Ahern v. State

• Decision Date: 09 July 1998
• Citation: 244 A.D.2d 7,676 N.Y.S.2d 232
• Court: New York Supreme Court — Appellate Division
• Parties: , 4 Wage & Hour Cas.2d (BNA) 1342, 1998 N.Y. Slip Op. 6927 John F. AHERN et al., Respondents, v. STATE of New York, Appellant. (And Two Other Related Claims.)

Page 232

676 N.Y.S.2d 232

244 A.D.2d 7, 4 Wage & Hour Cas.2d (BNA) 1342,

1998 N.Y. Slip Op. 6927

John F. AHERN et al., Respondents, v. STATE of New York, Appellant (And Two Other Related Claims.)

Supreme Court, Appellate Division Third Department.

July 9, 1998.

Dennis C. Vacco, Attorney General (Daniel Smirlock, of counsel), Albany, for State of New York, appellant.

Mulholland & Hickey (Douglas L. Steele, of counsel), Washington, DC, for John M. Moran, respondent.

Michaels, Bell & Smolak (Jan M. Smolak, of counsel), Auburn for Gerald J. Long, respondent.

Blitman & King, L.L.P. (Donald D. Oliver, of counsel), Syracuse, for John F. Ahern, respondent.

Before MIKOLL, J.P., MERCURE, CREW, YESAWICH and CARPINELLO, JJ.

MERCURE, Justice.

Appeal from an order of the Court of Claims (Benza, J.), entered June 30, 1997, which denied the State's motion to dismiss the claims.

Each of the claimants is a State Police Investigator or Senior Investigator who participated as a plaintiff in one of three essentially identical actions (hereinafter the individual actions) that were commenced in Federal District Court in 1989. Pursuant to 29 U.S.C. § 216(b), the individual actions sought to recover unpaid overtime compensation for the three-year period immediately preceding commencement of the action, as well as related declaratory relief, liquidated damages and counsel fees, based upon the State's willful violation of the Fair Labor Standards Act (hereinafter FLSA) (29 U.S.C. § 201 et seq.). Soon after the commencement of the individual actions, the Secretary of Labor brought a separate enforcement proceeding (hereinafter the government action) pursuant to 29 U.S.C. § 217 alleging the State's liability for payment of unpaid overtime compensation for a period of two years preceding commencement of that action. Following a grant of summary judgment in favor of the Investigators, affirmed on appeal by the Second Circuit Court of Appeals (Reich v. State of New York, 3 F.3d 581, cert. denied 510 U.S. 1163, 114 S.Ct. 1187, 127 L.Ed.2d 537), the individual actions were dismissed in November 1996 on constraint of the U.S. Supreme Court's decision in Seminole Tribe of Florida v. Florida, 517 U.S. 44, 116 S.Ct. 1114, 134 L.Ed.2d 252, which, the parties all agree, compels the conclusion that the 11th Amendment ¹ deprives Federal courts of nonconsensual jurisdiction over FLSA claims against a state.

Within 30 days following the dismissal of the individual actions, claimants instituted the present claims in the Court of Claims, asserting precisely the same causes of action and seeking the same relief as in the individual actions. Prior to answering, the State moved to dismiss the claims, asserting as here relevant that (1) the Court of Claims lacks subject matter jurisdiction over the claims because of claimants' failure to file the claims within six months of their accrual (see, Court of Claims Act § 10[4] ) and (2) the claims are precluded by the prior commencement of the government action (see, 29 U.S.C. § 216[b]; § 217). In a thorough and well-reasoned opinion, the Court of Claims denied the motion in all respects. The State appeals, and we affirm.

The first of the assertions advanced by the State, based on claimants' alleged noncompliance with Court of Claims Act § 10(4), is grounded in the doctrine of sovereign immunity, which in its most fundamental terms provides that the "[S]tate, as a sovereign body, is immune to suit unless consent to such suit has been given" (62 N.Y.Jur.2d, Government Tort Liability, § 1, at 334). As a corollary, and somewhat more to the point here, is the basic precept that in waiving its immunity, the State is free to impose conditions, including the express condition that a claimant comply with the provisions of the Court of Claims Act (see, Conklin v. Palisades Interstate Park Commn., 282 App.Div. 728, 122 N.Y.S.2d 403). Claimants' opposition to this branch of the State's dismissal motion is based upon the Supremacy Clause ² and the principle that "States may establish the rules of procedure governing litigation in their own courts * * * [but] where state courts entertain a federally created cause of action, the 'federal right cannot be defeated by the forms of local practice' " (Felder v. Casey, 487 U.S. 131, 138, 108 S.Ct. 2302, 2306, 101 L.Ed.2d 123, quoting Brown v. Western R. Co. of Alabama, 338 U.S. 294, 296, 70 S.Ct. 105, 106, 94 L.Ed. 100).

In fact, the U.S. Supreme Court has many times addressed the conflict between the Supremacy Clause and states' sovereign immunity, consistently holding that a state's right to impose conditions on suits against it will bow to the overriding interest in enforcing the clearly established rights of parties under controlling Federal law (see, Howlett v. Rose, 496 U.S. 356, 367, 110 S.Ct. 2430, 2438, 110 L.Ed.2d 332; Felder v. Casey, supra, at 144, 108 S.Ct. at 2309-2310; Employees of Dept. of Pub. Health & Welfare v. Missouri, 411 U.S. 279, 298, 93 S.Ct. 1614, 1625, 36 L.Ed.2d 251; Garrett v. Moore-McCormack Co., 317 U.S. 239, 245, 63 S.Ct. 246, 251, 87 L.Ed. 239; see also, Jacoby v. Arkansas Dept. of Educ., 331 Ark. 508, 962 S.W.2d 773). As recognized by the Court of Claims, the enforcement of a state notice-of-claim statute in a Federal cause of action asserted against a public employer in state court will have the impermissible effect of interfering with and frustrating the substantive right created by Congress (see, Felder v. Casey, supra, at 151, 108 S.Ct. at 2313; see also, Howlett v. Rose, supra, at 377, 110 S.Ct. at 2443). It cannot be questioned that Congress has expressly made the FLSA applicable to the states (29 U.S.C. § 203[x]; § 216[b]; see, Garcia v. San Antonio Metro. Tr. Auth., 469 U.S. 528, 105 S.Ct. 1005, 83 L.Ed.2d 1016) and provided for a three-year Statute of Limitations (29 U.S.C. § 255[a] ), substantially at variance with the six-month limitations period that the State would impose.

Nonetheless, borrowing liberally from 11th Amendment analysis and applying its own creative construction of Seminole Tribe of Florida v. Florida (supra), the State reasons that "[i]f, in the absence [of] a waiver, Congress lacks the power to abrogate state sovereign immunity from FLSA suits in federal court, then it must also lack the power to define or expand the conditions of a State's waiver of immunity to FLSA suits in the State's own courts". We are not persuaded. The patent error in the State's analysis is that it fails to account for the fact that "the Eleventh Amendment deals only with federal jurisdiction to hear suits against the states, not with the states' immunity from suit in any forum" (Bartlett v. Bowen, 816 F.2d 695, 710; see, Nevada v. Hall, 440 U.S. 410, 420-421, 99 S.Ct. 1182, 1188, 59 L.Ed.2d 416; Hufford v. Rodgers, 912 F.2d 1338, 1340-41, cert. denied 499 U.S. 921, 111 S.Ct. 1312, 113 L.Ed.2d 246; Harrington v. Grayson, 764 F.Supp. 464, 470). In Seminole Tribe of Florida v. Florida (supra), the U.S. Supreme Court merely held that the 11th Amendment prevents a private party from suing a state in Federal court, not that Federal statutes do not apply equally to both non-state and state defendants (see, Idaho v. Coeur d'Alene Tribe of Idaho, 521 U.S. 261, ----, 117 S.Ct. 2028, 2033, 138 L.Ed.2d 438; Pennhurst State School & Hosp. v. Halderman, 465 U.S. 89, 99-100, 104 S.Ct. 900, 907-908, 79 L.Ed.2d 67). As the U.S. Supreme Court "ha[s] stated on many occasions, 'the Eleventh Amendment does not apply in state courts' " (Hilton v. South Carolina Pub....