Opinion ID: 2967619
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: Eleventh Amendment Principles

Text: The Maryland Public Service Commission, as an agency of the State of Maryland, and its individual commissioners in their official capacity (collectively the State) assert that they are immune from suit in federal court under the doctrine of sovereign immunity as guaranteed in federal court by the Eleventh Amendment. The State asserts that it has not waived its sovereign immunity; that Congress has not sought to exercise its power, under the Fourteenth Amendment, to abrogate the State's sovereign immunity in the Telecommunications Act; and that therefore the Eleventh Amendment is a complete bar to suit against the State in federal court. See Puerto Rico Aqueduct & Sewer Auth. v. Metcalf & Eddy, Inc., 506 U.S. 139, 144 (1993). Bell Atlantic and the United States, as an intervenor, contend that the State has implicitly waived its immunity from private suit in federal court by participating in the regulatory scheme created by the Telecommunications Act of 1996. They point out that Congress had no obligation to give States any role in regulating the telecommunications industry. They argue that by giving such a role to the States, Congress conferred upon the States a gift which was conditioned on their amenability to suit in federal court under 47 U.S.C. § 252(e)(6). They note that the State had a clear choice -- given in 47 U.S.C. § 252(e)(5) -- either to participate in the regulation of interconnection agreements or to forego such a role and allow the FCC to act in its stead. In any event, Bell Atlantic and the United States argue that Bell Atlantic's suit against the individual State commissioners in their official capacity is permitted under the doctrine of Ex parte Young, 209 U.S. 123, because Bell Atlantic is seeking only declaratory and injunctive relief against State officials to prevent an ongoing violation of federal law. They argue that the Maryland Public Service Commission violated federal law in reaching a decision contrary to the FCC's declaratory ruling that ISP-bound traffic is non-local and therefore not subject to reciprocal compensation obligations. The district court found that the Eleventh Amendment barred Bell Atlantic's action against the State. It noted that the notion of constructive waiver of Eleventh Amendment immunity was recently repudiated by the Supreme Court's decision in College Savings Bank v. Florida Prepaid Postsecondary Education Expense Board, 527 U.S. 9 666, 684 (1999) (stating that constructive waiver is little more than abrogation under another name). In addition, the district court concluded that the State did not waive its Eleventh Amendment immunity as a condition to receipt of a gift from Congress. The court stated, It is beyond this Court's imagination how Congress' offer to the States to participate as regulators in the very federal scheme that divested them of their local power can be considered a `gift,' and it is certainly not one that the states could freely decline to accept. The district court also rejected Bell Atlantic's attempt to sue the individual commissioners under Ex parte Young. Relying on Schweiker v. Chilicky, 487 U.S. 412, 423 (1988) (When the design of a Government program suggests that Congress has provided what it considers adequate remedial mechanisms for constitutional violations that may occur in the course of its administration, we have not created additional . . . remedies), the district court concluded that Congress explicitly precluded an Ex parte Young action against individual commissioners, observing that federal jurisdiction was granted to review determinations made under 47 U.S.C. § 252 by State commissions, not by individual commissioners. Additionally, the district court noted that an Ex parte Young action against the individual State commissioners would expose them to the full remedial powers of a federal court, including, presumably, contempt sanctions, Seminole Tribe, 517 U.S. at 75, not the limited federal review -- provided in 47 U.S.C. § 252(e)(6) -- of determinations made by State commissions to ensure that interconnection agreements comply with federal requirements. The district court concluded, In short, this Court cannot recognize an implied cause of action against the Commissioners under Ex parte Young, because the Court infers from the 1996 Act that Congress did not authorize such federal jurisdiction. The district court noted that two other district courts had reached the same conclusion. See Wisconsin Bell, Inc. v. Public Serv. Comm'n of Wis., 57 F. Supp. 2d 710 (W.D. Wis. 1999), rev'd, MCI Telecomms. Corp. v. Illinois Bell Tel. Co., 222 F.3d 323 (7th Cir. 2000); AT&T Communications v. BellSouth Telecomms., Inc., 43 F. Supp. 2d 593 (M.D. La. 1999), rev'd, AT&T Communications v. BellSouth Telecomms., Inc., ___ F.3d ___, 2001 WL 38281 (5th Cir. Jan. 16, 2001). In addressing these issues framed by the parties, we must conduct our analysis with respect for the principles of federalism, which guide and shape Eleventh Amendment doctrine and which inform our reluc10 tance to infer any negation of a State's immunity from suit absent (1) a valid abrogation of that immunity by Congress, (2) a State's clear and unequivocal waiver of immunity, or (3) the prosecution of an action that fits comfortably within the doctrine of Ex parte Young. It is by now well established that the States' residuary and inviolable sovereignty, protected by the Eleventh Amendment, precludes private suits against non-consenting States.1 1 Alden v. Maine, 527 U.S. 706, 715 (1999) (quoting The Federalist No. 39, at 245 (J. Madison) (C. Rossiter ed. 1961)); see also Seminole Tribe , 517 U.S. at 54; Hans v. Louisiana, 134 U.S. 1, 13 (1890). And the Supreme Court has repeatedly emphasized that a State's sovereign immunity is not strictly limited by the text of the Eleventh Amendment2 2 because the Amendment merely confirms State sovereign immunity as a preexisting constitutional principle, which plays a vital role in our constitutional structure. See Alden, 527 U.S. at 712-13; Idaho v. Coeur d'Alene Tribe of Idaho, 521 U.S. 261, 267-68 (1997); Seminole Tribe, 517 U.S. at 54; see also Litman v. George Mason Univ., 186 F.3d 544, 549 (4th Cir. 1999), cert. denied, 120 S. Ct. 1220 (2000); Creative Goldsmiths, Inc. v. Maryland, 119 F.3d 1140, 1144 (4th Cir. 1997). It is a State's sovereign immunity that limits the degree to which the State is subject to the federal power. This principle accords the States the respect owed them as members of the federation, Alden, 527 U.S. at 748-49 (quoting Puerto Rico Aqueduct, 506 U.S. at 146), and avoids the indignity of States being subjected to the coercive process of judicial tribunals at the instance of private parties, Seminole Tribe, 517 U.S. at 58 (quoting Puerto Rico Aqueduct, 506 U.S. at 146). _________________________________________________________________ 1 A State's sovereign immunity does not preclude suits brought in federal court by the federal government, see United States v. Texas, 143 U.S. 621, 644-45 (1892), or by a sister State, see South Dakota v. North Carolina, 192 U.S. 286, 318 (1904), because inherent in the plan of the Constitutional Convention was the surrender by the States of immunity as to these suits, see Blatchford v. Native Village of Noatak, 501 U.S. 775, 781-82 (1991). 2 The Eleventh Amendment provides,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, or by Citizens or Subjects of any Foreign State. 11 While State sovereign immunity is an inherent feature of our federal structure, so too are limitations on that immunity, a consequence of the People's grant of authority to a federal government. Thus, Congress can abrogate the sovereign immunity of nonconsenting States if (1) it validly acts pursuant to a constitutional provision granting Congress the power to abrogate, and (2) it unequivocally expresse[s] its intent to abrogate the immunity. Seminole Tribe, 517 U.S. at 55, 59. The Supreme Court has recognized that § 5 of the Fourteenth Amendment, designed as it was to expand[ ] federal power at the expense of state autonomy, grants Congress a power of abrogation that intrude[s] upon the province of the Eleventh Amendment. Seminole Tribe, 517 U.S. at 59; see also Fitzpatrick v. Bitzer, 427 U.S. 445, 452-56 (1976). In addition, to ensure the supremacy of federal law, a State's sovereign immunity under the Eleventh Amendment is lifted in certain cases to allow federal jurisdiction over suits that seek prospective injunctive relief against a State officer alleged to be perpetrating an ongoing violation of federal law. See Ex parte Young, 209 U.S. 123; see also Alden, 527 U.S. at 747; Seminole Tribe, 517 U.S. at 73-74; Green v. Mansour, 474 U.S. 64, 68 (1985); Edelman v. Jordan, 415 U.S. 651, 663-68 (1974); CSX Transp., Inc. v. Board of Pub. Works, 138 F.3d 537, 540-41 (4th Cir. 1998), cert. denied, 525 U.S. 821 (1998); Republic of Paraguay v. Allen, 134 F.3d 622, 627 (4th Cir. 1998). Even though the injunctive relief, if ordered, would undoubtedly affect the State, sovereign immunity does not bar such a suit because a State official who acts contrary to federal law is stripped of his official or representative character. Ex parte Young, 209 U.S. at 160. The Supreme Court has declined, however, to extend this principle to suits seeking retrospective monetary relief, reasoning that to do so would effectively eliminate the constitutional immunity of the States. Pennhurst State Sch. & Hosp. v. Halderman, 465 U.S. 89, 105 (1984) (Pennhurst II). Finally, nothing in the federal structure prohibits a State from voluntarily waiving its sovereign immunity from suit by private individuals either by explicitly consenting to such suits, see Atascadero State Hosp. v. Scanlon, 473 U.S. 234, 241 (1985); Great N. Life Ins. Co. v. Read, 322 U.S. 47, 53-54 (1944); Smith v. Reeves, 178 U.S. 436, 441 (1900), or by accepting from Congress a gift or gratuity that is 12 conditioned on such a waiver, see College Savings Bank, 527 U.S. at 686-87; Atascadero, 473 U.S. at 247; Litman, 186 F.3d at 550. But [t]he test for determining whether a State has waived its immunity from federal-court jurisdiction is a stringent one. Atascadero, 473 U.S. at 231; see also College Savings Bank, 527 U.S. at 675; Edelman, 415 U.S. at 673; Litman, 186 F.3d at 550. Accordingly, a federal court may find a State to have waived its immunity from private suit in federal court only if the State directly and affirmatively waives its Eleventh Amendment immunity in a State constitutional provision or statute that explicitly specif[ies] the State's intention to subject itself to suit. Atascadero, 473 U.S. at 241; see also Litman, 186 F.3d at 550; Booth v. Maryland, 112 F.3d 139, 145 (4th Cir. 1997). Similarly, a gift or gratuity from Congress, by itself, will effect a waiver of immunity by a recipient State only if Congress manifest[s] a clear intent to condition the gift or gratuity on the State's waiver of its constitutional immunity. Atascadero, 473 U.S. at 247; see also Pennhurst State Sch. & Hosp. v. Halderman, 451 U.S. 1, 17 (1981) (Pennhurst I); Litman, 186 F.3d at 553-55 (holding that Congress clearly, unambiguously, and unequivocally conditioned a State's receipt of Title IX federal education funds on a State's waiver of its Eleventh Amendment immunity in actions brought in federal court under Title IX). With these relevant principles in hand, we now address the two issues raised by the parties in this case: (1) whether the State of Maryland waived its sovereign immunity by participating in the administration of the Telecommunications Act of 1996, and (2) whether the doctrine of Ex parte Young authorizes Bell Atlantic's suit against the individual State commissioners.