Alden v. State, Docket No. C

• Decision Date: 04 August 1998
• Docket Number: Docket No. C
• Citation: 715 A.2d 172
• Parties: , 135 Lab.Cas. P 33,708, 4 Wage & Hour Cas.2d (BNA) 1417, 1998 ME 200 John H. ALDEN et al. v. STATE of Maine. um-97-446.
• Court: Maine Supreme Court

Page 172

715 A.2d 172

67 USLW 3567, 135 Lab.Cas. P 33,708,

4 Wage & Hour Cas.2d (BNA) 1417, 1998 ME 200

John H. ALDEN et al. v. STATE of Maine.

Docket No. Cum-97-446.

Supreme Judicial Court of Maine.

Argued Feb. 3, 1998.

Decided Aug. 4, 1998.

Donald F. Fontaine (orally) Lynne A. Gardner, Fontaine & Beal, P.A., Portland, Timothy L. Belcher, Maine State Employees Ass'n, Augusta, Larry Engelstein, Kathy Krieger, Office of the General Counsel, A.F.L.-C.I.O., Washington, DC, for plaintiffs.

Andrew Ketterer, Attorney General, Peter J. Brann, Asst. Atty. Gen. (orally), Augusta, for defendants.

Robert M. Loeb (orally), Civil Division, Appellate Staff, U.S. Dept. of Justice; Ellen L. Beard, Office of the Solicitor, U.S. Department of Labor, Washington, DC, for amicus curiae.

Before WATHEN, C.J., and ROBERTS, CLIFFORD, RUDMAN, DANA, and SAUFLEY, JJ.

ROBERTS, Justice.

¶1 John H. Alden ¹ appeals from the judgment of the Superior Court (Cumberland County, Calkins, J.) dismissing on the basis of sovereign immunity his complaint brought pursuant to the federal Fair Labor Standards Act. Alden contends that the doctrine of sovereign immunity may not be interposed to defend against this federally created cause of action. We affirm the judgment.

¶2 In December 1992 Alden, a state probation officer, filed a complaint against the State in federal district court seeking overtime pay pursuant to the Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA). While that claim was pending, the Supreme Court of the United States decided Seminole Tribe of Florida v. Florida, 517 U.S. 44, 116 S.Ct. 1114, 134 L.Ed.2d 252 (1996), which held, on the basis of the Eleventh Amendment to the United States Constitution, that Congress may not authorize pursuant to its Article I powers suits in federal court by private parties against unconsenting states. Id. at 72-73, 116 S.Ct. 1114. Relying on Seminole Tribe, the federal district court dismissed Alden's claim for lack of subject matter jurisdiction. Mills v. State, 1996 WL 400510 (D.Me. July 3, 1996), aff'd, 118 F.3d 37 (1st Cir.1997).

¶3 Alden then filed essentially the same complaint in the Superior Court in August 1996. The State moved for a judgment on the pleadings pursuant to M.R. Civ. P. 12(c), stating as grounds the doctrine of state sovereign immunity and the statute of limitations. Although the court found that Alden's claim was not barred by the statute of limitations, it granted the State's motion on the ground of sovereign immunity. Alden's appeal followed.

¶4 The principal issue before us is whether state sovereign immunity, as reflected in the Eleventh Amendment, protects the State from this federally created cause of action in its own courts. Alden contends that Congress has abrogated the State's sovereign immunity by enacting the FLSA. We disagree. Although Congress may have intended to subject the states to the overtime provisions of the FLSA, it does not have the necessary power, pursuant to the Constitution, to accomplish this end.

¶5 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." U.S. CONST. AMEND. XI. "Although the text of the Amendment would appear to restrict only the Article III diversity jurisdiction of the federal courts, 'we have understood the Eleventh Amendment to stand not so much for what it says, but for the presupposition ... which it confirms.' " Seminole Tribe, 517 U.S. at 54, 116 S.Ct. 1114 (quoting Blatchford v. Native Village of Noatak, 501 U.S. 775, 779, 111 S.Ct. 2578, 115 L.Ed.2d 686 (1991)). That presupposition consists of two elements: "that each State is a sovereign entity in our federal system ... and ... that '[i]t is inherent in the nature of sovereignty not to be amenable to the suit of an individual without its consent.' " Id. (quoting The Federalist No. 81, at 487 (Alexander Hamilton)) (Clinton Rositer ed. (1961)) (citations omitted).

¶6 We have concluded on several occasions that sovereign immunity does protect the State from suit by private parties in its own courts without its consent, even when the cause of action derives from federal law. In Drake v. Smith, 390 A.2d 541 (Me.1978), we considered the question whether the State's enactment of a statutory scheme whereby it became a partner with the federal government in paying medical care costs of certain recipients of federal aid constituted a waiver of state sovereign immunity. We held that because the State had not waived its Eleventh Amendment immunity from suit in federal court, it was not reasonable to conclude that it had waived its sovereign immunity to the same suit in state court. Id. at 546.

¶7 In Thiboutot v. State, 405 A.2d 230 (Me.1979), aff'd on other grounds, 448 U.S. 1, 100 S.Ct. 2502, 65 L.Ed.2d 555 (1980), we addressed the amenability of the State to suits by private parties for retroactive AFDC benefits pursuant to 42 U.S.C. § 1983. We held that "in the absence of waiver by the state of its sovereign immunity, the state may constitutionally interpose that immunity as a bar to a class action brought in a state court under ... § 1983." Id. at 237. Similarly, in Jackson v. State, 544 A.2d 291 (Me.1988) cert. denied, 491 U.S. 904, 109 S.Ct. 3185, 105 L.Ed.2d 694 (1989), addressing the State's amenability to suit under the federal Rehabilitation Act, 29 U.S.C. § 794, we held that "the State may constitutionally interpose its sovereign immunity in state court as a bar to an award of damages under ... the Rehabilitation Act." Id. at 298. Most recently, Moody v. Commissioner, Dept. of Human Servs., 661 A.2d 156 (Me.1995), concerned the AFDC program and a violation by the Department of Human Services of the due process rights of the plaintiffs. In reaching the conclusion that the State is protected by sovereign immunity from suit in its own courts, we stated: "The Eleventh Amendment to the United States Constitution precludes the federal courts from circumventing the sovereign immunity of the states. Although the Eleventh Amendment is not directly applicable to state courts, the doctrine of sovereign immunity similarly protects the states from actions [in] state courts." Id. at 158 n. 3 (citation omitted).

¶8 Reading these decisions in combination, it is clear that we have looked to the Eleventh Amendment to define the contours of state sovereign immunity. If Congress cannot force the states to defend in federal court against claims by private individuals, it similarly cannot force the states to defend in their own courts against these same claims. In reaching this conclusion, we have found that the Eleventh Amendment and state sovereign immunity are analogous, to the extent that both protect the State from being forced by an act of Congress to defend against a federal cause of action brought by a private individual. To hold otherwise, by concluding that a state, immune from suit in federal court, must defend against that same suit in its own courts, would effectively vitiate the Eleventh Amendment.

¶9 The Supreme Court's opinion in Seminole Tribe reinforces this position. The Court began its analysis with the general proposition that in order to abrogate a state's sovereign immunity Congress must have " 'unequivocally express[ed] its intent to abrogate the immunity,' " and must have done so " 'pursuant to a valid exercise of power.' " Seminole Tribe, 517 U.S. at 55, 116 S.Ct. 1114 (quoting Green v. Mansour, 474 U.S. 64, 68, 106 S.Ct. 423, 88 L.Ed.2d 371 (1985)). Addressing the first element, the Court concluded that it is "indubitable that Congress intended through the [FLSA] to abrogate the States' sovereign immunity from suit." Id. at 57, 116 S.Ct. 1114.

¶10 The Court then addressed the second element, namely, whether Congress has the power to abrogate sovereign immunity in this manner. Concluding that the Eleventh Amendment deprives Congress of this power, the Court stated that the Amendment "serves to avoid 'the indignity of subjecting a State to the coercive process of judicial tribunals at the instance of private parties.' " Id. at 58, 116 S.Ct. 1114 (quoting Puerto Rico Aqueduct & Sewer Auth. v. Metcalf & Eddy, Inc., 506 U.S. 139, 146, 113 S.Ct. 684, 121 L.Ed.2d 605 (1993)). To suggest, as Alden has done, that this indignity would be lessened by simply dragging the State into a different forum misconstrues the underlying premise of the Eleventh Amendment.

¶11 The Eleventh Amendment does not explicitly protect the states from suit in their own courts. Hilton v. South Carolina Pub. Rys. Comm'n, 502 U.S. 197, 204-05, 112 S.Ct. 560, 116 L.Ed.2d 560 (1991). That does not, however, end the inquiry. In reaching its conclusion in Seminole Tribe, the Court spoke of the Amendment as reflecting a more fundamental principle of state sovereign immunity: "For over a century, we have grounded our decisions in the oft-repeated understanding of state sovereign immunity as an essential part of the Eleventh Amendment." Seminole Tribe, 517 U.S. at 66, 116 S.Ct. 1114. The Court stated:

Behind the words of the constitutional provisions are postulates which limit and control.... There is ... the postulate that States of the Union, still possessing attributes of sovereignty, shall be immune from suits, without their consent, save where there has been a surrender of this immunity in the plan of the convention.

Id. at 68, 116 S.Ct. 1114 (quoting Principality of Monaco v. Mississippi, 292 U.S. 313, 323, 54 S.Ct. 745, 78 L.Ed. 1282 (1934) (internal quotation and citation omitted)). The postulate at work here, state sovereign immunity, is a "background principle" that is "embodied in the Eleventh Amendment." Id. at 72, 116 S.Ct. 1114. Thus the Eleventh Amendment does not delimit the scope and effect of state sovereign immunity. Rather, it reflects but one aspect of the states'...