Opinion ID: 3010818
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: Congressional Abrogation of Immunity

Text: A valid abrogation of Eleventh Amendment immunity requires Congress to unequivocally express[ ] its intent to abrogate the immunity and to act pursuant to a valid exercise of power. Seminole, ___ U.S. at ___, 116 S. Ct. at 1123 (quoting Green v. Mansour, 474 U.S. 64, 68, 106 S. Ct. 423, 426 (1985)). Here, the parties agree that section 11501(c)6 is an unmistakably clear expression of Congress's intent to abrogate states' immunity regarding violations of section 11501(b). However, the parties disagree on whether the statute is a valid exercise of congressional power. The dispute centers largely around Seminole, which overruled Pennsylvania v. Union Gas Co., 491 U.S. 1, 23, 109 S. Ct. 2273, 2286 (1989) (holding that Congress could validly abrogate a state's sovereign immunity pursuant to its Commerce Clause powers). In Seminole, the Court noted that it had previously recognized only one other source of congressional power to abrogate states' sovereign immunity --the Fourteenth Amendment. Seminole, ___ U.S. at ___, 116 S. Ct. at 1125 (citing Fitzpatrick v. Bitzer, 427 U.S. 445, 96 S. Ct. 2666 (1976)). Thus, after Seminole, the only remaining source of congressional power to abrogate states' Eleventh Amendment immunity is the Fourteenth Amendment. _________________________________________________________________ 5. The Commonwealth of Pennsylvania has codified its position on immunity as follows: Nothing contained in this subchapter shall be construed to waive the immunity of the Commonwealth from suit in Federal courts guaranteed by the Eleventh Amendment to the Constitution of the United States. 42 Pa. Cons. Stat. S 8521. 6. Subsection (c) states in pertinent part as follows: Notwithstanding section 1341 of title 28 and without regard to the amount in controversy or citizenship of the parties, a district court of the United States has jurisdiction, concurrent with other jurisdiction of courts of the United States and the States, to prevent a violation of subsection (b) of this section. 49 U.S.C. S 11501(c). 6 Congress promulgated the 4-R Act pursuant to its Commerce Clause powers because of the interstate nature of the railroad industry. Section 11501 announces Congress's concern that discriminatory taxation unreasonably burden[s] and discriminate[s] against interstate commerce. 49 U.S.C. S 11501(b); see also 49 U.S.C. S 10101 (listing the purposes and policies of railroad regulation). However, when determining the sources of Congress's authority to legislate, we may look beyond the expressed constitutional basis in a statute's preamble or legislative history. See Fullilove v. Klutznick, 448 U.S. 448, 478, 100 S. Ct. 2758, 2774-75 (1980). The Supreme Court directs us to: proceed to the consideration whether [S 11501] is appropriate legislation to enforce the Equal Protection Clause, that is . . . whether [S 11501] may be regarded as an enactment to enforce the Equal Protection Clause, whether it is plainly adapted to that end and whether it is not prohibited by but is consistent with the letter and spirit of the constitution.  Katzenbach v. Morgan, 384 U.S. 641, 651, 86 S. Ct. 1717, 1724 (1966). In a later examination of Morgan, the Court established that to answer this inquiry: [i]t was enough that the Court could perceive a basis upon which Congress could reasonably predicate a judgment that application of literacy qualifications within the compass of S 4(e) would discriminate in terms of access to the ballot and consequently in terms of access to the provision of administration of government programs. Fullilove, 448 U.S. at 477, 100 S. Ct. at 2774 (citing Morgan, 384 U.S. at 652-53, 86 S. Ct. at 1722). 7 _________________________________________________________________ 7. Since Seminole, the District of Wyoming is the only other court to address this issue, specifically regarding the 4-R Act. See Union Pac. R.R. Co. v. Burton, 949 F. Supp. 1546 (D. Wyo. 1996). We disagree with that court's analysis because it was restricted to the expressed purposes of the 4-R Act set forth in section 10101. See id. at 1554. We look beyond the general purposes of the 4-R Act as a whole, to what we perceive as the purpose underlying section 11501, the portion of the act implicated here. 7 The legislative history of the statute before us shows Congress was aware that the railroads `are easy prey for State and local tax assessors in that they are nonvoting, often nonresident, targets for local taxation, who cannot easily remove themselves from the locality.'  Department of Rev. of Or. v. ACF Indus., 510 U.S. 332, 336, 114 S. Ct. 843, 847 (1994) (quoting Western Air Lines, Inc. v. Board of Equalization, 480 U.S. 123, 131, 107 S. Ct. 1038, 1043 (1987) (quoting S. Rep. No. 91-630, at 3 (1969))). Moreover, another court of appeals has held that the very purpose of section 11501 was to remedy discrimination against railroads: Until this law was passed, as pointed out by the appellants, states could constitutionally classify railroads differently from all other taxpayers for the imposition of state taxes without violating the equal protection clause of the Fourteenth Amendment. It was the obvious purpose of Congress to put an end to this practice, where such treatment of the railroads as a class was discriminatory in effect. Alabama Great S. R.R. Co. v. Eagerton, 663 F.2d 1036, 1040 (11th Cir. 1981) (emphasis added). The Supreme Court has also said that [c]orrectly viewed, S 5 [of the Fourteenth Amendment] is a positive grant of legislative power authorizing Congress to exercise its discretion in determining whether and what legislation is needed to secure the guarantees of the Fourteenth Amendment. Morgan, 384 U.S. at 651, 86 S. Ct. at 1723-24. It is evident to us that Congress recognized the potential for state and local taxing authorities to discriminate against railroads in violation of their Equal Protection rights under the Fourteenth Amendment. We conclude that Congress had the power, pursuant to Section Five of the Fourteenth Amendment, to promulgate section 11501, and did so to protect the railroads. Therefore, Congress validly abrogated Eleventh Amendment immunity, and the district court properly exercised jurisdiction over this lawsuit. Neither our analysis nor our conclusion is affected by the recent decisions cited by the Commission. It cites WilsonJones v. Caviness, 99 F.3d 203 (6th Cir. 1996), as 8 employing the correct post-Seminole analysis for determining whether an act of Congress, generally regarded to be within its Commerce Clause powers, can also be justified by the Fourteenth Amendment. The Commission reads Wilson-Jones to hold that, barring an explicit congressional recitation of authority under the Fourteenth Amendment, only statutes that remedy discrimination against a class of persons that Fourteenth Amendment jurisprudence has already identified as deserving special protection can be regarded as enactments to enforce the provisions of the Fourteenth Amendment. We disagree with this narrow reading of Wilson-Jones. There, the Court found no evidence that the core provisions of the Fair Labor Standards Act, before being amended by the Equal Pay Act, were enacted pursuant to Section Five of the Fourteenth Amendment. Although the Court feared the implications of an expansive rule that an act is valid [merely] if it is rationally related to achieving equal protection of the laws, it expressly admitted that its opinion might be different if Congress madefindings that a particular group needed legal protection to remedy some sort of invidious discrimination not directly addressed by federal precedent. Wilson-Jones, 99 F.3d at 209, 210 n.4. Here, however, the remedial nature of section 11501's constitutional protection is evident, despite the lack of an explicit congressional statement. We believe that Congress was within its discretion when it found that railroads need special protection from local tax assessors. Therefore, we reach a different conclusion than the Court in Wilson-Jones.8 Nor is our result affected by City of Boerne v. Flores, ___ U.S. ___, 117 S. Ct. 2157 (1997), in which the Supreme Court declared the Religious Freedom Restoration Act unconstitutional. The Court found that the Act was so out of proportion to a supposed remedial or preventive object that it cannot be understood as responsive to, or designed to prevent, unconstitutional behavior. It appears, instead, to attempt a substantive change in constitutional protections. Id. at ___, 117 S. Ct. at 2170. In so holding, _________________________________________________________________ 8. The reasoning in Wilson-Jones was also rejected in another Fair Labor Standards Act case. See Mills v. Maine, 118 F.3d 37, 45 (1st Cir. 1997). 9 the Court reasoned that [i]f Congress could define its own powers by altering the Fourteenth Amendment's meaning, it would be difficult to conceive of a principle that would limit congressional power. Id. at ___, 117 S. Ct. at 2168. Here, section 11501 is not out of proportion to its objective, nor does it substantively change any constitutional protections. We recently decided College Savings Bank v. Florida Prepaid Postsecondary Education Expense Board, Nos. 975055, 97-5086, 1997 WL 749514 (3d Cir. Dec. 5, 1997), in which we held that the right to be free of false advertising is not a constitutionally protected intangible property right. Therefore, the Due Process Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment was not implicated, and we concluded that the Trademark Remedy Clarification Act of 1992 did not abrogate Florida's immunity because it did not further the purposes of the Fourteenth Amendment. College Savings Bank, however, was expressly limited to its facts, id. at , and did not concern the Equal Protection Clause. It does not contradict our decision. Similarly, there is no dissonance between our decision in In re Sacred Heart Hospital of Norristown, No. 97-1126, 1998 WL 3627 (3d Cir. Jan. 8, 1998), and our decision here. In Sacred Heart, we did not distinguish between the Bankruptcy Clause and the Commerce Clause (both Article I powers) as being inappropriate sources of congressional power to abrogate states' Eleventh Amendment immunity. Id. at . Further, we found no evidence suggesting that S 106(a) [of the Bankruptcy Code] was enacted pursuant to any constitutional provision other than Congress' Bankruptcy Clause power. Id. at . Here, however, we have found such evidence in section 11501's legislative history and judicially-recognized anti-discrimination purpose. In sum, section 11501 is a valid exercise of congressional power under Section Five of the Fourteenth Amendment, thus effectively abrogating the Commission's Eleventh Amendment immunity.9 We now turn to the merits of the appeal. _________________________________________________________________ 9. The individual Commissioners also claim that they are immune from suit in federal court pursuant to the Eleventh Amendment. Wheeling 10