Opinion ID: 172570
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: GRDA and Eleventh Amendment Immunity

Text: The Eleventh Amendment is a jurisdictional bar that precludes unconsented suits in federal court against a state and arms of the state. See Steadfast Ins. Co. v. Agric. Ins. Co., 507 F.3d 1250, 1252-53 (10th Cir.2007). [2] A state may, however, waive its immunity. See Lapides v. Bd. of Regents, 535 U.S. 613, 618, 122 S.Ct. 1640, 152 L.Ed.2d 806 (2002). Generally, we will find a waiver either if the State voluntarily invokes our jurisdiction, or else if the State makes a clear declaration that it intends to submit itself to our jurisdiction. Coll. Sav. Bank v. Fla. Prepaid Postsecondary Educ. Expense Bd., 527 U.S. 666, 675-76, 119 S.Ct. 2219, 144 L.Ed.2d 605 (1999) (quotations and citation omitted). Put another way, `where a State voluntarily becomes a party to a cause and submits its rights for judicial determination, it will be bound thereby and cannot escape the result of its own voluntary act by invoking the prohibitions of the Eleventh Amendment.' Lapides, 535 U.S. at 619, 122 S.Ct. 1640 (quoting Gunter v. Atl. Coast Line R.R., 200 U.S. 273, 284, 26 S.Ct. 252, 50 L.Ed. 477 (1906)). This rule is based on the problems of inconsistency and unfairness that a contrary rule of law would create. Id. at 622, 122 S.Ct. 1640. Thus, courts have found waiver of Eleventh Amendment immunity when a state removes an action to federal court and then asserts Eleventh Amendment immunity, see id. at 620, 122 S.Ct. 1640; when a state initiates a patent interference proceeding and then attempts to shield itself from an appeal in that proceeding, see Vas-Cath, Inc. v. Curators of the Univ. of Mo., 473 F.3d 1376, 1378 (Fed.Cir.2007); when a state subjects itself to administrative proceedings, including an appeal to federal district court, that it later claims are precluded by the Eleventh Amendment, see New Hampshire v. Ramsey, 366 F.3d 1, 15-16 (1st Cir.2004); and when a state submits to a judicial determination that an entity has no tax liability but then asserts immunity when the nontaxable entity later files an ancillary petition seeking to enforce the terms of the original determination. See Gunter, 200 U.S. at 281-82, 291-93, 26 S.Ct. 252. Given this legal framework, we disagree with the plaintiffs that GRDA has waived immunity from this suit. The circumstances of the takings case and the one at hand are distinguishable in key respects from those cases in which courts have found waiver effected by litigation conduct. To begin, the takings case was asserted against the United States, not against the plaintiffs or other private citizens or entities. It is hornbook law that a state is not sovereign to the United States and does not enjoy Eleventh Amendment immunity from suits by the United States. See United States v. Mississippi, 380 U.S. 128, 140, 85 S.Ct. 808, 13 L.Ed.2d 717 (1965) ([N]othing in [the Eleventh Amendment] or any other provision of the Constitution prevents or has ever been seriously supposed to prevent a State's being sued by the United States.). It should be equally apparent that a state cannot waive an immunity defense to which it has no entitlement. Thus, it is difficult to perceive how GRDA waived its current claim to immunity based on the takings case, which involved claims against a party to which GRDA could not have asserted, and therefore could not have waived, Eleventh Amendment immunity. Cf. Biomedical Patent Mgmt. Corp. v. California, 505 F.3d 1328, 1339 (Fed.Cir.2007) (determining first whether the state waived its immunity in a prior lawsuit and then addressing whether that waiver extended to a later lawsuit). Moreover, the takings case and the one before us are distinct lawsuits involving different issues and different litigants. The cases therefore present a different posture than the singular proceedings in Lapides, Vas-Cath, Ramsey, and Gunter. See id. at 1336-38 (describing Lapides as involving the same action, Gunter as involving one continuous action, Vas-Cath as involving a later phase of a continuous proceeding, and Ramsey as involving one continuous proceeding). In addition, and contrary to the plaintiffs' assertion, the takings case did not determine the extent (if any) of GRDA's ownership interest in the Grand River water itself. Rather, the sole issue was whether the United States owed any additional compensation to GRDA for taking GRDA's purported interests in water power and developing electric power and energy at Fort Gibson Dam. Grand River Dam Auth., 363 U.S. at 231, 80 S.Ct. 1134. And even if GRDA's interest in the water itself was at issue in the takings case, that case did not decide GRDA's interest vis-a-vis the current plaintiffsnone of whom were parties or are privies to the parties in the takings case. The importance of this distinction is straightforward: considerations of unfairness and inconsistencythe underpinnings of the waiver-by-litigation-conduct rule as emphasized in Lapides, Vas-Cath, Ramsey, and Gunter are simply not present when the current suit is factually and legally distinct from the previous action. See Biomedical, 505 F.3d at 1340. To be clear, we do not assume that waiver in one case extends to another, so long as the two suits involve the same parties and subject matter. Indeed, the only court to have addressed this precise issue has rejected the argument that waiver of immunity in one suit should extend to a separate action simply because the action involves the same parties and same subject matter, and instead held that the waiver of immunity in a suit dismissed for improper venue did not extend to a refiled suit between the same parties and addressing the same claims. Id. at 1339. We need not, however, determine precisely the extent to which waiver in a prior case might extend to a future one. It is enough to say here that any waiver of immunity in the takings case [3] does not extend to the present lawsuit. The district court correctly held as much and properly dismissed the complaint against GRDA for lack of jurisdiction.