Opinion ID: 161480
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: Alleging a suit against state officials

Text: 7 The Ex parte Young doctrine allows plaintiffs to sue state officials even if they claim to be acting under valid state law because, if the officials' conduct constitutes an ongoing violation of federal law, the state cannot cloak their actions with state authority or state immunity. Id. That is, when state officials are arguably violating federal law, [t]he state is not the real party in interest because the state cannot 'authorize' the officials to violate federal law. Id. at 610. Hence, in allegedly violating federal law, the officials are stripped of their state authority and the Eleventh Amendment will not protect them from suit. In the case before us, the defendants are two state officials exercising considerable control over the implementation and administration of the waiver services under New Mexico's Medicaid plan. The plaintiffs claim these officials, acting pursuant to state authority, are violating federal law in failing to provide waiver services to eligible individuals with reasonable promptness. The plaintiffs have, therefore, properly sued state officials, rather than the state itself. 8 Moreover, we are not persuaded by the defendants' contention that the plaintiffs have failed to bring a permissible suit against state officials because the relief would require that the courts interfere with discretionary, rather than simply ministerial, acts by state officials. We have previously addressed the same argument, noting that [a]lthough this general premise is sound, Ex parte Young does not extend this rule to preclude judicial review of discretionary acts that violate federal law. Id. at 611. When plaintiffs establish a non-frivolous violation of federal law, we have held we will not deny jurisdiction solely on the basis that a ruling might indirectly impact state officials' discretionary acts. Id. The relief sought in the present case requires only that the court order state officials to comply with federal law; because the court would not instruct the defendants in how to use their discretion to comply, any impact on the official exercise of discretion would be indirect.