McCoy v. Louisiana State Board of Education, Civ. A. No. 2916.

• Court: U.S. District Court — Eastern District of Louisiana
• Writing for the Court: WEST
• Citation: McCoy v. Louisiana State Board of Education, 229 F.Supp. 735 (E.D. La. 1964)
• Decision Date: 20 May 1964
• Docket Number: Civ. A. No. 2916.
• Parties: Sarah Louise McCOY, on behalf of herself and others similarly situated, v. LOUISIANA STATE BOARD OF EDUCATION et al.

229 F. Supp. 735

Sarah Louise McCOY, on behalf of herself and others similarly situated, v. LOUISIANA STATE BOARD OF EDUCATION et al.

Civ. A. No. 2916.

United States District Court E. D. Louisiana, Baton Rouge Division.

May 20, 1964.

A. P. Tureaud, New Orleans, La., for plaintiff.

William P. Schuler, Asst. Atty. Gen., Baton Rouge, La., for defendants

WEST, District Judge.

This is a class action brought by petitioner, Sarah Louise McCoy, a Negro, on her own behalf, and on behalf of other Negroes similarly situated, seeking admission as a student to Northeast Louisiana State College. Petitioner contends that she has been illegally and unconstitutionally denied admission solely because of her race. This college, located in Monroe, Louisiana, was previously known as Northeast Center. Its name was changed to Northeast Louisiana State College by Act 527 of the Louisiana Legislature of 1950, which Act further provided, in part, as follows:

"Section 1. Be it enacted by the Legislature of Louisiana, that the name of Northeast Center, a junior college of Louisiana State University and Agricultural and Mechanical College, located at Monroe, in the Parish of Ouachita, Louisiana, an existing state institution, be changed to the name, Northeast Louisiana State College, and the Louisiana State Board of Education is directed to provide for said school, a school of higher education in the Arts and Sciences, for the education of white persons of the State of Louisiana.

"Section 2. That the Louisiana State Board of Education shall administer the affairs of said institution."

Petitioner names, among others, as a party defendant, the Louisiana State Board of Education.

The Louisiana State Board of Education was created by Act of the Louisiana Legislature LSA-R.S. 17:1 (1950) and was, at that time, specifically given the right to sue and be sued LSA-R.S. 17:2 (1950). However, by amendment to the Louisiana Constitution, this right to sue and be sued without consent of the State was specifically withdrawn. In 1956, Article XIX, Section 26, of the Louisiana Constitution (1921) LSA, was amended to read as follows:

"Section 26. The following named commissions, boards, bodies or municipal corporations are and shall be considered special agencies of the State of Louisiana:

* * * * * *

"(5) The State Board of Education,

* * * * * *

"The consent of the State of Louisiana to suits or legal proceedings against any of the above listed special agencies, (however heretofore given) is hereby expressly withdrawn and no such suit or proceedings shall be permitted except as provided in this section. * * *"

Thus, under the provisions of the Louisiana Constitution as it presently stands, the Louisiana State Board of Education is declared to be a special agency of the State of Louisiana, and is not amenable to suit unless consent is first obtained from the State of Louisiana.

Petitioner, in the present suit, did not name as defendants the individual members of the Louisiana State Board of Education.

Respondents, in answer to petitioner's complaint, filed what amounted to a general denial, but also moved, both in their answer and orally in Court, for dismissal of this suit on the ground that this Court does not have jurisdiction over a suit brought against the Louisiana State Board of Education, since no consent for such suit had first been obtained by petitioner from the State of Louisiana, and secondly, for failure of petitioner to join indispensable parties defendant, namely, the individual members of the Louisiana State Board of Education.

Hearing on defendants' motion to dismiss and also on plaintiff's motion for the issuance of a preliminary injunction was held on February 14, 1964, when, because of the complexity of the legal problem involved, the matter was taken under advisement by the Court. Now, after careful consideration of the applicable law, the arguments of counsel, and the briefs filed herein, the Court is of the opinion that it cannot, at this time, pass upon the merits of petitioner's claim. Petitioner has improperly joined as a defendant the Louisiana State Board of Education, and has failed to join as parties defendant certain indispensable parties, namely, the individual members of the Louisiana State Board of Education.

This Court is not unmindful of the decisions previously rendered in such cases as Louisiana State Board of Education v. Allen, 287 F.2d 32 (C.A. 5 1961); Board of Supervisors of L. S. U. v. Fleming, 265 F.2d 736 (C.A. 5 1959); Board of Supervisors of L. S. U. v. Ludley, 252 F.2d 372 (C.A. 5 1958); and Orleans Parish School Board v. Bush, 242 F.2d 156 (C.A. 5 1957). All of these Appellate Court decisions allowed suits to be brought directly against such agencies of the state government as the Louisiana State Board of Education, the Board of Supervisors of Louisiana State University, and the Orleans Parish School Board. However, this Court feels that it must be bound by what it considers to be contrary holdings by the United States Supreme Court in such cases as Ex parte Young, 209 U.S. 123, 28 S.Ct. 441, 52 L. Ed. 714 (1907) and other related cases hereinafter referred to. It has been consistently held by the United States Supreme Court that pursuant to the provisions of the Eleventh Amendment to the United States Constitution, a sovereign state cannot be sued without its consent. It has also been held many times that an agency of the federal government, absent express consent to the contrary, cannot be sued, because to hold otherwise would impinge upon the sovereignty of the United States Government. Taft Hotel Corp. v. Housing and Home Finance Agency, 262 F.2d 307 (C.A. 2 1958); New Haven Public Schools v. General Services Administration, 214 F.2d 592 (C.A. 7 1954); Love v. Royall (Department of the Army), 179 F.2d 5 (C.A. 8 1950); United States Department of Agriculture v. Hunter, 171 F.2d 793 (C.A. 5 1949); Herren v. Farm Security Administration, 153 F.2d 76 (C.A. 8 1946); Barnes v. United States (Bureau of Indian Affairs), 205 F.Supp. 97 (D.Mont.1962). But the several states are no less sovereign than the federal government. There simply cannot be one standard used to protect the sovereignty of the federal government, and another standard applied to suits against the sovereign states. A sovereign state simply cannot be made a defendant in a suit in a federal court, either by suing it directly, or by suing it indirectly through one of its agencies, without its express consent, without running afoul of the provisions of the Eleventh Amendment to the United States Constitution.

But just as it is well established that a state may not, either directly, or indirectly through its agencies, be sued without its consent, so is it equally well established that the individual members of a state or federal agency may be sued individually if they commit an illegal or unconstitutional act. Whenever the precise question has been presented to the Supreme Court, it has consistently held that in such cases the proper party defendant is the individual member of the agency and not the agency itself. It has consistently held that to sue the agency itself is tantamount to suing the sovereign state, and that such a suit is prohibited by the provisions of the Eleventh Amendment. As was stated in Ex parte Young, supra:

"In Smyth v. Ames, 169 U.S. 466, 8 S.Ct. 418, 42 L.Ed. 819, (another rate case), it was again held that a suit against individuals, for the purpose of preventing them, as officers of the state, from enforcing, by the commencement of suits or by indictment, an unconstitutional enactment, to the injury of the rights of the plaintiff, was not a suit against a state, within the meaning of the Amendment. * * * `It is the settled doctrine of this court that a suit against individuals, for the purpose of preventing them, as officers of a state, from enforcing an unconstitutional enactment, to the injury of the rights of the plaintiff, is not a suit against the state within the meaning of that Amendment.'"

Even though this may be considered as creating an unnecessary fiction in the law, nevertheless the fiction has been preserved and applied throughout a long, unbroken line of decisions. In Blackmar v. Guerre, 342 U.S. 512, 72 S.Ct. 410, 96 L. Ed. 534 (1952), while holding that neither the Veterans Administration nor the United States Civil Service Commission could be sued without the sovereign's consent, the Supreme Court said:

"When Congress authorizes one of its agencies to be sued eo nomine, it does so in explicit language, or impliedly because the agency is the offspring of such a suable entity. * * Since the Civil Service Commission is not a corporate entity which Congress has authorized to be sued, a suit involving the action of the Commission generally must be brought against the individual Commissioners as members of the United States Civil Service Commission. No such suit was brought here, and no service was had upon the individuals comprising the Civil Service Commission. Therefore, neither the individuals comprising the Civil Service Commission nor the Commission was a suable entity was before the District Court."

As was cogently pointed out in Administrative Law Treatise, Davis (1958) Section 27.01, suing an individual state officer is in reality a suit against the state, but, for the sake of public policy, the Courts have created the fiction of allowing an individual state officer to be sued, and have declared that this is not a suit against the sovereign. Unless and until the United States Supreme Court holds otherwise, this Court is bound to require that this established procedure be followed. To do otherwise is to completely disregard the rulings of the Supreme Court, the Eleventh Amendment to the United States Constitution, and Article XIX, Section 26 of the Louisiana Constitution. The doctrine of the unsuability of the state and its agencies, and the suability of the individual members of...