Cox v. Aiken, No. 17399.

• Decision Date: 16 May 2006
• Docket Number: No. 17399.
• Citation: 278 Conn. 204,897 A.2d 71
• Court: Connecticut Supreme Court
• Parties: Daniel K. COX v. Elizabeth AIKEN et al.

897 A.2d 71

278 Conn. 204

Daniel K. COX v. Elizabeth AIKEN et al.

No. 17399.

Supreme Court of Connecticut.

Argued February 6, 2006.

Decided May 16, 2006.

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Thomas P. Clifford III, assistant attorney general, with whom, on the brief, were Richard Blumenthal, attorney general, and William J. McCullough, assistant attorney general, for the appellants (defendants).

BORDEN, NORCOTT, PALMER, VERTEFEUILLE and ZARELLA, Js.

NORCOTT, J.

In this appeal, we consider whether the doctrine of sovereign immunity precludes a state employee from bringing an action against the officials who allegedly laid him off from his employment in the classified service in violation of the seniority restrictions set forth in General Statutes § 5-241.¹ The defendants, the department of social services (department), and Elizabeth Aiken, the department's assistant director of human resources, appeal, following our grant of their petition for certification,² from the judgment of the Appellate Court affirming the trial court's denial of their motion to dismiss this action brought by the pro se plaintiff, Daniel K. Cox.³ See Cox v. Aiken, 86 Conn.App. 587, 596, 862 A.2d 319 (2004). We conclude that the plaintiff's claims that he was laid off in violation of § 5-241 are barred by the doctrine of sovereign immunity because the defendants acted in accordance with legislatively approved collective bargaining agreement provisions that superseded that statute. Accordingly, we reverse the judgment of the Appellate Court.

The Appellate Court opinion sets forth the following facts and procedural history. "The pro se plaintiff filed a complaint alleging that in January, 2003, he received a letter from Aiken, notifying him that he was to be laid off from his position as a social services investigator with the department. According to the plaintiff, the notice specified that he was being laid off pursuant to the terms of the union contract⁴ that he had no `bumping'⁵ options and that there was no person in the same job class with less state time than he had who was to be retained. The plaintiff alleged that his layoff violated § 5-241 and that neither his layoff notice nor the union contract conformed to § 5-241. According to the plaintiff, the union contract provides that layoffs are to be based on seniority. The contract, however, exempts union stewards from layoff, and the state statute contains no exemption for union stewards. The plaintiff alleged that he was laid off while a person with less time in the same position [holding a position as a union steward]⁶ was not laid off. The plaintiff maintained that according to § 5-241, in the event of a layoff, he had the right to the following options: (1) transfer to the same job class, (2) transfer to a comparable job class or (3) transfer to a position for which he was qualified in any department, agency or institution. The plaintiff sought, inter alia, reinstatement to his position as a social services investigator with full back pay, seniority and benefits.

"In response to the complaint, the defendants filed a motion to dismiss, in which they argued that the court lacked subject matter jurisdiction over the plaintiff's cause of action because (1) agents and officers of the state are immune from suit on the basis of sovereign immunity, and (2) the plaintiff failed to exhaust his available remedies at law.⁷ The court denied the motion to dismiss, except as it pertained to the plaintiff's claim for retroactive compensation.⁸ Specifically, the court held that the plaintiff's claim for injunctive relief, premised on an allegation that the defendants had acted in excess of their statutory authority pursuant to § 5-241, was not barred by the doctrine of sovereign immunity. The court therefore denied the defendants' motion to dismiss with respect to the plaintiff's claims for injunctive relief. With regard to the defendants' exhaustion argument, the court held that the plaintiff was excused from exhausting his administrative remedies under the contract because his claim arose under § 5-241, not the collective bargaining agreement. The court further held that because the plaintiff was claiming that § 5-241 provided him with greater protection than the collective bargaining agreement, he was not required to exhaust his remedies under the collective bargaining agreement. The defendants appealed, arguing that the court improperly denied their motion to dismiss on the basis of sovereign immunity, and the plaintiff's failure to exhaust his administrative and contractual remedies."⁹ Id., at 589-91, 862 A.2d 319.

On appeal, the Appellate Court concluded that the plaintiff's complaint overcame the defendants' sovereign immunity because it alleged statutory violations that, "if proven, would be sufficient to establish that the defendants acted in excess of the authority vested in them by § 5-241." Id., at 594, 862 A.2d 319. For substantially the same reasons, the Appellate Court then rejected the defendants' claim that the plaintiff was required to obtain the permission of the claims commissioner pursuant to General Statutes § 4-141 et seq., prior to bringing this action for injunctive relief.¹⁰ Id., at 594-95, 862 A.2d 319. Accordingly, the Appellate Court affirmed the judgment of the trial court, and this certified appeal followed.

On appeal to this court, the defendants raise a number of interrelated arguments involving the courts' subject matter jurisdiction over this case. With respect to sovereign immunity, the defendants claim that satisfying the injunctive relief exception to sovereign immunity, in which a state official acted "in excess of statutory authority," requires the plaintiff to do more than just allege the violation of a statute by a state official. The defendants also claim that the plaintiff lacks standing to enforce a statutory claim pursuant to § 5-241 because that particular statute has been superseded by the legislature's approval of conflicting provisions contained in the relevant collective bargaining agreement. Thus, they contend that, under the State Employee Relations Act, or Collective Bargaining for State Employees, General Statutes § 5-270 et seq., the courts lack jurisdiction to hear the plaintiff's claims because he failed to exhaust his exclusive remedy under that agreement, namely arbitration, with any waiver of sovereign immunity being limited to judicial review of the arbitration award. We do not find any one of these discrete arguments dispositive, but facets of each inform our resolution of this appeal.

We begin with the proper standard of review. "A motion to dismiss ... properly attacks the jurisdiction of the court, essentially asserting that the plaintiff cannot as a matter of law and fact state a cause of action that should be heard by the court.... A motion to dismiss tests, inter alia, whether, on the face of the record, the court is without jurisdiction.... [O]ur review of the court's ultimate legal conclusion and resulting [determination] of the motion to dismiss will be de novo.... Moreover, [t]he doctrine of sovereign immunity implicates subject matter jurisdiction and is therefore a basis for granting a motion to dismiss.... When a ... court decides a jurisdictional question raised by a pretrial motion to dismiss, it must consider the allegations of the complaint in their most favorable light.... In this regard, a court must take the facts to be those alleged in the complaint, including those facts necessarily implied from the allegations, construing them in a manner most favorable to the pleader." (Citation omitted; internal quotation marks omitted.) Filippi v. Sullivan, 273 Conn. 1, 8, 866 A.2d 599 (2005).

"[W]e have long recognized the validity of the common-law principle that the state cannot be sued without its consent .... We have also recognized that because the state can act only through its officers and agents, a suit against a state officer concerning a matter in which the officer represents the state is, in effect, against the state.... While the principle of sovereign immunity is deeply rooted in our common law, it has, nevertheless, been modified and adapted to the American concept of constitutional government where the source of governmental power and authority is not vested by divine right in a ruler but rests in the people themselves who have adopted constitutions creating governments with defined and limited powers and courts to interpret these basic laws. The source of the sovereign power of the state is now the constitution which created it, and it is now recognized that, as Mr. Justice Holmes wrote: A sovereign is exempt from suit, not because of any formal conception or obsolete theory, but on the logical and practical ground that there can be no legal right as against the authority that makes the law on which the right depends ....

"We have held that a plaintiff seeking to circumvent the doctrine of sovereign immunity must show that: (1) the legislature, either expressly or by force of a necessary implication, statutorily waived the state's sovereign immunity¹¹ ... or (2) in an action for declaratory or injunctive relief, the state officer or officers against whom such relief is sought acted in excess of statutory authority, or pursuant to an unconstitutional statute." (Citations omitted; internal quotation marks omitted.) Miller v. Egan, 265 Conn. 301, 313-14, 828 A.2d 549 (2003).

Our inquiry in this case is limited to the second exception to sovereign immunity, which does not apply "to claims against the state for monetary damages." Id., at 315, 828 A.2d 549. Rather, "when a process of statutory interpretation establishes that the state officials acted beyond their authority, sovereign immunity does not bar an action seeking declaratory or injunctive relief."¹² Id., at 327, 828 A.2d 549.

The Appellate Court reviewed the facts pleaded in the plaintiff's complaint and the plain language of § 5-241, stating...