Owner-Operators Independent Drivers Ass'n of America v. State

• Decision Date: 31 January 1989
• Docket Number: OWNER-OPERATORS,No. 13459,13459
• Citation: 209 Conn. 679,553 A.2d 1104
• Court: Connecticut Supreme Court
• Parties: INDEPENDENT DRIVERS ASSOCIATION OF AMERICA et al. v. STATE of Connecticut et al.

Page 1104

553 A.2d 1104

209 Conn. 679

OWNER-OPERATORS INDEPENDENT DRIVERS ASSOCIATION OF AMERICA et al. v. STATE of Connecticut et al.

No. 13459.

Supreme Court of Connecticut.

Argued Dec. 6, 1988.

Decided Jan. 31, 1989.

Jeffrey W. King, with whom were K. Michael O'Connell, Stacey L. Savin and, on the brief, Daniel J. Harrold, Washington, D.C., for appellants (plaintiffs).

Jane D. Comerford, Asst. Atty. Gen., with whom, on the brief, was Joseph I. Lieberman, Atty. Gen., for appellees (defendants).

Before PETERS, C.J., and ARTHUR H. HEALEY, SHEA, CALLAHAN, GLASS, COVELLO and HULL, JJ.

PETERS, Chief Justice.

dispositive issue in this appeal is whether the plaintiffs may, by an independent Superior Court action, recover taxes they have paid pursuant to an unconstitutional statute, or whether they were obliged first to pursue statutorily provided administrative remedies. The plaintiffs, Owner-Operators Independent Drivers Association of America (OOIDA), W.H. Christie & Sons, Inc., and Mark Dennis, doing business as M & J Expeditors, brought suit in Superior Court challenging the constitutionality of General Statutes § 12-487, ¹ demanding declaratory and injunctive relief and also refunds from taxes paid pursuant to the statute. The defendants, the state of Connecticut, the commissioner of revenue services and the state treasurer, moved to dismiss the action. The trial court granted the motion to dismiss, holding that sovereign immunity barred the suit. The plaintiffs appealed to the Appellate Court and we transferred the case here pursuant to Practice Book § 4023. We find no error.

For the purposes of this appeal, the relevant facts are undisputed. The named plaintiff is an association made up of members who own and operate, or represent persons who own and operate, trucks in interstate commerce, at times in and through Connecticut. Other plaintiffs are W.H. Christie & Sons, Inc., a certified motor common carrier of property, and Mark E. Dennis, an unincorporated motor carrier. ² No plaintiff's principal place of business is in Connecticut, nor has any plaintiff registered his vehicle in Connecticut.

General Statutes § 12-487 required ³ all truck owners whose trucks are not registered in Connecticut to pay an annual $10 tax for a fuel identification decal. The statute prohibited the operation in this state of any such truck not bearing the decal. Trucks registered in Connecticut need not display the decal, nor need their owners pay the tax. The plaintiffs have paid the tax for varying numbers of years.

On April 20, 1987, the plaintiffs sent to the commissioner a letter objecting to the fact that § 12-487 required payment of the $10 decal tax by out-of-state, and not by in-state, truck owners. Stating that they intended to sue the state for declaratory and injunctive relief and for refunds, the plaintiffs enclosed with their letter a copy of the complaint they proposed to file in the Superior Court. Their letter further expressed their doubt that the commissioner could provide them the relief they sought, but invited him to authorize refunds for the plaintiffs W.H. Christie & Sons, Inc., and Dennis if he believed himself empowered to do so. The commissioner never responded to this letter.

As their letter had indicated, on May 12, 1987, the plaintiffs initiated a Superior Court action claiming that § 12-487 violated the Commerce Clause; U.S. Const., art. I, § 8, cl. 3; and the Privileges and Immunities Clause; U.S. Const., art. IV, § 2, cl. 1; and that the defendants' actions violated 42 U.S.C. § 1983. The plaintiffs sought declaratory and injunctive relief, refunds of all the decal taxes paid by the plaintiffs, and attorney's fees. On June 9, 1987, the defendants moved to dismiss the action and on June 30, 1987, the trial court heard arguments on the matter.

Before the trial court had completed its deliberations on the motion, however, it received a letter from the defendants, dated October 5, 1987, notifying it that, in light of the recent decision of the United States Supreme Court in American Trucking Assns., Inc. v. Scheiner, 483 U.S. 266, 107 S.Ct. 2829, 97 L.Ed.2d 226 (1987), the attorney general had advised that continued collection of the decal tax would violate the Commerce Clause. Accordingly, the defendants informed the court that they would stop collecting the tax as of October 1, 1987.

On January 21, 1988, the trial court granted the defendants' motion to dismiss. The trial court held that sovereign immunity barred both the action for refunds of unconstitutionally collected taxes and the § 1983 action. It therefore concluded that it did not have subject matter jurisdiction over the plaintiffs' monetary claims. The trial court considered the injunction action withdrawn, and therefore moot. ⁴ From the trial court's judgment, the plaintiffs brought this appeal.

On appeal, the plaintiffs offer a tripartite argument. They maintain that: (1) sovereign immunity does not bar their refund claims, because the state has waived its immunity; (2) their claims are presently justiciable because such claims, as a matter of law, do not require the exhaustion of administrative remedies; and (3) in the alternative, if administrative remedies were applicable, they have, as a matter of fact, exhausted them. Because in our view the state's limited waiver of its sovereign immunity is inextricably linked to the exhaustion of administrative remedies, we disagree with the plaintiffs' claims of law. We are equally unpersuaded of the merits of the plaintiffs' factual claim. Accordingly, we find no error.

It is settled law in Connecticut that the state is immune from suit unless, by appropriate legislation, it authorizes or consents to suit. Lamb v. Burns, 202 Conn. 158, 169, 520 A.2d 190 (1987); Duguay v. Hopkins, 191 Conn. 222, 227, 464 A.2d 45 (1983). " 'The state's sovereign right not to be sued may be waived by the legislature, provided clear intention to that effect is disclosed "by the use of express terms or by force of a necessary implication." ' " Struckman v. Burns, 205 Conn. 542, 558 534 A.2d 888 (1987), quoting Baker v. Ives, 162 Conn. 295, 298, 294 A.2d 290 (1972); Murphy v. Ives, 151 Conn. 259, 262-63, 196 A.2d 596 (1963). Because such statutes are in derogation of the common law, however, "[a]ny statutory waiver of immunity must be narrowly construed"; Struckman v. Burns, supra; and its scope must be confined strictly to the extent the statute provides. Berger, Lehman Associates, Inc. v. State, 178 Conn. 352, 356, 422 A.2d 268 (1979); see generally comment, "Sovereign Immunity in Connecticut: Survey and Economic Analysis," 13 Conn.L.Rev. 293, 295-301 (1981).

The statute on which the plaintiffs rely for their argument that sovereign immunity has been waived is General Statutes § 12-480(c). ⁵ That statute does indeed specifically waive immunity from refund claims in cases in which motor carriers dispute the legality of the decal tax mandated by § 12-487. The provision of General Statutes § 12-489(b), ⁶ which we have construed to authorize de novo Superior Court review of denials of these claims further supports such a waiver. The statutory waiver contained in § 12-480 is not, however, unconditional. On the contrary, the legislature has enacted a limited waiver of immunity expressly conditioned on pursuit of a prescribed administrative remedy. The very section that authorizes a refund claim against the state itself designates the commissioner of revenue services as the person to adjudicate any timely claim, in writing, that payment of a fee "pursuant to Section 12-487 ... is illegal for any reason...." General Statutes § 12-480(c). The same section requires the commissioner, within sixty days of the filing of a proper claim, to notify the claimant of his decision. It is the administrative denial of a claim for a refund that triggers a claimant's right to pursue de novo proceedings in the Superior Court.

On its face, § 12-480(c) establishes an administrative request for a refund as the prescribed avenue of relief that the plaintiffs were required to follow in order to take advantage of the state's limited waiver of its sovereign immunity. "We have frequently held that where a statute has established a procedure to redress a particular wrong a person must follow the specified remedy and may not institute a proceeding that might have been permissible in the absence of such a statutory procedure." Norwich v. Lebanon, 200 Conn. 697, 708, 513 A.2d 77 (1986) When an adequate administrative remedy exists at law, a litigant must exhaust it before the Superior Court will obtain jurisdiction over an independent action on the matter. Concerned Citizens of Sterling v. Sterling, 204 Conn. 551, 556, 529 A.2d 666 (1987); Cummings v. Tripp, 204 Conn. 67, 75, 527 A.2d 230 (1987); see also Carpenter v. Planning & Zoning Commission, 176 Conn. 581, 598, 409 A.2d 1029 (1979).

This doctrine "is subject to a few limited exceptions, one being that a party may bring an independent action to test certain constitutional issues without first having resorted" to the provided administrative remedy. Butzgy v. Glastonbury, 203 Conn. 109, 121, 523 A.2d 1258 (1987); see also Connecticut Light & Power Co. v. Norwalk, 179 Conn. 111, 117, 425 A.2d 576 (1979). Nonetheless, "direct judicial adjudication even of constitutional claims is not warranted when the relief sought by a litigant 'might conceivably have been obtained through an alternative [statutory] procedure ... which [the litigant] has chosen to ignore.' " Concerned Citizens of Sterling v. Sterling, supra, 204 Conn. at 562, 529 A.2d 666; School Administrators Assn. v. Dow, 200 Conn. 376, 385, 511 A.2d 1012 (1986); LaCroix v. Board of Education, 199 Conn. 70, 87, 505 A.2d 1233 (1986), quoting Sullivan v. State, 189 Conn. 550, 554, 457 A.2d 304 (1983).

The plaintiffs offer two responses to these general principles. On the one hand, they maintain that their...