U.S. v. State of Ala.
| Citation | 791 F.2d 1450 |
| Decision Date | 06 June 1986 |
| Docket Number | No. 85-7582,85-7582 |
| Parties | 32 Ed. Law Rep. 899 UNITED STATES of America, et al., Plaintiffs-Appellees, John F. Knight, Jr., et al., Plaintiffs-Intervenors, Appellees, v. The STATE OF ALABAMA, et al., Defendants, The Alabama State Board of Education; Wayne Teague, State Superintendent of Education, Defendants-Appellants. |
| Court | U.S. Court of Appeals — Eleventh Circuit |
Charles S. Coody, General Counsel, Dept. of Educ., Office of General Counsel, Jim R. Ippolito, Associate Counsel, Montgomery, Ala., for State Bd. of Educ. and Wayne Teague, State Superintendent of Educ.
Robert L. Potts, The Board of Trustees of the Univ. of Alabama, Office of the General Counsel, C. Glenn Powell, University, Ala., for amicus curiae, Bd. of Trustees of Univ. of Ala. & Ind. members thereof in official capacities.
M. Stanford Blanton, Balch & Bingham, Birmingham, Ala., T.W. Thagard, Jr., Balch & Bingham, Montgomery, Ala., for Auburn Univ. and individual member Bd. of Trustees.
Wm. Bradford Reynolds, Asst. Atty. Gen., Dept. of Justice, Civil Rights Div., Mark Gross, Attorney, Brian Landsberg, Attorney, for U.S.
James U. Blacksher, Blacksher, Menefee & Stein, P.A., Mobile, Ala., Gregory B. Stein and Donald V. Watkins, Watkins, Carter & Knight, Montgomery, Ala., for intervenors, John F. Knight, Jr., et al.
Solomon S. Seay, Jr., Law Offices of Seay & Davis, Terry G. Davis, Montgomery, Ala., for Bd. of Trustees, Alabama State Univ.
Joe R. Whatley, Jr., Falkenberry, Whatley & Heidt, Birmingham, Ala., for Alabama A&M.
Walter J. Merrill, Merrill, Porch, Doster & Dillon, Anniston, Ala., for Jackson State Univ.
Armand Derfner, McClain & Derfner, Charleston, S.C., for Alabama State Univ.
Appeal from the United States District Court for the Northern District of Alabama.
Before VANCE and JOHNSON, Circuit Judges, and ALLGOOD *, Senior District Judge.
We review here the district court's decision to enjoin the Alabama State Board of Education ("the Board") and its members from refusing to recertify certain Alabama State University (ASU) teacher education programs. We REVERSE the district court's entry of the injunction against the Board and its members on behalf of ASU, and the entry of the injunction against the Board on behalf of a class of intervening plaintiffs. WE AFFIRM the entry of the injunction on behalf of these intervenors against the Board members acting in their official capacities.
The injunctive order at issue here arises from a July 1983 action originally filed by the United States under 42 U.S.C.A. Sec. 1983 and 42 U.S.C.A. Sec. 2000d et seq. (Title VI) against the state of Alabama, state education authorities, and all state four-year institutions of higher education in Alabama. This suit charged that Alabama impermissibly operates a dual system of racially segregated higher education.
The court below granted the motion of Alabama State University, a majority-black institution located in Montgomery, Alabama, to realign as a plaintiff. The court also permitted John F. Knight and other faculty, graduates, employees and students at ASU ("the Knight intervenors") to intervene as plaintiffs, and certified them as representatives for a class including graduates of ASU; black adults or minor children in Alabama presently attending, or eligible to attend now or in the future, any public institution of higher education in the Montgomery area; and black citizens who were, are or will become eligible to be employed by such institutions. As a realigned plaintiff, ASU raised several additional claims, seeking chiefly to challenge Alabama State Board of Education requirements for approval of certain teacher education programs. By joint motion, these issues were severed from the main state-wide action and set for later trial.
Meanwhile, during the pendency of these proceedings, the state Board voted not to recertify certain undergraduate and graduate teacher education programs at ASU. On motion by ASU and the Knight intervenors the district court enjoined the Board action to maintain the status quo pending resolution of the substantive questions before it and to preserve its jurisdiction. In reaching its decision the court below concluded that the Board's action was improperly retaliatory--that is, that the Board refused to recertify the ASU education programs in order to punish ASU for bringing suit. It is this injunctive order that comes before us for review.
We turn first to certain jurisdictional issues raised by appellant. The state Board argues that the district court did not have jurisdiction to grant ASU an injunction since the latter had no rights under Section 1983 or Title VI and, therefore, no standing to sue for protection of those rights. The Board does not challenge the standing of the Knight intervenors. Further, the Board of Trustees of the University of Alabama, as amicus curiae, urges that the district court was without jurisdiction to enjoin the state Board and its members since the state of Alabama and its agencies are immune from suit under the Eleventh Amendment to the United States Constitution.
Although the district court did not discuss these issues in the order before us, 1 we may examine our jurisdiction sua sponte. In Re King Memorial Hosp., Inc., 767 F.2d 1508, 1510 (11th Cir.1985). Logic dictates that parties who seek a preliminary injunction in a suit must have standing to bring suit in the first place. Thus, our first inquiry is whether ASU or the Knight intervenors had standing to sue in the original action under either Section 1983 or Title VI. Second, we must decide, since a state agency is the party enjoined, whether the latter enjoys immunity under the Eleventh Amendment.
We agree with appellant that ASU has no standing to sue under either Section 1983 or Title VI. In so doing, however, we cannot accept appellant's broad contention that ASU, as a creature of state government, has no federally protected rights whatsoever under the Constitution or laws of the United States.
A line of Supreme Court cases including, e.g., Coleman v. Miller, 307 U.S. 433, 59 S.Ct. 972, 83 L.Ed. 1385 (1939); Williams v. Mayor and City Council of Baltimore, 289 U.S. 36, 53 S.Ct. 431, 77 L.Ed. 1015 (1933); City of Trenton v. New Jersey, 262 U.S. 182, 43 S.Ct. 534, 67 L.Ed. 937 (1923); and Hunter v. City of Pittsburg, 207 U.S 161, 28 S.Ct. 40, 52 L.Ed. 151 (1907), stands generally for the proposition that creatures of the state have no standing to invoke certain constitutional provisions in opposition to the will of their creator. A former Fifth Circuit case concluded from this authority that "public entities which are political subdivisions of a state" are "creatures of the state, and possess no rights, privileges or immunities independently of those expressly conferred upon them by the state." City of Safety Harbor v. Birchfield, 529 F.2d 1251, 1254 (5th Cir.1976). However, the latter interpretation--which would bar any suit by a creature of the state against its creator--has not prevailed in this Court.
A subsequent Fifth Circuit decision binding on this Circuit has reviewed the Hunter line--including Safety Harbor, supra--and concluded that "these cases are substantive interpretations of the constitutional provisions involved; we do not think they hold that a municipality never has standing to sue the state." Rogers v. Brockette, 588 F.2d 1057, 1068 (5th Cir.1979), cert. denied, 444 U.S. 827, 100 S.Ct. 52, 62 L.Ed.2d 35 (1979). The Fifth Circuit panel relied in part on the Supreme Court's statement in Gomillion v. Lightfoot, 364 U.S. 339, 344, 81 S.Ct. 125, 128, 5 L.Ed.2d 110 (1960), that "a correct reading of the seemingly unconfined dicta of Hunter and kindred cases is not that the state has plenary power to manipulate in every conceivable way, for every conceivable purpose, the affairs of its municipal corporations, but rather that the state's authority is unrestrained by the particular prohibitions of the constitution considered in those cases." Id.
Thus, no per se rule applies in this Circuit. 2 In assessing the standing to sue of a state entity, we are bound by the Supreme Court's or our own Court's determination of whether any given constitutional provision or law protects the interests of the body in question. However, if no such determination has been made, it is our task to review de novo whether the state entity has any rights under the particular rule invoked.
In the instant case, the law is clear that ASU, as a creature of the state, may not raise a Fourteenth Amendment claim under Section 1983. 3 As long ago as 1939, the Supreme Court in Coleman, supra, 307 U.S. at 441, 59 S.Ct. at 976 (1939) (dicta), indicated that "[b]eing but creatures of the State, municipal corporations have no standing to invoke the contract clause or the provisions of the Fourteenth Amendment of the Constitution in opposition to the will of their creator." See also Town of Ball v. Rapides Parish Police Jury, 746 F.2d 1049, 1051 n. 1 (5th Cir.1984). ASU argues, however, that since the Supreme Court has more recently determined that municipalities and other local governing bodies are "persons" who may be sued under Section 1983, Monell v. New York City Dept. of Social Services, 436 U.S. 658, 690, 98 S.Ct. 2018, 2035, 56 L.Ed.2d 611 (1977), they are logically also persons who may bring suit under this section. The former Fifth Circuit, however, has squarely rejected this argument The Supreme Court's holding in Monell is that by enacting 42 U.S.C. Sec. 1983, Congress intended to make municipalities and other political subdivisions amenable to suits brought under that section. The Monell decision does not call into question the principle that a city or county cannot challenge a state statute on federal constitutional grounds.
Appling City v. Municipal Elec. Authority of GA., 621 F.2d...
To continue reading
Request your trial
-
Condon v. Reno, Civ. A. No. 3:95-192-0
...money damages, the Eleventh Amendment is not a bar. Ex parte Young, 209 U.S. 123, 28 S.Ct. 441, 52 L.Ed. 714 (1908), United States v. Alabama, 791 F.2d 1450 (11th Cir.1986). 4. There is no question of standing in the Condon case. In the Grass Roots case, one of the private plaintiffs, Saman......
- Jenkins v. Allen
-
Branson School Dist. RE-82 v. Romer
...of a state lack standing to challenge the validity of a state statute on Fourteenth Amendment grounds"); see also United States v. Alabama, 791 F.2d 1450, 1455 (11th Cir.1986); South Macomb Disposal Auth. v. Township of Washington, 790 F.2d 500, 504-05 (6th Cir.1986); Town of Ball v. Rapide......
-
State v. Harris
... ... , we do not find that this prosecution evokes the type of cruel and unusual punishment or arbitrary misuse of prosecutorial power that concerns us. Defendant's mental impairments did not serve as the basis for his exposure to the death penalty. Rather, the prosecutor's original decision, to ... Defendant relies on Magwood v. Smith, 608 F.Supp. 218, 228 (M.D.Ala.1985), aff'd, 791 F.2d 1438 (11th Cir.1986), cert. denied, 493 U.S. 923, 110 S.Ct. 291, 107 L.Ed.2d 271 (1989), which stated that "[t]o find that ... ...