Scott v. Taylor

• Decision Date: 13 April 2005
• Docket Number: No. 04-11302.,04-11302.
• Citation: 405 F.3d 1251
• Parties: Jacqueline SCOTT, Plaintiff-Appellee, v. Mark F. TAYLOR, in his Official Capacity as Lieutenant Governor of Georgia, Stan Watson, in his Official Capacity as Chairperson of the DeKalb County House Delegation and a Member of the Georgia House of Representatives, et al., Defendants-Appellants.
• Court: U.S. Court of Appeals — Eleventh Circuit

405 F.3d 1251

Jacqueline SCOTT, Plaintiff-Appellee, v. Mark F. TAYLOR, in his Official Capacity as Lieutenant Governor of Georgia, Stan Watson, in his Official Capacity as Chairperson of the DeKalb

County House Delegation and a Member of the Georgia House of Representatives, et al., Defendants-Appellants.

No. 04-11302.

United States Court of Appeals, Eleventh Circuit.

April 13, 2005.

Rebecca Mick, Stefan Ernst Ritter, Atlanta, GA, for Defendants-Appellants.

T. Joshua Archer, Michael J. Bowers, D. Gregory Michell, John T. Morgan, III, Balch & Bingham, LLP, Atlanta, GA, for Plaintiff-Appellee.

Appeal from the United States District Court for the Northern District of Georgia.

Before ANDERSON and WILSON, Circuit Judges, and JORDAN^*, District Judge.

ANDERSON, Circuit Judge:

This appeal raises the question of whether individual state legislators are entitled to absolute legislative immunity from official capacity suits for prospective relief. The district court denied the state legislator defendants' motion for judgment on the pleadings, holding that legislative immunity does not apply to such suits. Because the state legislators are entitled to absolute legislative immunity, we reverse and remand with instructions that they be dismissed.

I. BACKGROUND

Appellee Jacqueline Scott, a white Democrat, is a former DeKalb County Commissioner. She served as the representative of the county's third district from 1991-2002. In 2002, the Georgia General Assembly passed "Act 401," which adopted a new district map for the DeKalb County Commission. Under Act 401, the area of DeKalb County where Scott resides was removed from district three and added to district five. Scott thereby lost her incumbent status in district three, and she was not elected to the Commission in the November 2002 elections.

Scott filed her complaint in July, 2002. In it, she alleged that she was moved out of the third district in an effort to achieve a majority black Commission and that this constituted wrongful racial discrimination and violated 42 U.S.C. § 1983. She named Mark Taylor, the Lieutenant Governor of Georgia, Tom Murphy (since exchanged for Glenn Richardson¹), the Speaker of Georgia's House of Representatives, Stan Watson, the Chairperson of the DeKalb County House Delegation, and Nadine Thomas, the Chairperson of the DeKalb County Senate Delegation, as defendants. All four of these defendants ("Appellants") were sued only in their official capacities. Scott also named as a defendant the DeKalb County Board of Elections and Voter Registration ("Board of Elections"). She sought declaratory and injunctive relief for her § 1983 claim as well as an award of attorney's fees pursuant to 42 U.S.C. § 1988. She did not dispute that Act 401 was enacted as part of the state's legislative process and that Appellants acted in their legislative capacities.

After the close of discovery, Appellants successfully moved to amend their answer to include the defense of legislative immunity. They simultaneously moved for judgment on the pleadings based on their amended answer, arguing that legislative immunity bars official capacity suits for injunctive and declaratory relief against state legislators. The district court issued an order denying Appellants' motion for judgment on the pleadings. Appellants' interlocutory appeal of that order is now before this court.²

II. STANDARD OF REVIEW

We review the denial of a motion for judgment on the pleadings de novo. Cannon v. City of West Palm Beach, 250 F.3d 1299, 1301 (11th Cir.2001). Judgment on the pleadings is appropriate when there are no material facts in dispute and the moving party is entitled to judgment as a matter of law. Id. All facts alleged in the complaint must be accepted as true and viewed in the light most favorable to the nonmoving party. Id.

III. DISCUSSION

We believe that the Supreme Court's opinion in Supreme Court of Virginia v. Consumers Union is controlling in this case. 446 U.S. 719, 100 S.Ct. 1967, 64 L.Ed.2d 641 (1980). In Consumers Union, plaintiffs brought a § 1983 challenge to the attorney disciplinary rules promulgated by the Supreme Court of Virginia ("Virginia Court"). Id. at 721, 100 S.Ct. at 1969. The complaint named the Virginia Court's chief justice in his individual and official capacities and sought declaratory and injunctive relief. Id. at 725-26, 100 S.Ct. at 1971. One of the issues before the Supreme Court was whether the Virginia Court and its chief justice were entitled to any sort of immunity. Id. at 721, 100 S.Ct. at 1969.

After concluding that the Virginia Court acted in a legislative capacity when promulgating the challenged rules, the Supreme Court turned to its legislative immunity analysis. Id. at 731, 100 S.Ct. at 1974. The Court noted that "state legislators enjoy common law immunity from liability for their legislative acts, an immunity that is similar in origin and rationale to that accorded Congressmen under the Speech or Debate Clause." Id. at 732, 100 S.Ct. at 1974. This immunity was not abrogated by § 1983, and it applies with equal force to suits seeking damages and those seeking declaratory or injunctive relief. Id. at 732-33, 100 S.Ct. at 1974-75. There could be "little doubt," the Court concluded, that the plaintiffs could not have maintained their suit "against the [state] legislature, its committees, or members." Id. at 733, 100 S.Ct. at 1975. The Court then held that, because state legislatures and their members are immune to suit, "the Virginia Court and its members [were] immune to suit when acting in their legislative capacity." Id. at 734, 100 S.Ct. at 1976. The square holding of Consumers Union applies with full force here; these state legislator defendants enjoy legislative immunity protecting them from a suit challenging their actions taken in their official legislative capacities³ and seeking declaratory or injunctive relief.

Scott seeks to distinguish Consumers Union by arguing that the Supreme Court did not distinguish between personal and official capacity actions when discussing legislative immunity.⁴ Appellee relies on Kentucky v. Graham, 473 U.S. 159, 105 S.Ct. 3099, 87 L.Ed.2d 114 (1985). In Graham, the Court emphasized "the practical and doctrinal differences between personal and official capacity actions." Id. at 166, 105 S.Ct. at 3105. One key difference between individual and official capacity suits is the available defenses. Id. The Court noted that a government official sued in his individual capacity may be entitled to various personal immunity defenses. Id. However, because an official capacity suit against a government official is generally treated as a suit against the underlying governmental entity, such personal immunity defenses are unavailable. Id. at 165-67, 105 S.Ct. at 3105-06. In this regard, the court stated:

In an official-capacity action, these defenses are unavailable.... The only immunities that can be claimed in an official-capacity action are forms of sovereign immunity that the entity, qua entity, may possess, such as the Eleventh Amendment.

Id. at 167, 105 S.Ct. at 3106 (citations omitted).

Scott relies on the foregoing language in Graham in arguing that the instant action sues the state legislators in their official capacity and that these defendants therefore are not entitled to legislative immunity, a personal defense. Scott's argument fails to appreciate an important exception to the Graham opinion's general rule.

As the Graham Court stated, personal defenses are generally unavailable in official capacity suits because such suits are treated as suits against the underlying entity. Id. at 166-67, 105 S.Ct. at 3105-06. The exception, however, is derived from Ex Parte Young, 209 U.S. 123, 28 S.Ct. 441, 52 L.Ed. 714 (1908), which held that official capacity suits for prospective relief to enjoin state officials from enforcing unconstitutional acts are not deemed to be suits against the state and thus are not barred by the Eleventh Amendment.⁵ Indeed, Graham itself recognized this in a footnote appended to the passage quoted above. That footnote stated in relevant part:

Unless a state has waived its Eleventh Amendment immunity or Congress has overridden it, a state cannot be sued directly in its own name regardless of the relief sought.... Thus, implementation of state policy or custom may be reached in federal court only because official-capacity actions for prospective relief are not treated as actions against the State. See Ex Parte Young.

Graham, 473 U.S. at 167 n. 14, 105 S.Ct. at 3106 n. 14. Thus, the instant action — seeking prospective relief against these state legislator defendants in their official capacities — is not to be treated as a action against the entity. Therefore, the general rule of Graham is not applicable.

For these reasons, our holding is not only controlled by Consumers Union, it is entirely consistent with Graham. Indeed, the Supreme Court in Graham discussed and expressly approved of the Consumers Union Court's holding that the Virginia Supreme Court's chief justice was protected by absolute legislative immunity when sued in his official capacity for promulgating an attorney ethics code that violated the First Amendment. The Court in Graham stated:

We recognized as much in Supreme Court of Virginia, supra. There, a three-judge District Court had found the Virginia Supreme Court and its chief justice in his official capacity liable for promulgating, and refusing to amend, a State Bar Code that violated the First Amendment. The district court also awarded fees against these defendants pursuant to § 1988. We held that absolute immunity shielded these defendants for acts taken in their legislative capacity.

Id. at 164, 105 S.Ct. at 3104 (emphasis added). Thus, nothing in Graham undermines the holding in Consumers Union. Following Consumers Union, we hold that the legislator defendants in the instant official capacity suit for prospective relief are entitled to...