Florida, like a lot of other jurisdictions, has an unclaimed property program whereby if an owner is deemed to have abandoned property (remember that old bank account you had in college years ago with a $2.50 balance?), the holder of that property may transfer it to the State, which keeps it until you come get it. In the meantime, however, under Florida's scheme if that property is money (or is reduced to money), any interest which accrues is used by the State to pay for public schools. (That may not be constitutional, but at least funding schools with someone else's money seems a better use of the interest than funding the State Fair.)
Florida had some of Maron's money in its unclaimed property fund, a whopping $26.24. State law allowed her to get that money back, but as noted above, also prohibited her from getting the interest, so she sued for a taking.
In federal court.
If that sets off your alarm bells, you'd be right. You know why: the Eleventh Amendment. Which has been interpreted to bar a plaintiff from suing a state in any federal court (yes, we know that's not what the Eleventh Amendment says, but the Supreme Court reads it that way).
But there are exceptions, most notably Ex parte Young, which says that the Eleventh only bars federal court suits for retrospective damages, and allows you to sue a state in federal court if you limit the relief sought to prospective injunctive relief.
In Maron v. Chief Financial Officer of Florida, No. 23-13178 (May 16, 2025), that's what Maron thought she did. She didn't ask the court to award just compensation.Instead, she asserted Florida was keeping the interest, and there was no way to get compensation.
The district court agreed with Florida and held that she was suing for a taking, an act Florida already had accomplished, and thus was not something that the court could order it to stop doing. And thus the relief she sought was not prospective, only remedial. Case dismissed.
The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Eleventh Circuit rejected that argument. Here's what we think is the money quote:
That inquiry resolves in the Marons’ favor. The Marons alleged an ongoing violation of federal law—that the State has appropriated their refund and failed to give them just compensation. And they sought prospective relief—that the district court declare a part of the Act unconstitutional for precluding recovery of just compensation and that it order the State to pay just compensation when they later file a claim. The Ex parte Young exception applies.Relying on Edelman v. Jordan, 415 U.S. 651 (1974), the State argues that the Marons’ prayer for injunctive relief is really a request for retrospective relief. The State contends that the request to “pay the Marons and class members past monetary gains when they file a claim in the future . . . amounts to nothing more than a prospective request for retroactive monetary damages.” We disagree.
Slip op. at 17.
On that, the Eleventh Circuit joined at least one other circuit (the Ninth, which held in this case that the State of Oregon could be sued in federal court when the remedy sought is injunctive relief ordering Oregon to stop withholding interest that should have gone to the property owner plaintiffs).
This can be a tricky issue. Although there's no conceptual reason supporting any distinctions in the relief sought based on the nature of the taking, courts do seem to treat these type of cases differently. On one hand, where the state appears to be wrongfully keeping property and refusing to give it back to the owner, the courts are more likely to conclude that the owner may seek a prospective injunction to command the state to stop it. See this case and that Ninth Circuit decision. On the other hand, if it appears to be a case where the taking is some kind of interference with use and the injunction looks like the plaintiff is trying to plead around the Eleventh Amendment, then the more likely it is the court will reject that effort.
None of these sort of mental gymnastics should be necessary, of course. Maybe just compensation is self-executing and not subject to the Eleventh Amendment (an issue the Supreme Court dodged last Term). Or maybe the Fourteenth Amendment waived any Eleventh Amendment immunity the states may have enjoyed. We'd hope the Supreme Court would take up the mantle and resolve these uncertainties.
The entire Eleventh Circuit opinion is worth your time. In addition to holding that the claim was not subject to Eleventh Amendment immunity, relying on Knick, the court concluded that the takings claim was ripe and that the owner had standing to assert the claim and was suffering an actual injury (an issue intertwined with the merits of the takings claim and the relief sought):
The Marons satisfied these three elements, by alleging that the State took their refund and used it. They pointed to the Act’s requirement that presumed-unclaimed property be delivered to the State’s custody, see Fla. Stat. § 717.119(1); they alleged that the State held their refund in its custody; and they alleged that the State “used the property for public purposes, including by investing the property and earning interest, and otherwise using it to fund the State’s operations and programs.” So the harm the Marons pleaded is concrete: they cannot use their refund now that it has been delivered into the State’s custody—they must apply and be approved by the Department to access the property. See Fla. Stat. § 717.124(1). The pleaded harm is also particularized: the Marons cannot use their refund. And that harm is actual: the refund has already been placed into the State’s custody, where it cannot be used by the Marons. In short, the Marons suffered an injury in fact.
Slip op. at 9-10.
Finally, the court rejected the State's argument that the takings claim was not ripe, because Maron had not applied for refund, and the State's finance department had not denied the application. The court noted this would be a "pointless formality," because doing so would be futile: the statute itself makes clear that the State has not obligated itself to provide the interest, and "[n]othing is gained by further requiring the Marons to make and be denied a request with the Department." Slip op. at 16.
Maron v. Chief Financial Officer of Florida, No. 23-13178 (11th Cir. May 16, 2025)