Opinion ID: 414420
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: Enforceability of the Funding Provision

Text: 19 In determining the enforceability of the provision, the district judge used contract principles. Because a consent decree has attributes of both a contract and a judicial act, United States v. Motor Vehicle Manufacturers Ass'n, 643 F.2d 644, 648 (9th Cir.1981), courts use contract principles in construing it. United States v. ITT Continental Baking Co., 420 U.S. 223, 238, 95 S.Ct. 926, 935, 43 L.Ed.2d 148 (1975); Kittitas Reclamation District v. Sunnyside Valley Irrigation District, 626 F.2d 95, 98 (9th Cir.1980), cert. denied, 449 U.S. 1079, 101 S.Ct. 861, 66 L.Ed.2d 802 (1981). State law applies when interpreting consent decrees. Collins v. Thompson, 679 F.2d 168, 170 (9th Cir.1982). 20 The trial judge determined that defendants and their counsel, the Oregon Attorney General, lacked power to bind the state to this financial undertaking. 3 The perpetual obligation to fund legal services violates state law. Oregon's Constitution, article XI section 7, prohibits the state from incurring more than $50,000 debt, with certain inapplicable exceptions. See Martin v. Oregon Building Authority, 276 Or. 135, 554 P.2d 126, 137 (1976) (en banc). 21 Executive officials such as defendants are forbidden to exercise legislative functions, including the making of appropriations, which are vested in the state assembly. Id. art. III Sec. 1, art. IV Sec. 1(1). Drawing money from the treasury except through appropriations made by law is proscribed. Id. art. IX Sec. 4. Statute forbids authorizing disbursement of state funds except by prescribed methods. Or.Rev.Stat. Sec. 291.990(1). 22 Under Oregon law, the contract underlying the consent decree was void to the extent that it exceeded defendants' authority. See State v. Des Chutes Land Co., 64 Or. 167, 175, 129 P. 764 (1913); accord, Baker v. Deschutes County, 10 Or.App. 236, 498 P.2d 803, 805 (1972). The district judge held that, because the contractual funding provision was void, the consent decree provision was unenforceable. 23 PLSO argues that the district judge erred in applying an exclusively contractual analysis to a consent decree. See Twentieth Century-Fox Film Corp. v. Dunnahoo, 637 F.2d 1338, 1340 (9th Cir.1981) (relief from provision of consent judgment must be considered under Rule 60(b) principles rather than under contract law analysis). Accord, United States v. Swift & Co., 286 U.S. 106, 115, 52 S.Ct. 460, 462, 76 L.Ed. 999 (1932) (consent decree). It contends that because a decree is no longer a contract but a judicial act, the state is now bound by the power of the court, not the contract. 24 Strict application of that principle would, in the circumstances of this case, result in an ultra vires judicial attempt to bind a nonparty, the state, to the litigation, and would create an impermissible constitutional confrontation between the federal court and the state legislature. 25 The Eleventh Amendment prohibits lawsuits against the state by private parties. To circumvent this prohibition when federal rights are violated, courts have resorted to the legal fiction, Vecchione v. Wohlgemuth, 558 F.2d 150, 156 (3d Cir.), cert. denied, 434 U.S. 943, 98 S.Ct. 439, 54 L.Ed.2d 304 (1977), of allowing injunctive suits against state officials rather than the state itself. Ex parte Young, 209 U.S. 123, 28 S.Ct. 441, 52 L.Ed. 714 (1908); Peters v. Lieuallen, 693 F.2d 966, 970 (9th Cir.1982). 26 By virtue of the supremacy clause, U.S. Const. art. VI Sec. 2, officials are bound to do what is constitutionally mandated, even if the state objects. Under Ex parte Young, the state cannot force officials to violate federal law. 209 U.S. at 159-60, 28 S.Ct. at 453-54. That compliance with a decree enforcing federal law will have an ancillary effect on the state treasury is the inevitable and permissible consequence of Ex parte Young -type suits. Edelman v. Jordan, 415 U.S. 651, 667-68, 94 S.Ct. 1347, 1357-58, 39 L.Ed.2d 662 (1974). See Milliken v. Bradley, 433 U.S. 267, 97 S.Ct. 2749, 53 L.Ed.2d 745 (1977) (approving court order against state officials to disburse state funds for instituting educational program in desegregation suit). 27 If general legal services for prisoners were required by the Constitution, we might be able to enforce this provision, notwithstanding the state's protest. It would be a method of meeting constitutional standards, and one formulated by the officials charged with penal supervision. Cf. Bell v. Wolfish, 441 U.S. 520, 562, 99 S.Ct. 1861, 1886, 60 L.Ed.2d 447 (1979); Wright v. Rushen, 642 F.2d 1129, 1132-33 (9th Cir.1981). 28 The district court could not have entered an involuntary decree requiring state officials to do more than the minimum needed to conform with federal law. [A]n equitable decree should not go further than necessary to eliminate the particular constitutional violation which prompted judicial intervention in the first instance. Spain v. Procunier, 600 F.2d 189, 194 (9th Cir.1979) (prisoners' suit alleging Eighth Amendment violations). Accord, Wright v. Rushen, supra, 642 F.2d at 1132-34. Similarly, the district court's authority to adopt a consent decree comes only from the law the decree is intended to enforce. See United States v. Motor Vehicle Manufacturers Ass'n, supra, 643 F.2d at 650. 29 In this consent decree, however, defendants agreed to do more than constitutionally required. See Bounds v. Smith, supra, 430 U.S. at 828, 97 S.Ct. at 1498. No one contemplated that they were to fund legal services from their private assets. The provision on its face ran against the State of Oregon. Unlike other, more prudent plaintiffs, see Brewster v. Dukakis, 675 F.2d 1, 2-5 (1st Cir.1982), these did not limit the decree to defendants' best efforts to obtain state funding. When defendants later tried to condition their performance on legislative approval, PLSO refused. The state has balked at further cooperation with PLSO. 30 Relief under Rule 60(b)(6) is extraordinary, especially where the judgment was rendered by consent. Twentieth Century-Fox Film Corp. v. Dunnahoo, supra, 637 F.2d at 1341. But the circumstances here are extraordinary, too. The draconian standards applicable to requests for modification of consent decrees against private parties, see, e.g., id. at 1341-42; United States v. Armour & Co., 402 U.S. 673, 681-83, 91 S.Ct. 1752, 1757-58, 29 L.Ed.2d 256 (1971); United States v. Swift & Co., 286 U.S. 106, 116-20, 52 S.Ct. 460, 463-64, 76 L.Ed. 999 (1932), cannot apply here or the court would run afoul of the state's sovereign immunity. This particular legal fiction has ended.