Missouri Child Care Ass'n v. Cross

• Decision Date: 28 June 2002
• Docket Number: No. 01-3346.,01-3346.
• Citation: 294 F.3d 1034
• Parties: MISSOURI CHILD CARE ASSOCIATION, doing business as Missouri Coalition of Children's Agencies, Appellee, v. Denise CROSS, Director of the Division of Family Services of the Missouri Department of Social Services, in her official capacity; Dana K. Martin, Director of the Missouri Department of Social Services, in her official capacity, Appellants.
• Court: U.S. Court of Appeals — Eighth Circuit

294 F.3d 1034

MISSOURI CHILD CARE ASSOCIATION, doing business as Missouri Coalition of Children's Agencies, Appellee, v. Denise CROSS, Director of the Division of Family Services of the Missouri Department of Social Services, in her official capacity; Dana K. Martin, Director of the Missouri Department of Social Services, in her official capacity, Appellants.

No. 01-3346.

United States Court of Appeals, Eighth Circuit.

Submitted: April 15, 2002.

Filed: June 28, 2002.

Gary L. Gardner, Assistant Attorney General, argued, Jefferson City, MO, for appellants.

David M. Harris, argued, St. Louis, MO (Valerie G. Lipic, on the brief), for appellee.

Before BOWMAN, RILEY, and MELLOY, Circuit Judges.

BOWMAN, Circuit Judge.

The Missouri Child Care Association (MCCA) brings this 42 U.S.C. § 1983 action against Denise Cross, Director of the Missouri Division of Family Services, and Dana Martin, Director of the Missouri Department of Social Services (collectively, the Directors). The MCCA seeks declaratory and injunctive relief to enforce the foster-care provider reimbursement provisions of the Adoption Assistance and Child Welfare Act of 1980 (CWA or the Act), 42 U.S.C. §§ 670-679b (1994 & Supp. V 1999), also known as Title IV-E of the Social Security Act. The Directors moved for judgment on the pleadings, asserting that they are entitled to the benefit of the state's Eleventh Amendment immunity, so that the District Court¹ lacks jurisdiction over them. The court denied the motion, and the Directors appeal.² We affirm.

I.

Enacted by Congress pursuant to its powers under the Spending Clause,³ the CWA creates a joint federal-state program that provides federal funds to participating states to pay for certain foster-care and adoption expenses. "The Act provides that States will be reimbursed for a percentage of foster care and adoption assistance payments when the State satisfies the requirements of the Act." Suter v. Artist M., 503 U.S. 347, 351, 112 S.Ct. 1360, 118 L.Ed.2d 1 (1992). Specifically at issue in this suit, the Act imposes upon participating states the obligation to make "foster care maintenance payments," which reimburse institutional foster-care providers for a variety of expenses incurred caring for abused and neglected children. 42 U.S.C. § 672. These payments are to

cover the cost of (and the cost of providing) food, clothing, shelter, daily supervision, school supplies, a child's personal incidentals, liability insurance with respect to a child, and reasonable travel to the child's home for visitation. In the case of institutional care, such term shall include the reasonable costs of administration and operation of such institution as are necessarily required to provide the items described in the preceding sentence.

42 U.S.C. § 675(4)(A).

The state of Missouri has availed itself of the funds offered by Congress through the CWA. Although Congress may not require a state to participate in a program created pursuant to the Spending Clause, once a state agrees to take the funds offered through such programs the state is bound to "comply with federally imposed conditions." Pennhurst State Sch. & Hosp. v. Halderman, 451 U.S. 1, 17, 101 S.Ct. 1531, 67 L.Ed.2d 694 (1981). The Act requires Missouri to submit to the Secretary of Health and Human Services (HHS) a state plan for providing foster care and adoption assistance that meets the standards enacted by Congress. 42 U.S.C. § 671. In Missouri, the Department of Social Services, through its Division of Family Services, has been designated to administer the state plan and assure state compliance with the Act. Mo.Rev. Stat. §§ 207.010, 207.060, 660.010 (2000).

The MCCA, a trade association whose members are institutional foster-care providers in Missouri, sued the Directors alleging that they have failed to comply with the reimbursement requirements applicable to institutional providers set forth in 42 U.S.C. § 675(4)(A). The MCCA alleges that "State officials have failed to adopt a cost-based method of reimbursement to the foster care providers," Br. of Appellee at 5, and that in fact they are reimbursing providers "based on the mathematical formula of dividing the state budget for state-wide foster care by the approximate number of days or units of service." Id. at 7, 101 S.Ct. 1531. Thus, the MCCA argues, the state officials reimburse providers in violation of the Act's provisions because their calculations are "based solely on budget constraints and not on any other methodology." Id.

The Directors respond that this suit is effectively a suit against the state and should be dismissed on the ground "of Missouri's immunity from suit in federal court, embodied in the Eleventh Amendment." Br. of Appellants at 5.

That a State may not be sued without its consent is a fundamental rule of jurisprudence having so important a bearing upon the construction of the Constitution of the United States that it has become established by repeated decisions of this [C]ourt that the entire judicial power granted by the Constitution does not embrace authority to entertain a suit brought by private parties against a State without consent given: not one brought by citizens of another State, or by citizens or subjects of a foreign State, because of the Eleventh Amendment; and not even one brought by its own citizens, because of the fundamental rule of which the Amendment is but an exemplification.

Ex parte New York, 256 U.S. 490, 497, 41 S.Ct. 588, 65 L.Ed. 1057 (1921); see also U.S. Const. amend. XI; Alden v. Maine, 527 U.S. 706, 712-13, 119 S.Ct. 2240, 144 L.Ed.2d 636 (1999); Idaho v. Coeur d'Alene Tribe, 521 U.S. 261, 267-68, 117 S.Ct. 2028, 138 L.Ed.2d 438 (1997); Seminole Tribe v. Florida, 517 U.S. 44, 54, 116 S.Ct. 1114, 134 L.Ed.2d 252 (1996); Hans v. Louisiana, 134 U.S. 1, 15, 10 S.Ct. 504, 33 L.Ed. 842 (1890). Ex parte Young, 209 U.S. 123, 28 S.Ct. 441, 52 L.Ed. 714 (1908), carves out an exception to that fundamental rule: state officials may be sued in their official capacities for prospective injunctive relief when the plaintiff alleges that the officials are acting in violation of the Constitution or federal law. Id. at 159-60, 28 S.Ct. 441; see also Green v. Mansour, 474 U.S. 64, 68, 106 S.Ct. 423, 88 L.Ed.2d 371 (1985). This exception exists to "preserve the constitutional structure established by the Supremacy Clause." Antrican ex rel. Antrican v. Odom, 290 F.3d 178, 184 (4th Cir.2002). According to the Directors, Ex parte Young does not apply to this suit for three distinct reasons. We review de novo the District Court's denial of judgment on the pleadings. Randolph v. Rodgers, 253 F.3d 342, 345 (8th Cir.2001) (reviewing de novo denial of state's motion to dismiss on basis of Eleventh Amendment immunity). We reject in turn each of the Directors' arguments.

II.

The Directors argue that Ex parte Young is unavailable to the MCCA in this suit because the CWA has a detailed remedial scheme that manifests Congress's intent to preclude such suits and thus make federal jurisdiction unavailable. Relying on the Supreme Court's decision in Seminole Tribe, 517 U.S. at 74-75, 116 S.Ct. 1114, the Directors point out that "[w]here Congress has created a detailed remedial scheme for the enforcement against a State of a statutory right, state officials are not subject to enforcement of that right by the federal courts through prospective injunctive relief." Br. of Appellants at 8.⁴ As far as we have been able to discern, the Directors raise this ground for reversal for the first time in this appeal.⁵ The MCCA has not, however, raised any objection to our consideration of this issue. Although we are not entirely convinced that this argument is properly before us, see Smith v. City of Des Moines, Iowa, 99 F.3d 1466, 1473 (8th Cir.1996), we will nonetheless address it on the merits. We conclude that the CWA does not reflect any intent by Congress to limit Ex parte Young actions, and the Directors are not entitled to the state's Eleventh Amendment immunity under this rationale.

The Directors compare this case to Seminole Tribe and suggest that the CWA has a remedial scheme that, like the remedial scheme under the Indian Gaming Regulatory Act (IGRA), Pub.L. No. 100-497, § 11(d), 102 Stat. 2467, 2475 (1988) (codified at 25 U.S.C. § 2710(d) (1994)), demonstrates Congress's intent to preclude Ex parte Young actions. We disagree. The plaintiffs in Seminole Tribe brought their Ex parte Young suit against the governor of Florida, seeking injunctive relief to compel negotiation of a tribal gaming compact.⁶ The Court refused to apply Ex parte Young, reasoning that it was unavailable because the statute included a "carefully crafted and intricate remedial scheme" that greatly circumscribed the powers of the federal district court in cases arising under the statute's provisions. Seminole Tribe, 517 U.S. at 73-76, 116 S.Ct. 1114. The IGRA's remedial scheme prescribes the role of the courts in resolving disputes between the tribes and the states, and severely limits that role. 25 U.S.C. § 2710(d)(3) (dispute resolution provision). Specifically, if compact negotiations fail and the parties go to court, the statute provides that, upon a finding that the state failed to negotiate in good faith, the court's only recourse is to issue an order directing the state and the tribe to conclude a compact within sixty days. At that point, if the parties disregard the court's order, the court has no further power to hold the parties in contempt: the statute prescribes that the parties submit their respective versions of the compact to a mediator who then selects a version to become the agreement between the parties. Further disagreements are then referred to the Secretary of the Interior. By limiting the district court's powers in such a fashion, "Congress chose to impose upon the State a liability that is significantly more limited than would be the liability upon the state officer under Ex parte...