Digiore v. State of Ill.

• Decision Date: 27 March 1997
• Docket Number: No. 96 C 1785.,96 C 1785.
• Citation: 962 F.Supp. 1064
• Parties: Dennis DIGIORE et al., Plaintiffs, v. STATE OF ILLINOIS, George Ryan, both as Secretary of State and individually, and Giacomo A. Pecoraro, both as Director of the Department of Police and individually, Defendants.
• Court: U.S. District Court — Northern District of Illinois

962 F.Supp. 1064

Dennis DIGIORE et al., Plaintiffs, v. STATE OF ILLINOIS, George Ryan, both as Secretary of State and individually, and Giacomo A. Pecoraro, both as Director of the Department of Police and individually, Defendants.

No. 96 C 1785.

United States District Court, N.D. Illinois, Eastern Division.

March 27, 1997.

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Jac A. Cotiguala, Law Offices of Jac A. Cotiguala, Chicago, IL, for plaintiffs.

Gary Michael Griffin, Cara LeFevour Smith, Illinois Attorney General's Office, Chicago, IL, for defendants.

MEMORANDUM OPINION AND ORDER

CASTILLO, District Judge.

Plaintiffs are police officers employed at the Illinois Secretary of State Police Department. They have filed suit against the State of Illinois, as well as Secretary of State George Ryan and Director of Police Giacomo Pecoraro, in both their official and personal capacities, alleging that the defendants deprived them of overtime and other pay in violation of the Fair Labor Standards Act, 29 U.S.C. § 201 et seq., and the Illinois Minimum Wage Act, 820 ILCS 105/1 et seq. As redress, plaintiffs request that this Court order defendants to pay the wages to which the Act entitles them, along with liquidated damages and attorneys' fees. The defendants have responded with a motion to dismiss, contending that Eleventh Amendment immunity strips the Court of subject-matter jurisdiction. This dispute requires the Court to delve into the doctrinal snare that is the Eleventh Amendment, and determine its state following the Supreme Court's latest pronouncement on sovereign immunity in Seminole Tribe v. Florida, ___ U.S. ___, 116 S.Ct. 1114, 134 L.Ed.2d 252 (1996).

RELEVANT FACTS

The Fair Labor Standards Act ("FLSA") provides covered employees with maximum hour and minimum wage protections. Under the Act, employers are generally prohibited from imposing work weeks longer than forty hours without compensating their employees one-and-one-half times their regular wages. 29 U.S.C. § 207(a). Public agencies and their employees, at one time excluded, became subject to the Act in 1974. The Act now protects employees at state agencies unless their duties or salary render them "bona fide executive, administrative or professional" workers. Id. § 213(a)(1); see 29 C.F.R. § 541.1(f).

Digiore and the other plaintiffs hold the rank of sergeant or higher at the Illinois Secretary of State Police Department, and are compensated on an hourly basis. Compl. ¶ 14; Pl. Resp. at 1. Their central allegation is that the defendants require them to work overtime without time-and-a-half pay. Id. ¶ 16. In addition, plaintiffs allegedly perform numerous duties uncompensated — working through lunch, reviewing paperwork that reporting officers generate after the shift has ended, and reporting and responding to telephone beeper calls before the shift begins. Id. ¶ 17. Responsibility for these policies, which plaintiffs claim violate the FLSA and Illinois' Minimum Wage Law ("IMWL"), allegedly lies with Secretary Ryan and Director Pecoraro. Plaintiffs seek to hold Ryan and Pecoraro, both individually and in their official capacities, jointly and severally liable with the State of Illinois for unpaid wages, unpaid overtime, and liquidated damages, plus reasonable costs and attorneys' fees.

Defendants have moved under Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 12(b)(1) to dismiss this suit for lack of subject matter jurisdiction, arguing that they are immune from prosecution under the Eleventh Amendment. Defendants claim that Congress no longer has the power to abrogate state immunity under FLSA, that Illinois and its two defendant officials have not waived their immunity to suit in federal court, and that this immunity extends to Ryan and Pecoraro in their personal capacities. The Court agrees that the State of Illinois is immune to suit in federal court. But we find that, while the individual defendants likewise enjoy immunity in their official capacities, they remain personally subject to this lawsuit. Accordingly, the Court grants the defendants' 12(b)(1) motion in part, and denies it in part.

LEGAL STANDARDS

I. Legal Standards Applicable to 12(b)(1) Motions

Rule 12(b)(1) requires that an action be dismissed if the court lacks jurisdiction over the subject matter of the suit. Montgomery Ward & Co., Inc. v. Warehouse, Mail Order, Office, Technical & Professional Employees Union, Local 743, 911 F.Supp. 1094, 1099 (N.D.Ill.1995). In the absence of evidence raising a fact question as to jurisdiction, the Court's inquiry is limited. Scheuer v. Rhodes, 416 U.S. 232, 236, 94 S.Ct. 1683, 1686, 40 L.Ed.2d 90 (1974), overruled on other grounds, Davis v. Scherer, 468 U.S. 183, 104 S.Ct. 3012, 82 L.Ed.2d 139 (1984). We simply ask whether the complaint's allegations, construed in the light most favorable to the plaintiff, are sufficient to support jurisdiction. Id.; Bergemann v. Rhode Island, 958 F.Supp. 61, 65 (D.R.I. 1997). Although a factual dispute over jurisdiction should prompt the court to hold an evidentiary hearing and weigh the conflicting evidence to determine whether jurisdiction exists, see Bowyer v. United States Dep't of Air Force, 875 F.2d 632, 635 (7th Cir.1989), where the jurisdictional facts "are relatively simple and substantially uncontroverted," as they are here, "the court may rule on a 12(b)(1) motion without pausing to make findings on disputed questions of fact." Bergemann, 958 F.Supp. at 65 (quoting Commodities Export Co. v. United States Customs Serv., 888 F.2d 431, 436 (6th Cir.1989)) (internal quotations omitted).

II. Legal Standards Governing Eleventh Amendment Immunity

The Eleventh Amendment bars suits brought by private parties in federal court against unconsenting states. MSA Realty Corp. v. State of Illinois, 990 F.2d 288, 291 (7th Cir.1993). The bar is jurisdictional, not prudential; "the fundamental principle of sovereign immunity limits the grant of judicial authority in Art. III." Pennhurst State School & Hosp. v. Halderman, 465 U.S. 89, 98, 104 S.Ct. 900, 906, 79 L.Ed.2d 67 (1984). It applies "regardless of the nature of the relief sought." Id. at 100, 104 S.Ct. at 908. When state officials are named defendants, the question of immunity becomes more complicated — the Court must ask whether "the state is the real, substantial party in interest." Ford Motor Co. v. Department of Treasury, 323 U.S. 459, 464, 65 S.Ct. 347, 350, 89 L.Ed. 389 (1945). This is the case "when the action is in essence one for the recovery of money from the state," entitling the state "to invoke its sovereign immunity from suit even though individual officials are nominal defendants." Edelman v. Jordan, 415 U.S. 651, 663, 94 S.Ct. 1347, 1356, 39 L.Ed.2d 662 (1974) (quoting Ford Motor Co., 323 U.S. at 464, 65 S.Ct. at 350-51) (internal quotations omitted). In practical terms, this means that private plaintiffs may not sue state officials requesting money damages or seeking injunctive relief that would require retroactive payments from the state treasury. MSA Realty, 990 F.2d at 291-92.

Federal courts may, however, entertain suits that allege federal statutory or constitutional violations on the part of state officials. Ex Parte Young, 209 U.S. 123, 28 S.Ct. 441, 52 L.Ed. 714 (1908). Still, if the officials are sued in their official capacities, the court is limited to issuing an injunction contemplating prospective relief; it cannot award money damages. MSA Realty, 990 F.2d at 291. Damages are available only to plaintiffs suing state officials in their personal capacities; and even then, relief is confined to the official's personal assets. Kentucky v. Graham, 473 U.S. 159, 165-66, 105 S.Ct. 3099, 3104-05, 87 L.Ed.2d 114 (1985).

These rules of sovereign immunity are not without exceptions. In fact, there are two: the state may waive its immunity by consenting to be sued in federal court, or Congress may use the increasingly disfavored mechanism of abrogating sovereign immunity through a statutory enactment. MSA Realty, 990 F.2d at 291; see Seminole, ___ U.S. at ___, 116 S.Ct. at 1131-32 (holding that Congress can no longer invoke its powers of abrogation under Article I of Constitution). Waiver will be found "only where stated by the most express language or by such overwhelming implication from the text as [will] leave no room for any other reasonable construction." Edelman, 415 U.S. at 673, 94 S.Ct. at 1361 (internal quotations and citations omitted). Similarly, to abrogate state immunity, Congress must "mak[e] its intention unmistakably clear in the language of the statute." Seminole, ___ U.S. at ___, 116 S.Ct. at 1123 (internal quotations and citations omitted). These stringent standards for waiver and abrogation derive from dual considerations: "first, that each State is a sovereign entity in our federal system; and second, that [i]t is inherent in the nature of sovereignty not to be amenable to the suit of an individual without its consent.'" Id. (quoting Hans v. Louisiana, 134 U.S. 1, 13, 10 S.Ct. 504, 506, 33 L.Ed. 842 (1890)).

With these standards in mind, we proceed to evaluate the parties' jurisdictional arguments. First, we consider whether Congress has abrogated state immunity under the FLSA. Answering that question in the negative, we determine whether the defendants have nevertheless waived their immunity to suit in federal court. Although we find no waiver, and therefore dismiss the State of Illinois and the individual defendants in their official capacities, we retain Ryan and Pecoraro as defendants in their personal capacities.

ANALYSIS

I. Abrogation

We begin our analysis by noting that, absent abrogation or waiver, the state and its officials, as officials, are immune to this suit because Digiore¹ requests only retroactive relief in the form of money damages. See MSA Realty, 990 F.2d at 291 ("Under the prevailing view of the [Eleventh] amendment, a state cannot be sued in federal court for...