Yniguez v. Mofford

• Decision Date: 06 February 1990
• Docket Number: No. CIV 88-1854 PHX PGR.,CIV 88-1854 PHX PGR.
• Citation: 730 F. Supp. 309
• Parties: Maria-Kelly F. YNIGUEZ and Jaime P. Gutierrez, Plaintiffs, v. Rose MOFFORD, individually and as Governor of the State of Arizona, Robert K. Corbin, individually and as Attorney General of the State of Arizona, and Catherine Eden, individually and as Director of the Department of Administration of the State of Arizona, Defendants.
• Court: U.S. District Court — District of Arizona

730 F. Supp. 309

Maria-Kelly F. YNIGUEZ and Jaime P. Gutierrez, Plaintiffs, v.Rose MOFFORD, individually and as Governor of the State of Arizona, Robert K. Corbin, individually and as Attorney General of the State of Arizona, and Catherine Eden, individually and as Director of the Department of Administration of the State of Arizona, Defendants.

No. CIV 88-1854 PHX PGR.

United States District Court, D. Arizona.

February 6, 1990.

Robert J. Pohlman, Phoenix, Ariz., for plaintiffs.

Anthony B. Ching, Sol.Gen., Phoenix, Ariz., for defendants.

MEMORANDUM OPINION AND ORDER

ROSENBLATT, District Judge.

As a result of a general election held on November 8, 1988, Article XXVIII, entitled "English as the Official Language", was added to the Arizona Constitution.In an action brought pursuant to 42 U.S.C. § 1983, the plaintiffs seek to have Article XXVIII declared unconstitutional and its enforcement enjoined, claiming that the Article violates the First and Fourteenth Amendments of the United States Constitutionand42 U.S.C. § 2000d, et seq.,Title VI of the Civil Rights Act of 1964.Article XXVIII, which formally went into effect on December 5, 1988, provides in part that English shall be the official language of the State of Arizona and all of its political subdivisions, that the Article is applicable to all branches of government and to all government officials and employees during the performance of government business, that the state and its political subdivisions shall take all reasonable steps to preserve, protect and enhance the role of English as the state's official language, that the state and its political subdivisions, with some limited exceptions, shall act only in English, and that private citizens shall have standing to bring suit to enforce the Article.

This action, which names as defendants, both individually and in their official capacities, Rose Mofford, Governor of the State of Arizona, Robert Corbin, Attorney General of the State of Arizona, and Catherine Eden, Director of the Department of Administration of the State of Arizona, was commenced on November 10, 1988 by Maria-Kelly Yniguez; Jaime Gutierrez was added as a plaintiff in a second amended complaint.Both plaintiffs are of Hispanic descent and are fluent in English and Spanish.Yniguez, who is employed by the Risk Management Division of the Arizona Department of Administration as an insurance claims manager, often spoke Spanish prior to the enactment of Article XXVIII with Spanish-speaking persons who were asserting medical malpractice claims against the state.Yniguez ceased speaking Spanish while performing her official duties immediately after Article XXVIII was passed because it was her interpretation of the Article that she could be sanctioned if she continued to speak Spanish.Gutierrez, an Arizona state senator, spoke Spanish prior to the enactment of Article XXVIII when communicating with his Spanish-speaking constituents and continues to do so.Both plaintiffs have signed state loyalty oaths promising to obey the Arizona Constitution.

The defendants have filed a motion seeking the dismissal of Yniguez's claims, which the court has treated as a motion for summary judgment, and a separate motion seeking the dismissal of Gutierrez's claims.The plaintiffs have filed a motion seeking a preliminary injunction.Pursuant to the stipulation of the parties, the trial on the merits was combined with the evidentiary hearing on the motion for preliminary injunction.For the reasons set forth herein, the court finds that the only appropriate parties to this action are Yniguez and Mofford and that Yniguez is entitled to have a judgment issued declaring Article XXVIII unconstitutional as facially overbroad in violation of the First Amendment.

Eleventh Amendment

Yniguez's original complaint only named the State of Arizona as a defendant.On the same day the state filed a motion seeking its dismissal on Eleventh Amendment grounds, Yniguez filed an amended complaint adding defendants Mofford, Corbin and Eden.The court subsequently dismissed the State of Arizona as a defendant but denied the Eleventh Amendment defense as to the individual defendants in what was specifically described as a preliminary ruling.While they did not specifically reassert the Eleventh Amendment defense in their pending motion to dismiss Yniguez's claims, the defendants did raise it in connection with their motion to dismiss Gutierrez's claims.

The defendants argue that they cannot be subjected to Gutierrez's suit due to the bar of the Eleventh Amendment.Although Eleventh Amendment immunity extends to actions against state officers sued in their official capacities since such actions are in effect brought against the state, Jackson v. Hayakawa,682 F.2d 1344, 1350(9th Cir.1982), suits for declaratory and injunctive relief, such as the instant action, against state officers in their official capacities are not barred by the Eleventh Amendment if those officers have some connection to the enforcement of the allegedly unconstitutional state law, which connection may arise from either the specific law itself or from the state's general law.Ex parte Young,209 U.S. 123, 157, 28 S.Ct. 441, 452, 52 L.Ed. 714(1908).As state executive branch officials with no power to enforce Article XXVIII vis-a-vis Gutierrez, an elected official of the state legislative branch, neither Mofford, Corbin or Eden possess the enforcement connection required under the Young doctrine.Neither Article XXVIII nor any state law or regulation gives the named defendants, by virtue of their offices, any authority to force a state legislator to comply with Article XXVIII or to subject a state legislator to any type of sanction should he or she fail to comply with it.Gutierrez's claims against Mofford, Corbin and Eden are therefore barred by the Eleventh Amendment.

The situation is different with respect to Yniguez's claims in that the court now concludes that Mofford and Eden, by virtue of their respective offices of Governor and Director of the Department of Administration, have a sufficiently direct connection with the enforcement of Article XXVIII as far as Yniguez is concerned to be appropriate defendants under the Ex parte Young doctrine, but that Corbin does not.Both Mofford and Eden possess the authority to enforce Article XXVIII against state service employees, such as Yniguez, since such employees are subject to discipline or dismissal if they fail to comply with state laws and rules.A.R.S. § 41-770(1985);A.C.R.R. R2-5-501(1986).Mofford's authority in this regard derives from her constitutional duty to take care that laws are faithfully executed, Ariz. Const. art. V, § 4, and her statutory duty to supervise the official conduct of all executive and ministerial officers, A.R.S. § 41-101(A)(1)(1985); Eden's authority stems from her statutory responsibility to direct and control the state personnel administration program.A.R.S. §§ 41-761(1985), 41-763(2)(1985).

Defendant Corbin, on the other hand, has no authority simply by virtue as his position as state attorney general to force a state service employee such as Yniguez to comply with Article XXVIII.Under Arizona law, the attorney general law has no common law powers, only statutory powers.Arizona State Land Dept. v. McFate,87 Ariz. 139, 142, 348 P.2d 912, 914(1960).The fact that the stateattorney general's office has the authority pursuant to A.R.S. § 41-193(A)(2)(1985) to "prosecute ... any proceeding in a state court other than the supreme court in which the state or an officer thereof is a party or has an interest" does not in and of itself make Corbin an appropriate partydefendant under the Young decision since this provision does not permit the attorney general to initiate an original proceeding absent specific statutory power.McFate,87 Ariz. at 145, 348 P.2d at 916.Article XXVIII does not specifically give the Arizona Attorney General any power to initiate an action to enforce its dictates;section 4 of the Article, the section entitled "Enforcement; Standing", only refers to enforcement suits by private citizens.Nor does the state's general law accord Corbin any authority to prosecute an action against a state employee who fails to comply with a law such as Article XXVIII.The Eleventh Amendment therefore bars Yniguez's suit against Corbin.

Case or Controversy

The defendants have challenged the propriety of this action in part on the basis that no actual case or controversy exists as required by Article III of the United States Constitution.The inquiry into standing involves both constitutional limitations on this court's jurisdiction and prudential limitations on the exercise of that jurisdiction.Warth v. Seldin,422 U.S. 490, 498, 95 S.Ct. 2197, 2204, 45 L.Ed.2d 343(1975).The constitutional limitations on standing, which are derived from Article III's case or controversy requirement, limit access to federal courts to plaintiffs who can show that they personally have suffered some actual or threatened injury as a result of the allegedly wrongful action of the defendant and that injury fairly can be traced to the challenged action and is likely to be redressed by the requested relief.Valley Forge Christian College v. Americans United for Separation of Church and State,454 U.S. 464, 472, 102 S.Ct. 752, 758, 70 L.Ed.2d 700(1982).The court finds that Yniguez has met these requirements sufficiently to establish that she has standing to prosecute this action; for that reason, and due to its finding above on the Ex parte Young issue, the court will not separately consider the issue of Gutierrez's standing.Hanson v. Veterans Admin.,800 F.2d 1381, 1386(5th Cir.1986).

The defendants' assertion that a case or controversy is lacking is derived primarily from what they perceive as the conjectural and hypothetical and self-imposed nature of the injury Yniguez alleges she has suffered and is...