Williams v. State

• Decision Date: 09 November 1990
• Docket Number: Nos. 88-309,89-042,s. 88-309
• Citation: 589 A.2d 840,156 Vt. 42
• Parties: Norman WILLIAMS and Susan Levine v. STATE of Vermont and William H. Conway, Jr., Vermont Commissioner of Motor Vehicles. Valerie M. QUINN and James Woodard v. STATE of Vermont and William H. Conway, Jr., Vermont Commissioner of Motor Vehicles.
• Court: Vermont Supreme Court

Page 840

589 A.2d 840

156 Vt. 42

Norman WILLIAMS and Susan Levine v. STATE of Vermont and William H. Conway, Jr., Vermont

Commissioner of Motor Vehicles.

Valerie M. QUINN and James Woodard v. STATE of Vermont and William H. Conway, Jr., Vermont

Commissioner of Motor Vehicles.

Nos. 88-309, 89-042.

Supreme Court of Vermont.

Nov. 9, 1990.

Motion for Reargument Denied

Feb. 1, 1991.

O'Neill and Crawford, Burlington, for plaintiffs-appellants Williams and Levine.

Norman Williams, pro se.

Mary P. Kehoe of Gear and Davis, Inc., Burlington, for plaintiff-appellant Woodard.

Jeffrey L. Amestoy, Atty. Gen., and Thomas R. Viall and Andrew M. Eschen, Asst. Attys. Gen., Montpelier, for defendants-appellees.

Before ALLEN, C.J., GIBSON, J., WOLCHIK, District Judge, KATZ, Superior Judge, and FISHER, District Judge, Specially Assigned.

KATZ, Superior Judge, Specially Assigned.

Plaintiffs filed suit in Washington Superior Court to secure refunds of taxes paid to the Department of Motor Vehicles upon first registering automobiles in Vermont. The superior court dismissed plaintiffs' claims. We affirm.

I. RECORD

In 1980, Norman Williams purchased and registered a Volkswagen Dasher in Illinois, his state of residency at the time, and paid the five percent Illinois sales tax. In 1981, he moved to Vermont with his car. When he subsequently applied to register the vehicle with the Vermont Department of Motor Vehicles, he was required to pay Vermont's four percent use tax pursuant to 32 V.S.A. § 8903(b). Believing the tax was unconstitutional, as it did not apply to Vermont residents who purchased and paid a sales tax on vehicles in reciprocating states (including Illinois), see § 8911(9), ¹ Williams brought suit in federal court under 42 U.S.C. § 1983 to enjoin enforcement. That suit was dismissed on the authority of the Tax Injunction Act, 28 U.S.C. § 1341. Williams then paid the tax and initiated an administrative proceeding, pursuant to 32 V.S.A. § 8914, for a refund. The Motor Vehicles Department felt constrained to assume the constitutionality of the tax scheme and denied relief.

Williams then filed the present action in superior court, serving the State and Commissioner Conway, pursuant to V.R.C.P. 4(d)(2), by serving the Attorney General. Susan Levine joined the action in an amended complaint. Levine, like Williams, had moved to Vermont from another state, bringing her car with her. She had purchased a Chrysler Horizon in New York and paid the seven percent New York sales tax. When she registered the car in Vermont, she was required to pay the state use tax.

In their complaint, Williams and Levine requested refunds of the respective use taxes as well as a declaratory judgment that the tax scheme violates several provisions of the United States Constitution: article I, section 8, clause 3 (Commerce Clause); article IV, section 2 (Privileges and Immunities); and the Fourteenth Amendment (Equal Protection and Privileges and Immunities Clauses). Although now in state court, the complaint rests on the federal cause of action provided by 42 U.S.C. § 1983.

The State filed a motion to dismiss, asserting the constitutionality of the statute. The motion was granted and Williams and Levine appealed to this Court, which affirmed on the strength of our opinion in Leverson v. Conway, 144 Vt. 523, 481 A.2d 1029 (1984). The United States Supreme Court then granted certiorari, reversed our decision, declared the statute invalid under the Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment, as it purported to afford unequal treatment to state residents and nonresidents without sufficient justification, and remanded for further proceedings. Williams v. Vermont, 472 U.S. 14, 105 S.Ct. 2465, 86 L.Ed.2d 11 (1985). We, in course, remanded to the superior court. There, the State filed an answer raising, among other defenses, sovereign immunity.

In 1985, while a Vermont resident, James Woodard purchased and registered a vehicle in Florida, paying that state's seven percent sales tax. Upon transferring the registration to Vermont, he was told he had to pay Vermont's use tax. He brought suit in superior court ² seeking a refund and a declaration that the Department of Motor Vehicles' practice ³ of not affording a tax credit to Vermont residents in his situation--that is, having registered a vehicle out of state prior to returning to Vermont--is both contrary to the statutory scheme and in violation of several provisions of the Vermont Constitution as well as the Fourteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution.

None of the plaintiffs specify any relief against Conway personally. Nor are any allegations made to suggest any conduct on his part, other than that of the Department generally, of which he was commissioner.

Although nominally consolidated below, the superior court issued separate decisions dismissing the respective complaints. As to the Williams/Levine request for declaratory relief, the court held that the equal protection issues were moot, in light of the Department of Motor Vehicles' 1986 regulation denying the tax credit of § 8911(9) to Vermonters who purchase and register cars out of state. Upholding the regulation as consistent with the meaning and intent of the statute, the court reasoned: "Because section 8911(9) [as clarified by the regulation] now explicitly provides no special treatment for residents, it is facially constitutional and would survive the equal protection scrutiny used by the Williams court. Therefore, the plaintiffs no longer can request declaratory judgment ... because the equal protection issues concerning what section 8911(9) means and how the exemption must be applied are now moot." As to their claim for a tax refund, the court held that recovery was barred by sovereign immunity, relying on American Trucking Ass'ns v. Conway, 146 Vt. 579, 508 A.2d 408 (1986), cert. denied, 483 U.S. 1019-20, 107 S.Ct. 3262, 97 L.Ed.2d 761 (1987). As to the Woodard/Quinn complaint, the superior court reached the merits, upheld the Department's regulation against plaintiffs' several challenges, and granted the State's motion to dismiss.

Appeals were taken from both rulings. We affirm, but for reasons differing in several respects from those espoused by the superior court.

II. CLAIM FOR REFUND

A. 42 U.S.C. § 1983

Both complaints are explicitly and solely founded on 42 U.S.C. § 1983, the Reconstruction Era civil rights statute which provides a private remedy for those alleging abridgment of federal rights by "persons" acting "under color of" state law. Although § 1983 was clearly intended to provide a federal forum for those seeking vindication of federal rights, there is no bar to the statute's use in state courts. Maine v. Thiboutot, 448 U.S. 1, 11, 100 S.Ct. 2502, 2508, 65 L.Ed.2d 555 (1980); Beauregard v. City of St. Albans, 141 Vt. 624, 626, 450 A.2d 1148, 1149 (1982).

However, § 1983 may not be used to make a claim for relief against a state, as states are not "persons" within the meaning of the statute. Will v. Michigan Dep't of State Police, 491 U.S. 58, 64, 109 S.Ct. 2304, 2308, 105 L.Ed.2d 45 (1989). Manifestly and explicitly, the State of Vermont is the defendant in these cases. The purpose for each of these plaintiffs having commenced suit was and remains the refund of all or part of the Vermont use tax paid on their respective autos. The actions seek retrospective relief that can come only from the State treasury. "[W]hen the action is in essence one for the recovery of money from the state, the state is the real, substantial party in interest ... even though individual officials are nominal defendants." Ford Motor Co. v. Department of Treasury of Indiana, 323 U.S. 459, 464, 65 S.Ct. 347, 350, 89 L.Ed. 389 (1945). Under Will, § 1983 is not available for such relief.

At oral argument and in a supplementary brief, Mr. Williams suggested that footnote 10 of Will, 491 U.S. at 71, 109 S.Ct. at 2311-12, supports his position, and exempts the present cases from the clear and general rule laid down by Will. We fail to see how. In pertinent part, footnote 10 states:

Of course a State official in his or her official capacity, when sued for injunctive relief, would be a person under § 1983 because "official-capacity actions for prospective relief are not treated as actions against the State." This distinction is "commonplace in sovereign immunity doctrine," and would not have been foreign to the 19th-century Congress that enacted § 1983.

Id. at 71 n. 10, 109 S.Ct. at 2311-12 n. 10 (citations omitted; emphasis supplied). The actions presently before this Court are not for prospective relief. Rather, these are actions to recover money already spent. ⁴ As Justice Stevens notes in dissent, the holding of Will, and in particular, footnote 10, is that while a state or its agent sued in an official capacity may be sued under § 1983 for injunctive relief, they may not be so sued for monetary relief. Id. at 91, 109 S.Ct. at 2323. ⁵ Absent waiver, the Eleventh Amendment ⁶ bars a damages action against the state brought in federal court; Will makes clear that § 1983 does not provide an avenue for the same relief in state court. "Will establishes that the State and arms of the State, which have traditionally enjoyed Eleventh Amendment immunity, are not subject to suit under § 1983 in either federal court or state court." Howlett v. Rose, 496 U.S. 356, ----, 110 S.Ct. 2430, 2437, 110 L.Ed.2d 332 (1990); see also Edelman v. Jordan, 415 U.S. 651, 663, 678, 94 S.Ct. 1347, 1355, 1363, 39 L.Ed.2d 662 (1974) (action to recover wrongfully withheld welfare payments from state funds barred as action against state); Ford Motor Co. v. Department of Treasury of Indiana, 323 U.S. at 462-63, 65 S.Ct. at 349-50 (action seeking refund of taxes collected by state in violation of federal law barred as action against state); Note, Clarifying Comity: State Court Jurisdiction and Section 1983 State Tax Challenges, 103...