Keller v. Prince George's County
| Decision Date | 08 January 1991 |
| Docket Number | No. 89-2333,89-2333 |
| Parties | 54 Fair Empl.Prac.Cas. 1282, 55 Empl. Prac. Dec. P 40,491, 18 Fed.R.Serv.3d 670 Mazie KELLER, Plaintiff-Appellant, v. PRINCE GEORGE'S COUNTY; Prince George's County Department of Social Services, Defendants-Appellees. |
| Court | U.S. Court of Appeals — Fourth Circuit |
Herbert Vincent McKnight, Jr., argued (Michael H. Feldman, Ashcraft & Gerel, Washington, D.C., on brief), for plaintiff-appellant.
Nancy Backer Shuger, Asst. Atty. Gen., argued (J. Joseph Curran, Jr., Atty. Gen. of Maryland, Mark J. Davis, Asst. Atty. Gen., Baltimore, Md., on brief), for defendants-appellees.
Before SPROUSE, CHAPMAN, and WILKINSON, Circuit Judges.
Plaintiff Mazie Keller, a black woman, sued her employer, the Prince George's County Department of Social Services (the "Department"), and the State of Maryland alleging racial discrimination in violation of the fourteenth amendment and 42 U.S.C. Sec. 1983 and Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, 42 U.S.C. Secs. 2000e et seq. The suit arose from the Department's decision to deny Keller a promotion. Keller requested a jury trial for her section 1983 claim. The district court granted summary judgment to the Department on Keller's section 1983 claim finding that Title VII provided the exclusive remedy for employment discrimination claims against a state employer. Keller v. Prince George's County Dep't of Social Servs., 616 F.Supp. 540 (D.Md.1985).
After a bench trial, the district court entered judgment for the Department on the Title VII claim, holding that Keller had failed to prove, by a preponderance of the evidence, that the denial of her promotion was due to racial discrimination. On appeal, the Fourth Circuit reversed and remanded, holding that Title VII did not provide the exclusive remedy for employment discrimination claims against a state employer and that persons seeking monetary damages under section 1983 had a right to a jury trial under the seventh amendment. 827 F.2d 952 (4th Cir.1987).
On remand, the Department made a motion for summary judgment on two grounds: (1) that the factual determinations made in the Title VII bench trial collaterally estopped a jury trial of the section 1983 claim and (2) that the Department could not be liable for damages because of sovereign immunity. * In support of the sovereign immunity defense, the Department submitted affidavits under Fed.R.Civ.P. 56(b). Keller opposed the motion but failed to submit an affidavit under either Rule 56(e) or 56(f). Keller filed a motion to reopen discovery and to amend her complaint to name the supervisory personnel who participated in her employment decision as defendants in their individual capacities. The district court denied Keller's motions and granted the Department's motion for summary judgment on the collateral estoppel ground. Keller appealed. We affirm the district court but on the alternate ground that the Department is a state agency and, thus, immune from money damages.
The Department contends that sovereign immunity is an independent ground supporting the district court's grant of summary judgment, and we agree. Although the district court did not rule on the merits of this argument, "[t]he prevailing party may, of course, assert in a reviewing court any ground in support of his judgment, whether or not that ground was relied upon or even considered by the trial court." Dandridge v. Williams, 397 U.S. 471, 475 n. 6, 90 S.Ct. 1153, 1156 n. 6, 25 L.Ed.2d 491 (1970) (citations omitted); accord Sine v. Local No. 992, Int'l Bhd. of Teamsters, 730 F.2d 964, 966 (4th Cir.1984).
An unconsenting state enjoys eleventh amendment protection against a private party's suit for damages. Pennhurst State School & Hosp. v. Halderman, 465 U.S. 89, 104 S.Ct. 900, 79 L.Ed.2d 67 (1984); Edelman v. Jordan, 415 U.S. 651, 94 S.Ct. 1347, 39 L.Ed.2d 662 (1974). It is equally well settled that any arm of the state is protected by such immunity. Mt. Healthy City School Dist. Bd. of Educ. v. Doyle, 429 U.S. 274, 280, 97 S.Ct. 568, 572-73, 50 L.Ed.2d 471 (1977). To determine if a suit is against an arm of the state, courts look to the essential nature and effect of the proceedings as well as the nature of the entity being sued. Id.; Ford Motor Co. v. Dep't of Treasury of Ind., 323 U.S. 459, 464, 65 S.Ct. 347, 350-51, 89 L.Ed. 389 (1945). When the essence of the action is to recover money from the state, the state is the real party in interest and, thus, is entitled to invoke its sovereign immunity. Id. at 464, 65 S.Ct. at 350-51.
The Department submitted two affidavits under Rule 56(b) in support of its motion for summary judgment which set forth financial and administrative information about the Department. Keller failed to file any affidavit as required by Rule 56(e) or 56(f) and did not proffer any evidence to contradict the information supplied by the Department. The Department raised the sovereign immunity defense in its original answer, and Keller had over two and a half years to inquire into the status of the agency. Keller could have, but did not, sue the individuals responsible for her promotion decision.
According to the affidavits, the Department is a local department of social services operated by the Maryland Department of Human Resources, an agency of the executive branch of state government. The employees of the Department receive fringe benefits and paychecks from the state and perform their duties subject to state personnel policy. State law and procedure dictate how the Department operates and organizes its programs. Only two percent of the Department's funding comes from the county with the remainder coming from the state and federal governments. Accordingly, we hold that the Department is a state agency. Thus, since any judgment against the Department would be a judgment against the state, the Department is immune from suit.
The Department, relying on Dwyer v. Smith, 867 F.2d 184, 192 (4th Cir.1989), urged below that the findings of fact and judgment against a plaintiff on a fully litigated Title VII claim preclude relitigation of the same facts under section 1983. The district court agreed and held that Keller was collaterally estopped from litigating her section 1983 claim. Subsequent to the district court opinion, the Supreme Court addressed this issue in Lytle v. Household Mfg., Inc., --- U.S. ----, 110 S.Ct. 1331, 108 L.Ed.2d 504 (1990). In that case, Lytle brought a section 1981 and a Title VII claim against his employer. The district court, erroneously concluding that Title VII provided the exclusive remedy, dismissed the section 1981 claim. At the close of Lytle's case-in-chief, the court granted the employer's motion to dismiss the Title VII claim. On appeal, this court held that although the section 1981 claim was erroneously dismissed, the district court's findings with respect to the Title VII claim collaterally estopped the litigation of Lytle's section 1981 claim. 831 F.2d 1057 (4th Cir.1987).
The Supreme Court reversed and held that when a district court resolves issues common to both a legal and an equitable claim due to an erroneous dismissal of the legal claim, such determinations cannot collaterally estop the later jury trial of the legal claim. Lytle, 110 S.Ct. at 1336-37. The Court found that the purposes of collateral estoppel would not be served by its application to this case. First, it was not needed to prevent multiple suits, because Lytle involved but one suit in which the plaintiff properly joined his legal and equitable claims. Second, the Court found that this was not a case of judicial resources being dissipated in "needless litigation," because relitigation was required to correct the error below. Id. at 1337.
Lytle controls here. The procedural history of Lytle and Keller are closely analogous, and both deal with the joining of an equitable claim and a separate and distinct legal claim, the latter invoking the plaintiffs' constitutional rights to a jury trial. The rationale behind the holding in Lytle is equally applicable whether the case involves the joining of a section 1981 or a section 1983 claim with a Title VII claim. Accordingly, the district court erred in granting the Department's motion for summary judgment on collateral estoppel grounds, but this error does not require us to remand because we hold that the Department is immune...
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