Cockrell v. Board of Regents

• Decision Date: 27 March 2002
• Docket Number: No. 26,338.,26,338.
• Citation: 45 P.3d 876,132 N.M. 156,2002 NMSC 9
• Court: New Mexico Supreme Court
• Parties: Fletcher COCKRELL, Plaintiff-Respondent, v. The BOARD OF REGENTS OF NEW MEXICO STATE UNIVERSITY and Jim Paul, Defendants-Petitioners.

45 P.3d 876

132 N.M. 156

2002 NMSC 9

Fletcher COCKRELL, Plaintiff-Respondent, v. The BOARD OF REGENTS OF NEW MEXICO STATE UNIVERSITY and Jim Paul, Defendants-Petitioners.

No. 26,338.

Supreme Court of New Mexico.

March 27, 2002.

Sandenaw, Carrillo & Piazza, P.C., Thomas A. Sandenaw, Jr., Leonard J. Piazza, Las Cruces, NM, for Petitioners.

Holt & Babington, P.C., Matthew P. Holt, Las Cruces, NM, for Respondent.

OPINION

SERNA, Chief Justice.

{1} Plaintiff Fletcher Cockrell filed an action in district court against a political subdivision of the State of New Mexico seeking compensation for overtime wages pursuant to the Fair Labor Standards Act of 1938 (FLSA), 29 U.S.C. §§ 201-219 (1994 & Supp. II 1996). This appeal presents the question whether the State of New Mexico has waived its sovereign immunity from FLSA claims in state court. We hold that the State has not waived sovereign immunity and that Cockrell's FLSA claim must therefore be dismissed.

I. Procedural Background

{2} Cockrell was employed by New Mexico State University (NMSU) as an assistant men's basketball coach. NMSU terminated his employment in 1997, and Cockrell subsequently filed suit against NMSU's Board of Regents and its former athletic director, Jim Paul. Cockrell alleged that his termination violated his right to due process and sought relief under 42 U.S.C. § 1983 (1994). Cockrell also sought compensation for overtime wages under the FLSA. NMSU filed a motion to dismiss the FLSA claim on the basis of sovereign immunity.¹ Cockrell then amended his complaint to assert claims of equitable reinstatement under 42 U.S.C. § 1983 and breach of contract, the latter of which sought compensation for overtime wages based on a theory of implied contract. The district court denied the motion to dismiss the FLSA claim in an interlocutory order containing language that enabled NMSU to seek an immediate appeal. See NMSA 1978, § 39-3-4(A) (1971, prior to 1999 amendment). The district court did not address the breach of contract claim in its ruling, and this claim was not the subject of NMSU's subsequent appeal.

{3} The Court of Appeals accepted NMSU's application for interlocutory appeal. See Rule 12-203 NMRA 2002. In a memorandum opinion, the Court of Appeals affirmed the denial of the motion to dismiss. Relying on its opinion in Whittington v. State Department of Public Safety, 1998 NMCA 156, ¶¶ 11-16, 126 N.M. 21, 966 P.2d 188, vacated, 527 U.S. 1031, 119 S.Ct. 2388, 144 L.Ed.2d 790 (1999), which involved identical issues, the Court of Appeals concluded that neither sovereign immunity nor the Eleventh Amendment to the United States Constitution prevented Cockrell from pursuing an FLSA claim in state court. Following this Court's denial of NMSU's request for discretionary review, the United States Supreme Court granted Cockrell's petition for writ of certiorari to the Court of Appeals. Bd. of Regents of N.M. State Univ. v. Cockrell, 527 U.S. 1032, 119 S.Ct. 2389, 144 L.Ed.2d 791 (1999). As in Whittington, the Supreme Court vacated the judgment of the Court of Appeals and remanded for further consideration in light of Alden v. Maine, 527 U.S. 706, 119 S.Ct. 2240, 144 L.Ed.2d 636 (1999). Cockrell, 527 U.S. at 1032, 119 S.Ct. 2389.

II. The Supreme Court's Opinion in Alden v. Maine

{4} In Alden, a group of Maine probation officers filed FLSA claims for overtime wages and liquidated damages in state court. 527 U.S. at 711-12, 119 S.Ct. 2240. The Supreme Court reviewed the determination by the courts of Maine that these FLSA claims were barred by sovereign immunity. Id. More specifically, the Court addressed whether Congress has the power under Article I of the United States Constitution to subject nonconsenting states to private suits for damages in state court. Id. In order to put the Supreme Court's analysis of this issue in its proper context, it is necessary to review two earlier opinions from the Court.

{5} In Garcia v. San Antonio Metropolitan Transit Authority, 469 U.S. 528, 555-56, 105 S.Ct. 1005, 83 L.Ed.2d 1016 (1985), the Court held that Congress has the power under the Commerce Clause of Article I, Section 8 of the United States Constitution to enforce the substantive requirements of the FLSA against the States. In reaching this conclusion, the Court overruled its earlier pronouncement in National League of Cities v. Usery, 426 U.S. 833, 852, 96 S.Ct. 2465, 49 L.Ed.2d 245 (1976), that Congress could not, under the guise of the Commerce Clause, interfere with a state's ability to structure employment relationships between the state and its employees "in areas of traditional governmental functions." The Court in Garcia determined that the "traditional governmental function" test of National League of Cities "is not only unworkable but is also inconsistent with established principles of federalism." Garcia, 469 U.S. at 531,105 S.Ct. 1005. In place of the "traditional governmental function" test, the Court explained that the appropriate focus for a federalism inquiry in this context should be the express authorization of congressional power in the text of the Constitution. Id. at 549, 105 S.Ct. 1005. Though the States retain significant sovereignty in the federalist system, "[t]hey do so . . . only to the extent that the Constitution has not divested them of their original powers and transferred those powers to the Federal Government." Id. If the Constitution authorizes Congress to act, such as through the Commerce Clause, then the States are protected from congressional overreaching not by their inherent sovereignty but by the "structure of the Federal Government itself," id. at 550, and the States' significant role in "the federal political process." Id. at 552. The Court determined that "nothing in the overtime and minimum-wage requirements of the FLSA . . . is destructive of state sovereignty or violative of any constitutional provision." Id. at 554. Because "the protections of the wage and hour provisions of the FLSA contravened no affirmative limit on Congress' power under the Commerce Clause," the Court upheld the application of the substantive provisions of the FLSA to the States. Id. at 555-56. As a valid exercise of Congress's constitutional power under Article I, Section 8, the substantive provisions of the FLSA are binding on the States pursuant to the Supremacy Clause of Article VI of the Constitution.

{6} In Seminole Tribe v. Florida, 517 U.S. 44, 116 S.Ct. 1114, 134 L.Ed.2d 252 (1996), the Supreme Court addressed a related issue of federalism: whether Congress has the power to abrogate the States' sovereign immunity from suit by providing a private remedy in federal court for a state's violation of a federal statute. The Court held that "the background principle of state sovereign immunity embodied in the Eleventh Amendment" precludes Congress from authorizing suits in federal court by private parties against a nonconsenting state, id. at 72, 116 S.Ct. 1114, unless Congress acts pursuant to its powers under Section 5 of the Fourteenth Amendment, which "operated to alter the pre-existing balance between state and federal power achieved by Article III and the Eleventh Amendment." Id. at 65-66, 116 S.Ct. 1114. "The Eleventh Amendment restricts the judicial power under Article III, and Article I cannot be used to circumvent the constitutional limitations placed upon federal jurisdiction." Id. at 72-73, 116 S.Ct. 1114.

{7} As a logical progression, the Court addressed in Alden the inevitable question growing out of its opinions in Garcia and Seminole Tribe: given Congress's power to apply the substantive provisions of the FLSA against the States under Garcia but the Eleventh Amendment's restriction on private remedies against nonconsenting states in federal court under Seminole Tribe, does Congress have the power to provide for the enforcement of the private remedies in the FLSA against a state in the state's own courts without its consent? Specifically, the Court addressed the constitutionality of 29 U.S.C. § 216(b), which allows state employees to pursue an action against their employer in a "State court of competent jurisdiction" for damages "in the amount of . . . [the employees'] unpaid overtime compensation. . . and in an additional equal amount as liquidated damages," as well as reasonable attorney's fees and costs. The Court held in Alden "that the States retain immunity from private suit in their own courts, an immunity beyond the congressional power to abrogate by Article I legislation." Alden, 527 U.S. at 754,119 S.Ct. 2240. The Court, however, did not rely directly on the Eleventh Amendment, as in Seminole Tribe, or on a specific limitation on Congress's power in the Constitution, as outlined in Garcia. See Alden, 527 U.S. at 728,119 S.Ct. 2240 (discussing the "settled doctrinal understanding, consistent with the views of the leading advocates of the Constitution's ratification, that sovereign immunity derives not from the Eleventh Amendment but from the structure of the original Constitution itself"). Instead, the Court relied on "the States' immunity from suit [as] a fundamental aspect of [their] sovereignty." Alden, 527 U.S. at 713,119 S.Ct. 2240. Thus, despite the Court's earlier admonition in Garcia that "the fundamental limitation that the constitutional scheme imposes on the Commerce Clause to protect the `States as States' is one of process rather than one of result," Garcia, 469 U.S. at 554,105 S.Ct. 1005, and its disbelief "that courts ultimately can identify principled constitutional limitations on the scope of Congress' Commerce Clause powers over the States merely by relying on a priori definitions of state sovereignty," id. at 548, 105 S.Ct. 1005, the Court returned to an analysis of the "fundamental attributes of state sovereignty," id. at 556, 105 S.Ct. 1005, in order to review the availability of the FLSA's private remedies in state courts. See Alden, 527 U.S. at 729,119 S.Ct. 2240 ("[T]he scope...