County Of Suffolk v. Sebelius

• Decision Date: 24 May 2010
• Docket Number: Docket No. 09-3193-cv.
• Citation: 605 F.3d 135
• Parties: COUNTY OF SUFFOLK, NEW YORK, Federation Employment and Guidance Services, Inc., Long Island Minority Aids Coalition, Inc., Thursday's Child, Inc., Traci Bowman, Miriam Spaier, Jerome Knight, and Donna Uysal, Plaintiffs,County of Nassau, New York, Plaintiff-Appellant,v.Kathleen SEBELIUS, in her official capacity as Secretary of Health and Human Services of the United States Department of Health and Human Services, Mary Wakefield, Ph.D., R.N., in her official capacity as Administrator for the Health Resources and Services Administration of the United States Department of Health and Human Services, and United States Department of Health and Human Services, Defendants-Appellees.
• Court: U.S. Court of Appeals — Second Circuit

605 F.3d 135

COUNTY OF SUFFOLK, NEW YORK, Federation Employment and Guidance Services, Inc., Long Island Minority Aids Coalition, Inc., Thursday's Child, Inc., Traci Bowman, Miriam Spaier, Jerome Knight, and Donna Uysal, Plaintiffs,County of Nassau, New York, Plaintiff-Appellant,v.Kathleen SEBELIUS, in her official capacity as Secretary of Health and Human Services of the United States Department of Health and Human Services, Mary Wakefield, Ph.D., R.N., in her official capacity as Administrator for the Health Resources and Services Administration of the United States Department of Health and Human Services, and United States Department of Health and Human Services, Defendants-Appellees.^*

Docket No. 09-3193-cv.

United States Court of Appeals Second Circuit.

Argued: April 19, 2010.

Decided: May 24, 2010.

COPYRIGHT MATERIAL OMITTED

Peter J. Clines, (Rosanne M. Harvey, on the brief), Deputy County Attorneys, for Lorna B. Goodman, County Attorney, County of Nassau, Mineola, NY, for Plaintiff-Appellant.

Thomas A. McFarland, (Varuni Nelson, of counsel), Assistant United States Attorneys, for Benton J. Campbell, United States Attorney, Eastern District of New York, Central Islip, NY, for Defendants-Appellees.

Before CABRANES, WESLEY, and LIVINGSTON, Circuit Judges.

WESLEY, Circuit Judge:

In this action brought pursuant to § 702 of the Administrative Procedure Act, plaintiffs seek additional funding for fiscal years (“FYs”) 2007 and 2008 from a grant program administered by the Department of Health and Human Services (“HHS”) pursuant to the Ryan White HIV/AIDS Treatment Modernization Act of 2006. In a previous appeal relating to plaintiffs' application for a preliminary injunction, we held that they had demonstrated a likelihood of success on the merits. On remand, defendants moved to dismiss plaintiffs' claims, arguing that HHS had awarded the funds at issue to other grant recipients. The district court verified that the pertinent congressional appropriations had, in fact, been exhausted, and held that plaintiffs' claims are moot.

Despite the seemingly harsh result, we agree with the district court. Obliged, as we are, to avoid issuing advisory opinions, our authority is limited to “live” cases in which there remains a possibility that the court can grant some form of effectual relief. In an action such as this one, the scope of available relief is bookended by the government's sovereign immunity, on the one hand, and the Appropriations Clause of the Constitution, on the other. Where, as here, the congressional appropriations relating to the funds sought by private litigants have been lawfully distributed-and therefore exhausted-by a federal agency, courts lack authority to grant effectual relief in the context of an Article III case or controversy. Under such circumstances, any decision on the ultimate merits of the dispute would be merely advisory, and the claims at issue are moot. Accordingly, we affirm.

I. BACKGROUND

Congress passed the Ryan White Comprehensive AIDS Resources Emergency Act of 1990 (the “Ryan White Act,” or the “Act”), Pub.L. No. 101-381, 104 Stat. 576, in order to make funding available for the development and administration of “cost efficient systems for the delivery of essential services to individuals and families with HIV disease.” 42 U.S.C. § 300ff.¹ Part A of the Act, titled “Emergency Relief for Areas with Substantial Need for Services,” directed HHS to award grants to localities that qualified as “Eligible Metropolitan Areas,” or “EMAs.” Pub.L. No. 101-381, pt. A, § 2601, 104 Stat. at 576; see also 42 U.S.C. § 300ff-11 (1991) (original definition of “EMA”). HHS awarded grants to New York's Nassau and Suffolk Counties (“Nassau-Suffolk”) as a single EMA in each year through FY 2006.

Fiscal year 2007 began on October 1, 2006. Almost three months later, on December 19, 2006, Congress amended the Ryan White Act by creating a second category of funding-eligible entities, referred to as “Transitional Grant Areas” or “TGAs,” which were to receive less funding than EMAs. Ryan White HIV/AIDS Treatment Modernization Act of 2006, Pub.L. No. 109-415, § 107, 120 Stat. 2767, 2781; see also 42 U.S.C. § 300ff-19. The amendments took effect in FY 2007 and contained a sunset provision that repealed the Act effective October 1, 2009. See County of Nassau, N.Y. v. Leavitt, 524 F.3d 408, 416 (2d Cir.2008).²

HHS typically begins to notify recipients of grants under Part A of the Ryan White Act on March 1 of each fiscal year. With respect to FY 2007, however, the agency informed Nassau-Suffolk on February 12, 2007 that it would be classified as a TGA, rather than an EMA, based on the 2006 amendments to the Act. On February 27, 2007, a group of plaintiffs that included Nassau-Suffolk commenced this action to challenge HHS's decision pursuant to § 702 of the Administrative Procedure Act (“APA”), 5 U.S.C. § 702.³ Plaintiffs argued that HHS had incorrectly classified Nassau-Suffolk as a TGA, and sought declaratory and injunctive relief directing the agency to return the entity to the EMA funding category. The district court denied plaintiffs' application for a preliminary injunction on March 1, 2007. County of Nassau, N.Y. v. Leavitt, No. 07 Civ. 816, 2007 WL 708321, at *4 (E.D.N.Y. Mar. 1, 2007).

Following that decision, plaintiffs filed an interlocutory appeal with this Court see 28 U.S.C. § 1292(a)(1), as well as a motion for an injunction pending appeal see Fed. R.App. P. 8.⁴ We denied the motion for injunctive relief on May 4, 2007. Almost a year later, however, we reversed the district court and held that plaintiffs had established a likelihood of success on the merits of their claims. See Leavitt, 524 F.3d at 419.

On remand, HHS conceded that Nassau-Suffolk was to be funded as an EMA in FY 2009, but defendants moved to dismiss plaintiffs' claims relating to FYs 2007 and 2008 as moot. Defendants' argument was simple: no relief was available because HHS had distributed the funds that were appropriated by Congress for those fiscal years to other EMAs. The district court expressed concern about the “extreme consequences of holding that Plaintiffs' claims for the 2007 and 2008 fiscal years are moot,” and it denied the motion without prejudice in order to examine whether HHS had, in fact, exhausted the appropriations for FYs 2007 and 2008.

Defendants then submitted an April 16, 2009 declaration from Douglas H. Morgan, the director of the HHS division that administers the grant program. The affidavit stated that, with respect to FYs 2007 and 2008, “[n]o remaining ... funds appropriated by Congress ... are available for obligation by HHS.” Based on that submission, the district court dismissed plaintiffs' claims as moot, reasoning that it “lack[ed] authority” to “create ... special funding or re-organize their scheduled distributions for the upcoming years.”

II. DISCUSSION

We review de novo the district court's conclusion that plaintiffs' claims are moot. N.Y. Civil Liberties Union v. Grandeau, 528 F.3d 122, 128 (2d Cir.2008). On appeal, plaintiffs mount a two-front attack on the lower court's decision. First, they argue that “the absence of funding did not absolve the government of its statutory obligations” under the Ryan White Act, and that the district court “still had the authority and power to enter a judgment declaring [defendants] liable for the additional Ryan White [Act] funds that should have been awarded” in FYs 2007 and 2008. Second, plaintiffs contend that the district court also erred by holding that they could not seek compensation from the appropriation created by the Judgment Fund, 31 U.S.C. § 1304(a). At bottom, however, both of these arguments fail to account for the limitations on this action resulting from the federal government's sovereign immunity and the Appropriations Clause. Accordingly, for the reasons set forth below, we hold that plaintiffs' claims are moot.

Article III of the Constitution limits federal courts' authority-that is, our subject matter jurisdiction-to disputes involving “live cases and controversies.” United States v. Quattrone, 402 F.3d 304, 308 (2d Cir.2005). A number of justiciability doctrines govern the contours of this power; pertinent here is mootness, which concerns when and whether a case is “live.” Specifically, under the “general rule” of mootness, courts' subject matter jurisdiction ceases when “an event occurs during the course of the proceedings or on appeal ‘that makes it impossible for the court to grant any effectual relief whatever to a prevailing party.’ ” Id. (quoting Church of Scientology v. United States, 506 U.S. 9, 12, 113 S.Ct. 447, 121 L.Ed.2d 313 (1992)).⁵

An understanding of why plaintiffs' claims are moot requires an understanding of the scope of the relief that was available to them in the first instance in this action against HHS and federal employees in their official capacities. Absent an “unequivocally expressed” statutory waiver, the United States, its agencies, and its employees (when functioning in their official capacities) are immune from suit based on the principle of sovereign immunity. Dep't of the Army v. Blue Fox, Inc., 525 U.S. 255, 260-61, 119 S.Ct. 687, 142 L.Ed.2d 718 (1999). “This may leave some aggrieved parties without relief, but that is inherent in the doctrine of sovereign immunity.” Adeleke v. United States, 355 F.3d 144, 150-51 (2d Cir.2004).

In this case, plaintiffs escaped this bar by invoking § 702 of the APA, 5 U.S.C. § 702, in which Congress enacted a limited waiver of the federal government's sovereign immunity for claims of “legal wrong [sustained] because of agency action ... seeking relief other than money damages.” Id. The “agency action” plaintiffs challenge is HHS's February 2007 decision to reclassify Nassau-Suffolk as a TGA under the 2006 amendments to the Ryan White Act, and they argue that they are legally entitled to funding as an EMA during FYs 2007 and 2008. And, as the district court unders...