Opinion ID: 398916
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: the college's immunity

Text: 7 Skehan has throughout this litigation, beginning with the filing of his complaint, contended that he was entitled, inter alia, to reinstatement and an award of back pay. In our first consideration of this issue, we held that if under Pennsylvania law the College is an agent of the Commonwealth, state sovereign immunity would preclude the award of any relief against it directly and any but prospective monetary relief, equitable or legal, in an order directed against the individual defendants. Skehan v. Board of Trustees of Bloomsburg State College, 501 F.2d 31, 42 (3d Cir. 1974). The Supreme Court granted Skehan's petition for a writ of certiorari and, in a summary disposition, remanded the case to us for further consideration in light of, inter alia, Wood v. Strickland, 420 U.S. 308, 95 S.Ct. 992, 43 L.Ed.2d 214 (1975). Skehan v. Board of Trustees of Bloomsburg State College, 421 U.S. 983, 95 S.Ct. 1986, 44 L.Ed.2d 474 (1975). 2 We thereupon reviewed the case en banc, and held that in light of Wood v. Strickland our prior assumption of an unqualified common law immunity for the individual defendants was erroneous. Skehan v. Board of Trustees of Bloomsburg State College, 538 F.2d 53, 60 (3d Cir.) (en banc), cert. denied, 429 U.S. 979, 97 S.Ct. 490, 50 L.Ed.2d 588 (1976). We remanded to the district court so that it could determine whether the individual defendants acted without malice and whether they knew or reasonably should have known that the actions taken would violate Skehan's constitutional rights. In addition, we reexamined the issue of the College's immunity in light of the decision in Brungard v. Hartman, 12 Pa.Commw. 477, 315 A.2d 913 (1974), which had not been called to our attention before our prior opinion was filed. We concluded that the holding of Brungard that state colleges such as Bloomsburg State College are agencies for which Pennsylvania claims sovereign immunity was dispositive of the back pay issue, and therefore held that a back pay award could not be made out of the College's treasury. 8 On remand, the district court found that the one individual defendant whose conduct was at issue, President Nossen, acted in good faith and without malice, and was entitled to the qualified immunity recognized in Wood v. Strickland, supra. 431 F.Supp. 1379 (M.D.Pa.1977). The district court also declined to entertain Skehan's argument that this court had erred in holding that an award of damages in the form of back pay against the College was barred by the Eleventh Amendment. 436 F.Supp. 657, 665 (M.D.Pa.1977). On appeal, Skehan relied on the intervening decision of the Pennsylvania Supreme Court in Mayle v. Pennsylvania Department of Highways, 479 Pa. 384, 388 A.2d 709 (1978), which abrogated the judicially-created doctrine of sovereign immunity in suits against the Commonwealth for torts of its agents. We rejected Skehan's claim on the ground that the passage of Act No. 152 3 by the Pennsylvania legislature reaffirming and preserving sovereign immunity as a bar to claims brought against the Commonwealth and its agencies, officials, and employees, had effectively overruled the decision of the Pennsylvania Supreme Court in Mayle and therefore we had no need to interpret the effect of the Mayle court's abrogation of Pennsylvania's state law sovereign immunity on that state's Eleventh Amendment immunity from damage actions in federal court. Skehan v. Board of Trustees of Bloomsburg State College, 590 F.2d 470, 487-88 (3d Cir. 1978), cert. denied, 444 U.S. 832, 100 S.Ct. 61, 62 L.Ed.2d 41 (1979). We thus declined to disturb our previous ruling that the Eleventh Amendment precluded an award of back pay against the College. Id. at 488. 4 9 When the case was again before the district court, Skehan filed a motion for an award of special damages in the form of back pay for the period, inter alia, from October 17, 1970 through July 31, 1977, on the ground of an intervening change in Pennsylvania law. The district court's denial of this motion on November 24, 1980 raises one of the two issues on appeal. 10 Skehan contends that the recent decision of the Pennsylvania Supreme Court in Gibson v. Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, 490 Pa. 156, 415 A.2d 80 (1980), requires us to reconsider our previous holding that Act No. 152 overrules Mayle. In Gibson the court held that Act No. 152 could not be applied retroactively to extinguish causes of action which became actionable prior to the effective date of the Act. In reaching this conclusion, the court relied upon state and federal decisions which hold that a legislature may not constitutionally eliminate a remedy which has already accrued. Id. at 161-62; 415 A.2d at 83. The court further reasoned that although tort claims against the Commonwealth were not actionable prior to Mayle, the abrogation of sovereign immunity in Mayle retroactively applied to claims which arose prior to the Mayle decision. Id. at 162-63; 415 A.2d at 84. Shortly thereafter, in Brungard v. Mansfield State College, 491 Pa. 114, 419 A.2d 1171 (1980), the Pennsylvania Supreme Court applied the rule of Gibson, and held that a negligence action against a state college which had been filed in 1972 should not have been dismissed by the lower court on the ground that Act No. 152 barred the action. 11 Skehan's action accrued and was in existence prior to the passage of Act No. 152 on September 28, 1978. Therefore, under the Gibson decision, the Act cannot be retroactively applied, as we previously assumed. Because an appellate court must apply the law in effect at the time it renders its decision, Bradley v. School Board of the City of Richmond, 416 U.S. 696, 94 S.Ct. 2006, 40 L.Ed.2d 476 (1974) (citations omitted), we must reconsider our earlier holding that the Eleventh Amendment bars the award sought by Skehan. 12 The Eleventh Amendment provides, in relevant part: The Judicial power of the United States shall not be construed to extend to any suit in law or equity, commenced or prosecuted against one of the United States by Citizens of another State.... It applies only to bar suit against a state in federal court. Whether a state may be sued in its own state courts is a matter of its own state law. Skehan notes that in Hans v. Louisiana, 134 U.S. 1, 17, 10 S.Ct. 504, 508, 33 L.Ed. 842 (1890), the Supreme Court construed the Eleventh Amendment to permit a state to be sued in federal court by its own consent. Skehan argues that although the Pennsylvania Supreme Court in Mayle did not expressly address the applicability of its holding to Pennsylvania's Eleventh Amendment immunity, the decision should nevertheless be construed to waive the College's immunity because the court's language in Mayle rejects the sovereign immunity doctrine and its justifications in sweeping and unequivocal language, and thus implicitly abrogates sovereign immunity in federal as well as state court. 13 The issue now before us has been addressed by a number of the district courts in this circuit which have been almost unanimous in their conclusion that Mayle does not constitute consent by the Commonwealth and its agencies to be sued in federal court. Moore v. Colautti, 483 F.Supp. 357, 374 n.26 (E.D.Pa.1979), aff'd without opinion, 633 F.2d 210 (3d Cir. 1980); Savory v. Kawasaki Motor Corp., 472 F.Supp. 1216, 1217-18 (E.D.Pa.1979); Skrbina v. Pennsylvania Department of Highways, 468 F.Supp. 215 (W.D.Pa.1979); Ruman v. Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, 462 F.Supp. 1355, 1360-61 (M.D.Pa.), aff'd without opinion, 612 F.2d 574 (3d Cir. 1979), cert. denied, 446 U.S. 964, 100 S.Ct. 2939, 64 L.Ed.2d 823 (1979); Hernandez v. Whitesell, 462 F.Supp. 569, 573-74 (E.D.Pa.1978). Contra Greenfield v. Vesella, 457 F.Supp. 316, 319-20 (W.D.Pa.1978). For the reasons discussed below, we agree with the conclusion of these courts. 14 The cases which have considered a state's waiver of its Eleventh Amendment immunity have generally concerned the following issues: First, whether a particular legislative enactment permitting suits against a state in its courts serves as a consent to comparable suits in federal court. See, e.g., Kennecott Copper Corp. v. State Tax Commission, 327 U.S. 573, 66 S.Ct. 745, 90 L.Ed. 862 (1946) (Utah statute giving consent to certain taxpayers' suits not applicable to suits in federal court). Second, whether certain actions by the state, such as participation in federal aid programs, constitute consent to suit in federal court. See, e.g., Edelman v. Jordan, 415 U.S. 651, 671-74, 94 S.Ct. 1347, 1359-61, 39 L.Ed.2d 662 (1974) (no waiver by mere participation in federal welfare programs); Daye v. Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, 483 F.2d 294, 298 (3d Cir. 1973), cert. denied, 416 U.S. 946, 94 S.Ct. 1956, 40 L.Ed.2d 298 (1974) (no waiver based on mere acceptance of funds by the Commonwealth under the Federal-Aid Highway Act). See also Parden v. Terminal Ry., 377 U.S. 184, 192-93, 84 S.Ct. 1207, 1212-13, 12 L.Ed.2d 233 (1964) (where congressional statute authorized suit in federal court against any railroad operating in interstate commerce, state's operation of railroad in interstate commerce constituted consent to suit in federal court); Petty v. Tennessee-Missouri Bridge Commission, 359 U.S. 275, 79 S.Ct. 785, 3 L.Ed.2d 804 (1959) (waiver of immunity found in states' entering into interstate compact approved by Congress). Third, whether Eleventh Amendment immunity has been waived by a general or voluntary appearance in federal court by an officer of the state, such as the attorney general. See, e.g., Clark v. Barnard, 108 U.S. 436, 447-48, 2 S.Ct. 878, 882-83, 27 L.Ed. 780 (1883) (waiver found based on voluntary appearance by the state in litigation in federal court). But see Richins v. Industrial Construction, Inc., 502 F.2d 1051, 1056 (10th Cir. 1974) (no waiver by litigating on the merits in light of state statute precluding suits against state in federal court). 15 Neither party has directed us to any case in which the issue of waiver of Eleventh Amendment immunity by judicial decision alone has arisen. While we are aware of no case law authority indicating that the judiciary is without authority in this regard, we agree with appellees that strong policy considerations support a conclusion that the question of waiver of Eleventh Amendment immunity would ordinarily be a decision for the legislature or executive rather than for the judiciary. The legislative and executive branches have the information needed to evaluate the ability of the state treasury to bear the potential monetary burden that may result from consent to suit in federal court. Indeed, the sequence of events which followed the Mayle decision, enactment of an attempted legislative override followed by a partial nullification by the Pennsylvania Supreme Court, demonstrate the differing positions of the various Pennsylvania governmental branches on waiver of immunity. 16 More significantly, even if judicial waiver of Eleventh Amendment immunity were appropriate, we do not believe that the Mayle decision constitutes a waiver of such immunity. The Supreme Court has held that (i)n deciding whether a State has waived its constitutional protection under the Eleventh Amendment, we will find waiver only where stated 'by the most express language or by such overwhelming implications from the text as (will) leave no room for any other reasonable construction.'  Edelman v. Jordan, 415 U.S. at 673, 94 S.Ct. at 1361 (quoting Murray v. Wilson Distilling Co., 213 U.S. 151, 171, 29 S.Ct. 458, 464, 53 L.Ed. 742 (1909)). Similarly, in Daye v. Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, 483 F.2d at 298, we also stated that the conclusion by a court that there has been a waiver will not be lightly inferred and that when a waiver does take place it must be clear and unequivocal. This rule of clear and express waiver has been consistently applied in cases in which a state has consented to suit in its own courts by statute; absent a clear declaration of a state's consent to a similar suit against itself in federal court, such consent has not been inferred. See Kennecott Copper Corp. v. State Tax Commission, 327 U.S. at 577, 66 S.Ct. at 747; Ford Motor Co. v. Department of Treasury of Indiana, 323 U.S. 459, 465, 65 S.Ct. 347, 351, 89 L.Ed. 389 (1945); Great Northern Life Insurance Co. v. Read, 322 U.S. 47, 54-55, 64 S.Ct. 873, 876-77, 88 L.Ed. 1121 (1944). The situation here is analogous. 17 The opinion of the Pennsylvania Supreme Court in Mayle does not, by even the most liberal standards, constitute a clear and unequivocal waiver of Eleventh Amendment immunity. The precise question before the court in Mayle was whether Pennsylvania could be sued in state court for injuries suffered by the plaintiff as a result of a negligently maintained public highway. See 479 Pa. at 386, 388 A.2d at 709. In reversing the lower court's dismissal of appellant's complaint based on the sovereign immunity doctrine, the Pennsylvania court expressly abrogated that doctrine, reasoning that since sovereign immunity in Pennsylvania was a non-constitutional doctrine 5 that was established by judicial decisions, the state constitution did not preclude it from abolishing this judicially-created doctrine. The court further reasoned that none of the historical arguments favoring retention of the doctrine have continuing validity. Except to note that the Pennsylvania legislature had refused to ratify the Eleventh Amendment when it was proposed by Congress, the Mayle opinion does not discuss, either expressly or impliedly, the question of waiver of Pennsylvania's federal constitutionally-based immunity from suit in federal court. Rather, the opinion focuses on the judicially-created common law doctrine of sovereign immunity. 18 In light of the requirement applicable in this case that states 6 must clearly and expressly waive their Eleventh Amendment immunity to suit in federal court, we cannot infer that the Mayle court's waiver of Pennsylvania's immunity under state law constitutes a waiver of its Eleventh Amendment immunity. We, therefore, adhere to our earlier holding that an award of special damages against the College is barred by the Eleventh Amendment and affirm the lower court's denial of Skehan's motion for an award of special damages. 7