Opinion ID: 894830
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 3

Heading: Should This Court Authorize the State to Sue Cities?

Text: The State argues that unambiguous legislation is unnecessary here because the question is not one of waiver, but of the existence of immunity in the first instance. [I]t remains the judiciary's responsibility to define the boundaries of the common-law doctrine and to determine under what circumstances sovereign immunity exists in the first instance. [28] But this distinction is a fine one, as waiving immunity or finding it nonexistent have precisely the same effect. [29] Due to the risk that the latter could become a ruse for avoiding the Legislature, courts should be very hesitant to declare immunity nonexistent in any particular case. It is true that we recently held in Reata Construction Corp. v. City of Dallas that immunity does not exist when a government affirmatively files suit for money damages, although the Legislature had never said so. [30] But that rule had been recognized for decades in both Texas and federal courts. [31] By contrast, the parties here do not point to a single case in which the State has ever been allowed to sue a city for money damages. The court of appeals cited one case each from Texas, Maryland, and Ohio to support its judgment. [32] But in the Texas case, a statute unambiguously rendered cities liable for workers' compensation penalties, [33] a circumstance not present here. And while the common law of governmental immunity in Maryland and Ohio is certainly interesting, it is entirely alien to our own Maryland cities and counties have long been subject to contract suits by private parties, [34] and Ohio courts have subsequently abolished immunity altogether. [35] Moreover, none of the policies behind governmental immunity were implicated in Reata, [36] while they would be here. First, when the State sues a private party, the general public stands to lose nothing; [37] but when the State sues a city, a substantial part of the public will no longer be shielded from the costs and consequences of improvident actions of their governments. [38] While this case involves $180,000 (a small amount relative to most government budgets), the rule we adopt today must apply even if the claim is for $180 million, or billion. If a levee or skyscraper collapses, issues of fault and causation pale in comparison to issues of who can bear and repair such staggering losses. These are precisely the kinds of issues more suited to the Legislature than the courts. Second, there are jurisdictional problems in asking courts to enforce a judgment against a government entity, even if it is a local one. [39] If the State can sue cities successfully, what will the courts do if the cities refuse to pay? Will courts order them to raise taxes, or impound funds for police, fire, or sanitation workers so the State can collect? Or will the court order execution on city propertyperhaps its parks, buses, water works, or airport? Third, there is the problem of fundamental fairness. As we noted in Reata, it would be fundamentally unfair to allow a governmental entity to assert affirmative claims against a party while claiming it had immunity as to the party's claims against it. [40] In this case, finding immunity nonexistent would mean the State can sue the City, but the City cannot sue the State. [41] If the Legislature chooses to adopt such a rule, so be it. But until then, fundamental fairness weighs against our doing so. We do not, as the dissent suggests, defer to the Legislature to decide whether immunity exists; for the reasons noted above, we decide that it does. But we do defer to the Legislatureas we always have doneto decide whether and to what extent that immunity should be waived. [42]