Court Opinion

ID: 9890433
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-10-12 21:00:35.160315+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T13:14:13.448163
License: Public Domain

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                                             UNPUBLISHED

                              UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS
                                  FOR THE FOURTH CIRCUIT

                                               No. 23-1069

        COLUMBIA GAS TRANSMISSION, LLC,

                    Plaintiff – Appellee,

              v.

        0.12 ACRES OF LAND, MORE OR LESS, IN WASHINGTON COUNTY,
        MARYLAND, STATE OF MARYLAND, DEPARTMENT OF NATURAL
        RESOURCES,

                    Defendant – Appellant.

        Appeal from the United States District Court for the District of Maryland, at Baltimore.
        George L. Russell, III, District Judge. (1:19-cv-01444-GLR)

        Submitted: August 10, 2023                                   Decided: October 11, 2023

        Before AGEE, WYNN, and THACKER, Circuit Judges.

        Affirmed by unpublished per curiam opinion.

        ON BRIEF: Anthony G. Brown, Attorney General, John B. Howard, Jr., Special Assistant
        Attorney General, Joshua M. Segal, Special Assistant Attorney General, OFFICE OF THE
        ATTORNEY GENERAL OF MARYLAND, Baltimore, Maryland, for Appellants.
        Stephen R. McAllister, Kansas City, Missouri, Michael E. Harriss, DENTONS US LLP,
        St. Louis, Missouri; David M. Fedder, CARMODY MACDONALD PC, St. Louis,
        Missouri, for Appellee.
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        Unpublished opinions are not binding precedent in this circuit.

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        PER CURIAM:

               Acting with federally authorized eminent domain power, Columbia Gas

        Transmission (“Columbia Gas”), a Delaware pipeline company, brought a condemnation

        action against land owned by the State of Maryland. Maryland moved to dismiss, asserting

        Eleventh Amendment immunity. Relying on the Supreme Court’s recent decision in

        PennEast Pipeline Co. v. New Jersey, 141 S. Ct. 2244 (2021), the district court held that

        the Eleventh Amendment did not afford the State immunity from suit and thus denied the

        motion. Maryland then filed this interlocutory appeal. Seeing no error, we affirm.

               In 2018, the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission granted Columbia Gas a

        certificate of public convenience and necessity authorizing the construction of a natural gas

        pipeline from Fulton County, Pennsylvania, to Morgan County, West Virginia. As

        approved, the pipeline would run through a tract of land in Washington County, Maryland,

        owned by the Maryland Department of Natural Resources (“MDNR”). Columbia Gas

        sought to acquire the necessary easement and successfully negotiated a proposed easement

        agreement with MDNR. But the Maryland Board of Public Works, which had to sign-off

        on the agreement, would not approve the conveyance. As a result, Columbia Gas filed a

        complaint in condemnation against the subject land and MDNR (collectively, “Maryland”

        or the “State”) in Maryland federal district court, seeking to exercise the federal eminent

        domain power under 15 U.S.C. § 717f(h). 1

               1
                 Under § 717f(h), when a certificate holder “cannot acquire by contract, or is unable
        to agree with the owner of property to the compensation to be paid for, the necessary right-
        (Continued)
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               Maryland moved to dismiss the action based on sovereign immunity. In particular,

        Maryland argued that because it had not consented to suits for condemnation by private

        parties and because Congress had not otherwise abrogated state sovereign immunity for

        such suits, the district court lacked jurisdiction over the action under the Eleventh

        Amendment. The district court agreed and dismissed the suit.

               Columbia Gas appealed the district court’s dismissal, but before this Court could

        hear the appeal, the Supreme Court decided PennEast Pipeline Co. v. New Jersey, 141 S.

        Ct. 2244. In that case, PennEast Pipeline, another Delaware pipeline company, sought to

        condemn various tracts of New Jersey-owned land under § 717f(h). Id. at 2253. Like

        Maryland here, New Jersey moved to dismiss PennEast’s complaints based on sovereign

        immunity. Id. The Supreme Court rejected New Jersey’s immunity defense, holding that

        states do not enjoy sovereign immunity from condemnation actions brought by private

        parties properly authorized to exercise the federal government’s eminent domain power:

               Although nonconsenting States are generally immune from suit, they
               surrendered their immunity from the exercise of the federal eminent domain
               power when they ratified the Constitution. That power carries with it the
               ability to condemn property in court. Because the Natural Gas Act delegates
               the federal eminent domain power to private parties, those parties can initiate
               condemnation proceedings, including against state-owned property.

        Id. at 2251–52; see also id. at 2259 (“[T]he States consented in the plan of the Convention
        to the exercise of federal eminent domain power, including in condemnation proceedings
        brought by private delegatees.”).

        of-way to construct, operate, and maintain a pipe line . . . , it may acquire the same by the
        exercise of the right of eminent domain.”

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               In light of PennEast, we vacated the district court’s dismissal and remanded for

        further proceedings.

               On remand, Maryland again moved to dismiss, maintaining that, notwithstanding

        the states’ consent in the plan of the Convention to the exercise of the federal eminent

        domain power, the later-enacted Eleventh Amendment independently stripped the district

        court of jurisdiction over the action. That was so, Maryland posited, because Columbia Gas

        was a citizen of another state such that its federal action against Maryland triggered the

        Eleventh Amendment’s textual, and nonwaivable, jurisdictional bar. See U.S. Const.

        amend. XI (stating that “[t]he Judicial power of the United States shall not be construed to

        extend to any suit . . . against one of the United States by Citizens of another State”).

               According to Maryland, PennEast did not resolve this separate Eleventh

        Amendment issue, so it was proper for the district court to address it in the first instance

        on remand.

               To support this assertion, Maryland relied extensively on Justice Gorsuch’s dissent

        in PennEast. Joined only by Justice Thomas, Justice Gorsuch drew a distinction between

        what he called “structural immunity”—the sovereign immunity that “derives from the

        structure of the Constitution”; “applies in both federal tribunals and in state tribunals,”

        regardless of the plaintiff’s citizenship; and is waivable by the state—and “Eleventh

        Amendment immunity”—a separate form of immunity that “derives from the text of the

        Eleventh Amendment”; “eliminates” federal jurisdiction over “suits filed against states, in

        law or equity, by diverse plaintiffs”; and “admits of no waivers, abrogations, or

        exceptions.” PennEast, 141 S. Ct. at 2264–65 (Gorsuch, J., dissenting) (citations omitted).

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        In Justice Gorsuch’s view, PennEast presented “‘the rare scenario’ that comes within the

        Eleventh Amendment’s text”: PennEast, a citizen of Delaware, sued New Jersey in federal

        court. Id. at 2265. And for that reason, Justice Gorsuch concluded, the federal courts lacked

        subject-matter jurisdiction to “entertain this suit.” Id. Nonetheless, Justice Gorsuch

        reasoned that the PennEast majority “understandably[] d[id] not address that issue . . .

        because the parties [did] not address[] it themselves and there is no mandatory sequencing

        of jurisdictional issues.” Id. (cleaned up). Justice Gorsuch then closed by noting that “[t]he

        lowers courts . . . ha[d] an obligation to consider this issue on remand before proceeding to

        the merits.” Id.

                Maryland also pointed to a statement made by the PennEast majority in response

        to Justice Gorsuch’s dissent: “[U]nder our precedents that no party asks us to reconsider

        here, we have understood the Eleventh Amendment to confer a personal privilege which a

        State may waive at pleasure.” Id. at 2262 (cleaned up). In Maryland’s view, the phrase

        “under our precedents that no party asks us to reconsider here” demonstrated that the

        majority merely accepted the premise that waivers of sovereign immunity in the plan of

        the Convention also defeat the Eleventh Amendment’s jurisdictional bar, thereby leaving

        the issue an open question. Moreover, Maryland suggested that this phrase signaled the

        Court’s openness to reconsidering its Eleventh Amendment jurisprudence given that the

        majority could have spoken in more forceful terms to conclusively foreclose any reading

        of the Eleventh Amendment that was inconsistent with its precedents.

               In sum, therefore, Maryland argued that because Columbia Gas’s condemnation

        action against it fell squarely within the Eleventh Amendment’s text and because PennEast

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        purportedly left open the question whether waivers of sovereign immunity in the plan of

        the Convention also defeated the Eleventh Amendment’s jurisdictional bar, the district

        court could and should dismiss the case for lack of jurisdiction.

               The district court disagreed. To accept Maryland’s arguments, the court explained,

        would be to “ignore the essential holding in PennEast,” J.A. 240, which is that “Federal

        Government delegatees have federal eminent domain power to ‘initiate condemnation

        proceedings, including against state-owned property,’” J.A. 238 (quoting PennEast, 141 S.

        Ct. at 2252). Therefore, the court denied Maryland’s motion to dismiss.

               Maryland timely noted an interlocutory appeal, over which we exercise jurisdiction

        under 28 U.S.C. § 1291 and the collateral order doctrine. See Lee-Thomas v. Prince

        George’s Cnty. Pub. Schs., 666 F.3d 244, 247 (4th Cir. 2012).

               On appeal, Maryland raises the same arguments that it raised below. On de novo

        review, see Adams v. Ferguson, 884 F.3d 219, 224 (4th Cir. 2018), we easily conclude that

        the district court was right to reject them, and we do the same now.

               At bottom, Maryland’s arguments mirror Justice Gorsuch’s dissent in PennEast. But

        Justice Gorsuch’s dissent is just that—a dissent. It did not reflect the view of a majority of

        the justices (indeed, it reflected the view of just two), and so it does not constitute binding

        authority on this Court.

               The PennEast majority opinion, on the other hand, does constitute such binding

        authority. And its holding on this issue was clear:

                      As a final point, [Justice Gorsuch’s dissent] offers a different theory—
               that even if the States consented in the plan of the Convention to the
               proceedings below, the Eleventh Amendment nonetheless divests federal

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               courts of subject-matter jurisdiction over a suit filed against a State by a
               diverse plaintiff. But under our precedents that no party asks us to reconsider
               here, we have understood the Eleventh Amendment to confer a personal
               privilege which a State may waive at pleasure. When a State waives its
               immunity and consents to suit in federal court, the Eleventh Amendment does
               not bar the action. Such consent may, as here, be inherent in the
               constitutional plan.

        PennEast, 141 S. Ct. at 2262 (emphasis added) (cleaned up).

               As the above passage plainly demonstrates, existing Supreme Court precedents hold

        that the Eleventh Amendment confers on states a waivable privilege; “the Eleventh

        Amendment does not bar” an action to which a state has consented; and “[s]uch consent

        may, as [in the context of the federal eminent domain power], be inherent in the

        constitutional plan.” Id. (cleaned up). Thus, far from leaving “unresolved” the Eleventh

        Amendment-immunity issue that Maryland now raises, the PennEast majority addressed

        that issue head-on and explicitly rejected it, as the district court here correctly found.

               In our view, that is the end of the matter. Maryland “consented in the plan of the

        Convention to the exercise of federal eminent domain power, including in condemnation

        proceedings brought by private delegatees” like Columbia Gas. Id. at 2259. The later-

        enacted Eleventh Amendment, the Supreme Court has long held, did not reinstate that

        immunity. 2

               2
                 Although not material to our decision, we note our deep skepticism that the
        PennEast majority’s use of the phrase “under our precedents that no party asks us to
        reconsider here,” 141 S. Ct. at 2262, “signaled its openness to reconsidering its cases on
        [Eleventh Amendment] waivability,” Opening Br. 13. In our view, the Court was merely
        observing that no party urged the Eleventh Amendment reading advanced by Justice
        Gorsuch in dissent. We fail to see how such an observation translates into the Court’s
        casting doubt on two centuries’ worth of precedents. If anything, the Court confirmed those
        (Continued)
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               Maryland is, of course, free to petition the Supreme Court to revisit and even

        overturn its Eleventh Amendment precedents—indeed, the State appears keen to do just

        that. But unless and until the Supreme Court affirmatively scraps those precedents, we are

        constrained to apply them, a fact that even Maryland acknowledges. See Opening Br. 15

        n.4 (“Of course, this Court is not free to overrule or disregard decisions of the Supreme

        Court, and Maryland recognizes that some of its arguments here may ultimately be better

        suited for Supreme Court review.”). And under those precedents, the Eleventh Amendment

        does not shield Maryland from Columbia Gas’s federally authorized condemnation action.

        Accordingly, we affirm the district court’s denial of Maryland’s renewed motion to

        dismiss.

               We dispense with oral argument because the facts and legal contentions are

        adequately presented in the materials before this Court and argument would not aid in the

        decisional process.

                                                                                        AFFIRMED

        precedents. And in fact, it has since done so again. See Torres v. Tex. Dep’t of Pub. Safety,
        142 S. Ct. 2455, 2468 (2022) (“The Federal Government’s eminent domain power is
        complete, such that no State may frustrate its exercise by claiming immunity to forestall
        the transfer of property.”). But even if Maryland were right that the Court in PennEast
        expressed a willingness to rethink its Eleventh Amendment jurisprudence, we would reach
        the same result that we reach today as we remain bound by existing Supreme Court case
        law, which decidedly forecloses Maryland’s immunity claim here.

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