Bergmann v. State
| Decision Date | 08 March 2001 |
| Citation | 722 N.Y.S.2d 82 |
| Parties | (A.D. 3 Dept. 2001) H. KENNEDY BERGMANN et al., Appellants, v STATE OF NEW YORK, Respondent. 87810 : THIRD JUDICIAL DEPARTMENT |
| Court | New York Supreme Court — Appellate Division |
Nancy E. Hoffman, Civil Service Employees Association (Timothy Connick of counsel), Albany, for appellants.
Eliot Spitzer, Attorney-General (Andrea Oser of counsel), Albany, for respondent.
Before: Crew III, J.P., Peters, Spain, Carpinello and Lahtinen, JJ.
Crew III, J.P.
Appeals (1) from an order of the Court of Claims (McNamara, J.), entered November 23, 1999, which, inter alia, partially denied claimants' application pursuant to Court of Claims Act § 10 (6) for permission to file a late notice of claim, and (2) from that part of a judgment of said court, entered April 20, 2000, upon a decision of the court in favor of the State against claimant Randall S. Davis.
On December 26, 1997 claimant Randall S. Davis (hereinafter claimant), a State employee, and two others similarly situated filed a claim against the State for overtime compensation pursuant to the Fair Labor Standards Act (29 USC §§ 201-219) (hereinafter FLSA). The claim sought compensation for overtime allegedly worked during 1996 and 1997. The State answered and raised various affirmative defenses, including lack of subject matter jurisdiction.
Prior to the time the subject claim was filed, the Court of Claims had ruled that the relevant Statute of Limitations period for FLSA claims brought against the State in the Court of Claims was that set forth in the Federal statute -- two years for nonwillful violations of the FLSA and three years for willful violations (see, 29 USC § 255 [a]) -- and not the more stringent six-month Statute of Limitations contained in Court of Claims Act § 10 (4) (see, Ahern v State of New York, 174 Misc.2d 123). That decision was subsequently affirmed by this Court in July 1998, wherein we held that "the enforcement of a State notice-of-claim statute in a Federal cause of action asserted against a public employer in State court [would] have the impermissible effect of interfering with and frustrating the substantive right created by Congress", to wit, the more expansive Statute of Limitations period existing under Federal law (Ahern v State of New York, 244 A.D.2d 7, 10). Approximately one year later, the U.S. Supreme Court decided Alden v Maine (527 U.S. 706) which, as will be discussed, clarified the parameters of state sovereign immunity under the U.S. Constitution.
Thereafter, on September 29, 1999, the State moved to dismiss the underlying claim, contending that those portions of the claim that accrued prior to June 1997 (six months prior to the December 1997 filing date) were time barred. The following day, claimant and his co-claimants moved for, inter alia, a determination that the claim was timely or, in the alternative, permission to file a late claim. The Court of Claims concluded that this Court's prior decision in Ahern v State of New York (244 A.D.2d 7, supra) was no longer controlling in light of the U.S. Supreme Court's decision in Alden v Maine (supra) and, as a result, the court applied the six-month Statute of Limitations set forth in Court of Claims Act § 10 (4). Hence, any portion of the claim that accrued prior to June 26, 1997 was deemed to be untimely. Ultimately, the Court of Claims, inter alia, dismissed claimant's claim in its entirety and denied his application for leave to file a late claim, prompting this appeal.1
We affirm. Initially, we agree that the U.S. Supreme Court's decision in Alden v Maine (supra) effectively overrules our prior decision in Ahern v State of New York (244 A.D.2d 7, supra). In Alden, the U.S. Supreme Court held, as a matter of first impression, "that the powers delegated to Congress under article I of the U.S. Constitution do not include the power to subject nonconsenting States to private suits for damages in state courts" (Alden v Maine, supra, at 712). In so ruling, the Court explicitly rejected the argument that the Supremacy Clause provided Congress with the authority to apply the FLSA to states without their consent (id., at 731-732).
We reject any contention that substantive federal law by its own force necessarily overrides the sovereign immunity of the States. When a State asserts its immunity to suit, the question is not the primacy of federal law but the implementationof the law in a manner consistent with the constitutional sovereignty of the States (id., at 732).
Hence, in the wake of Alden, it is apparent that the U.S. Constitution does not authorize application of the FLSA to individual states in their own courts without their consent.
As applied to the matter before us, the State's waiver of sovereign immunity is found in Court of Claims Act § 8, which provides, in relevant part, that "[t]he state hereby...
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