Opinion ID: 770527
Heading Depth: 3
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: jurisdiction to consider eleventh amendment immunity

Text: 16 We first address the plaintiff's contention that we lack jurisdiction to consider the DRD's Eleventh Amendment argument. The plaintiff maintains that the DRD waived its right to assert this defense by failing to raise the issue earlier in the proceedings. We disagree. 17 Although the DRD claimed in its amended answer that it is immune from liability, its immunity argument before the district court focused solely on judicial immunity. The DRD never explicitly invoked Eleventh Amendment immunity at the district court level, nor did its original appeal brief touch on the issue. The DRD first mentioned the Eleventh Amendment in its reply brief on appeal, and even that reference was cryptic. We certainly do not condone the DRD's late assertion of Eleventh Amendment immunity, but we do not think we are, as a matter of law, foreclosed from considering it. Indeed, for the reasons that follow, we are satisfied that we have discretion to do so. 18 The Eleventh Amendment immunity defense may be raised for the first time on appeal. Edelman v. Jordan, 415 U.S. 651, 678 (1974). We may even consider the issue sua sponte. Estate of Ritter v. University of Michigan, 851 F.2d 846, 850 (6th Cir. 1988); State of Ohio v. Madeline Marie Nursing Homes No. 1 and No. 2, 694 F.2d 449, 459-60 (6th Cir. 1982). Indeed, there is authority in this circuit holding that we must consider Eleventh Amendment immunity sua sponte. Wilson-Jones v. Caviness, 99 F.3d 203, 206 (6th Cir. 1996), as amended by 107 F.3d 358, 358-59 (6th Cir. 1997). The plaintiff argues that Wilson-Jones is no longer good law in light of Wisconsin Department of Corrections v. Schacht, 524 U.S. 381 (1998), in which the Supreme Court stated that a court need not address Eleventh Amendment immunity if the parties do not raise it. Schacht, 524 U.S. at 389. While Schacht casts doubt on our holding in Wilson-Jones, neither the Supreme Court nor this court has suggested that we lack jurisdiction to consider an Eleventh Immunity defense raised late in the proceedings, or not at all. See Mixon v. State of Ohio, 193 F.3d 389, 397 (6th Cir. 1999). 19 The plaintiff urges us to follow authority from the Ninth and First Circuits holding that a state defendant waives its right to assert Eleventh Amendment immunity by failing to raise it earlier in the proceedings. See Hill v. Blind Indus. & Servs. of Maryland, 179 F.3d 754, 756-58 (9th Cir. 1999), as amended by 201 F.3d 1186 (9th Cir. 2000); Torres v. Puerto Rico Tourism Co., 175 F.3d 1, 5 (1st Cir. 1999). To the extent that these authorities may stand for the proposition that we lack discretion to hear a late Eleventh Amendment defense, we decline to follow them. 20 At oral argument, the plaintiff also relied on Cuyahoga Valley Railway Co. v. Tracy, 6 F.3d 389 (6th Cir. 1993), in arguing that the DRD waived the immunity argument by failing to raise it earlier. That case is distinguishable. In Cuyahoga, intrastate railroads challenged Ohio's railroad excise tax. The district court entered summary judgment in favor of the railroads, and the State of Ohio did not appeal this order. Several months later, interstate railroads moved to intervene. The court granted the intervention motions and entered a modified summary judgment in favor of the intervenors, limiting the scope of summary judgment to apply only to the original plaintiffs. The State appealed, challenging the order granting intervention and the order modifying summary judgment. As to summary judgment, the State argued that the court's remedy violated the Eleventh Amendment. Id. at 394. We held that the State had waived its right to raise this argument by failing to timely appeal the original summary judgment. Id. at 395. Here, in contrast, the DRD timely appealed the district court's judgment. Although Cuyahoga also recites in a footnote the general rule that we will not consider arguments raised for the first time on appeal, id. at n.6, it does not limit our discretion to do so in the appropriate case. 21 We are satisfied that the clear weight of authority is that it is within our discretion to decide when the circumstances merit consideration of a delayedsovereign immunity defense, and we believe it is appropriate to do so in this case for a number of reasons: the importance of the issue; its wide-reaching effect; the substantial uncertainty about the current state of the law; and the fact that, in response to our request the parties have submitted supplemental briefs on the issue. 22 The availability of Eleventh Amendment immunity under the ADA has split the circuits, and neither the Supreme Court nor this court has tackled the issue to date. See Pennsylvania Dep't of Corrections v. Yeskey, 524 U.S. 206, 212-13 (1998); Nelson v. Miller, 170 F.3d 641, 647-48 (6th Cir. 1999). The parties in this action, and other parties who may be pursuing or preparing to pursue claims under Title II, deserve our answer to this question. Moreover, because the parties have now fully briefed the issue at our post-hearing direction, the plaintiff has suffered no prejudice from the DRD's failure to raise Eleventh Amendment immunity earlier in the proceedings. 23