jurisdiction does not exist, to proceed no further but to dismiss the suit. Joy v. Hague, 175 F.2d 395, 396 (1st Cir.1949) (emphasis added) (citing McNutt v. General Motors Acceptance Corp., 298 U.S. 178, 182, 56 S.Ct. 780, 782, 80 L.Ed. 1135 (1936)). 56 The Motion to Amend The Complaint and Ex parte Young 57 On the eve of oral argument before this court, the plaintiffs-appellants filed an unusual motion to amend their complaint to add the Maine Commissioner of Corrections as a new party defendant. This motion constitutes an eleventh hour attempt by plaintiffs to bring their case under the aegis of the doctrine of Ex parte Young, 209 U.S. 123, 28 S.Ct. 441, 52 L.Ed. 714 (1908), and thereby overcome the Eleventh Amendment bar to their FLSA action. For the reasons that follow, we deny the motion. 58 Although not the routine, appellate courts have authority to allow amendments to complaints because  '[t]here is ... in the nature of ... appellate jurisdiction, nothing which forbids the granting of amendments.'  Newman-Green, Inc. v. Alfonzo-Larrain, 490 U.S. 826, 834, 109 S.Ct. 2218, 2223, 104 L.Ed.2d 893 (1989) (quoting Anonymous, 1 F. Cas. 996, 997 (C.C.Mass.1812) (No. 444) (Story, Circuit Justice)). This feature of appellate court power long predates the enactment of the Federal Rules, and stems from common law practice, which permitted 'the superior court ... [to] make such amendments, as the court below may.'  Newman-Green, 490 U.S. at 834, 109 S.Ct. at 2223 (quoting Anonymous, 1 F. Cas. at 997) (quoting King v. Ponsonby, 1 Wils. 303, 95 Eng. Rep. 631 (K.B.1751)). See 28 U.S.C. § 1653 (Defective allegations of jurisdiction may be amended, upon terms, in the trial or appellate courts.). 59 The plaintiff probation officers' argument in favor of their motion rests on three arguments. The first is the amendment authorization contained in 28 U.S.C. § 1653. The second is the doctrine of Ex parte Young, which allows plaintiffs to avoid the Eleventh Amendment bar by naming a state officer in his official capacity in cases where prospective declaratory and injunctive relief is sought under federal law. The third is the liberal standard of Rule 15(a) of the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure, which, in relevant part, provides: 60 A party may amend the party's pleading once as a matter of course at any time before a responsive pleading is served.... Otherwise a party may amend the party's pleading only by leave of court or by written consent of the adverse party; and leave shall be freely given when justice so requires. 61 Fed.R.Civ.P. 15(a) (emphasis added). 62 While intriguing at first glance, closer inspection reveals that the plaintiffs-appellants' argument runs aground at each juncture. In the first place, 28 U.S.C. § 1653 does not allow what the probation officers seek here. Section 1653 allows amendments to cure [d]efective allegations of jurisdiction. (emphasis added). This statutory language suggests that it addresses only incorrect statements about jurisdiction that actually exists, and not defects in the jurisdictional facts themselves. Newman-Green, 490 U.S. at 831, 109 S.Ct. at 2222. Specifically, the Newman-Green Court refused to interpret section 1653 as empower[ing] federal courts to amend a complaint so as to produce jurisdiction where none actually existed before. Id. 63 The Newman-Green Court's interpretation of section 1653 thus precludes the amendment that the probation officers desire. The unequivocal rule of Newman-Green is that section 1653 does not authorize the addition or elimination of parties in order to create jurisdiction where jurisdiction does not exist. See Newman-Green at 830-31, 109 S.Ct. at 2221-22. This rule is fatal to the plaintiffs-appellants' argument because this is exactly the relief they seek in asking that their complaint be amended by adding the Commissioner of Corrections as a new party defendant. 64 Moreover, we reiterate our view that, where a party has had an opportunity to seek to amend its pleadings in the district court, it is not appropriate for that party belatedly to seek leave to amend on appeal pursuant to 28 U.S.C. § 1653. See Joy, 175 F.2d at 396. Accord Sarnoff v. American Home Prods. Corp., 798 F.2d 1075, 1079 (7th Cir.1986). The appellants here, like the Joy appellants, having refused to amend before the district court, come to this court asking leave to do what they failed to do below and attempt to create an error upon the part of the trial court because of matter never before that court. Joy, 175 F.2d at 396. After the Supreme Court handed down its decision in Seminole Tribe, and certainly after the State of Maine filed its motion to dismiss for lack of subject matter jurisdiction based upon the ruling of Seminole Tribe, the probation officers had every reason to suspect[ ] a jurisdictional difficulty with their case, but took no reasonable opportunity to cure it before the appeal. Sarnoff, 798 F.2d at 1079. Under these circumstances, we believe it is only fair and reasonable to conclude that the appellants had fair warning in the district court and failed to act on it; enough is enough. Id. 65 Furthermore, the proposed amendment is a futile attempt to bring this case under the ambit of Ex parte Young. The only relief that the plaintiffs have sought in this case, prior to the filing of their proposed amendment on appeal, has been unpaid wages and liquidated damages under the FLSA. Ex parte Young allows a way around the bar to federal jurisdiction erected by the Supreme Court's Eleventh Amendment jurisprudence only in cases where prospective declaratory or injunctive relief is sought under federal law. See Seminole Tribe, 517 U.S. at ----, 116 S.Ct. at 1132 ([S]ince our decision in Ex parte Young, we often have found federal jurisdiction over a suit against a state official when that suit seeks only prospective injunctive relief in order to 'end a continuing violation of federal law.' ) (internal citation omitted) (quoting Mansour, 474 U.S. at 68, 106 S.Ct. at 426). The Ex parte Young doctrine does not apply in cases where plaintiffs seek monetary relief for past violations of federal law, regardless of whether the party the plaintiffs seek to designate as a defendant is nominally a state officer sued in his official capacity. See Pennhurst State Sch. & Hosp. v. Halderman, 465 U.S. 89, 102-03, 104 S.Ct. 900, 909, 79 L.Ed.2d 67 (1984); Edelman v. Jordan, 415 U.S. 651, 668, 94 S.Ct. 1347, 1358, 39 L.Ed.2d 662 (1974). 66 These cases preclude the probation officers' attempt to rescue their monetary claims against the State of Maine via their proposed addition of the Commissioner of Corrections as a new party defendant. 5 The plaintiffs-appellants nonetheless argue that just because they may be deprived of recovering retroactive money damages in federal court should not also mean that they are deprived of the benefit of their efforts to have their rights under [the] FLSA declared. However, both sides to this dispute agree that there is no continuing violation of federal law, as the background litigation between them also indicates is the case. See Blackie v. Maine, 75 F.3d 716 (1st Cir.1996), aff'g Blackie v. Maine, 888 F.Supp. 203 (D.Me.1995). 6 67 No declaratory relief can issue in these circumstances. See Mansour, 474 U.S. at 71-73, 106 S.Ct. at 427-28. The Mansour Court concluded that injunctive and declaratory relief could not issue for a variety of reasons that also exist in this case. First, the Court in Mansour noted that monetary relief was not available because it was prohibited by the Eleventh Amendment. Id. at 73, 106 S.Ct. at 428. Second, the Court explained that [b]ecause there is no continuing violation of federal law to enjoin in this case, an injunction is not available. Id. at 71, 106 S.Ct. at 427. Third, the Court conceded that it had construed the Declaratory Judgment Act of 1934, 28 U.S.C. § 2201, to mean that declaratory relief may be available even though an injunction is not, but explained that it had also held that a declaratory judgment is not available in a number of instances. Id. at 72, 106 S.Ct. at 428. Specifically, declaratory relief was unavailable where the award of declaratory judgment ... would be useful in resolving the dispute over the past lawfulness of respondent's action only if it might be offered in state-court proceedings as res judicata on the issue of liability, leaving to the state courts only a form of accounting proceeding whereby damages or restitution could be computed. Id. at 73, 106 S.Ct. at 428. The Court concluded that the issuance of a declaratory judgment in these circumstances would have much the same effect as a full-fledged award of damages or restitution by the federal court, the latter kinds of relief being of course prohibited by the Eleventh Amendment. Id. 68 In view of the marked similarity between the situation that confronted the Mansour Court and that confronts us in this case, we cannot help but note Mansour 's admonition that a declaratory judgment is not available when the result would be a partial 'end run'  around the rest of the Supreme Court's Eleventh Amendment jurisprudence, particularly its limitations on the Ex parte Young doctrine. Id. 69 Moreover, Seminole Tribe suggests that the probation officers could not seek injunctive relief, even if there were a continuing violation in this case, because the FLSA only authorizes the Secretary of Labor to seek injunctive relief, limiting employees to suits for unpaid wages and liquidated damages. See 29 U.S.C. §§ 216, 217; cf. Donovan v. Brown Equip. & Serv. Tools, Inc., 666 F.2d 148, 155-56 (5th Cir.1982) (reviewing legislative history). In the face of this statutory scheme, the appellants' motion to amend their complaint is particularly suspect. As the Supreme Court explained in Seminole Tribe, where Congress has prescribed a detailed remedial scheme for the enforcement against a State of a statutorily created right, a court should hesitate before casting aside those limitations and permitting an action against a state officer based upon Ex parte Young. 517 U.S. at ----, 116 S.Ct. at 1132. 7 70 In sum, with no right on the part of the plaintiff probation officers to seek retroactive money damages, with no continuing violation to justify injunctive relief, and with no clearly apparent right on the part of the plaintiffs to seek injunctive relief even if a continuing violation were present, declaratory relief, as in Green v. Mansour, would serve no useful purpose. See 474 U.S. at 73, 106 S.Ct. at 428. The only possible use of declaratory relief in this case now would be for the purpose of asserting res judicata in state court proceedings. As we saw above, however, Mansour precludes this option as an impermissible end run around Eleventh Amendment jurisprudence because the result would be little different than a prohibited direct federal court award of money damages against the state to the extent it would reduce a state court proceeding into a mere accounting session whereby damages or restitution could be computed. Id. 71 The Supreme Court has identified a range of circumstances, including undue delay and futility of amendment, that should preclude granting a motion to amend. See Foman v. Davis, 371 U.S. 178, 182, 83 S.Ct. 227, 230, 9 L.Ed.2d 222 (1962) (construing Fed.R.Civ.P. 15(a)). Suffice to say that the panoply of legal arguments we have canvassed above indicates that the plaintiff probation officers' eleventh hour motion to amend to seek declaratory relief fails under more than one prong of the Foman standard. In particular, a declaratory judgment is unavailable where, as here, the parties agree that there is no ongoing legal violation. 8