The flag of the State of Hatu
Williams, a prisoner, thought that Utah prison officials should have paid him interest on his prison account. Acting as his own attorney, he sued under § 1983 for a taking and for a deprivation of due process in federal court, raising claims against the Utah Department of Corrections, several state prison officials in their official capacities, and the bank in which his prison account was housed (and several bank employees). The federal district court dismissed, but not on the Eleventh Amendment grounds you might think.
Williams appealed to the Tenth Circuit, which, in Williams v. Utah Dep't of Corrections, No. 18-4058 (July 8, 2019), affirmed the dismissal, expressly analyzing the claims under the Eleventh Amendment.
That provision, as you are aware, establishes a state's immunity from lawsuits in federal court. Over the years, courts have created exceptions to the general rule that states -- as states -- are not subject to being hauled into federal court unless they consent (and also judicially broadened the text of the amendment by concluding that the prohibition of federal suits by citizens of another state also means that states are immune to federal lawsuits by their own state citizens). Whole sections of Federal Courts treatises are devoted to the intricacies of the doctrines.
And the general rule remains: a request for money damages against state officials or state agencies is usually treated by federal courts as a suit against the state itself, which, of course, is prohibited by the Eleventh Amendment.
It didn't matter to the Tenth Circuit that the district court had dismissed on other grounds. The State of Utah had preserved its arguments by raising them below and raising them again on appeal, and the court of appeals concluded this is a "purely legal determination that was argued below." Good enough, the court concluded, it could, and would, affirm the dismissal under the Eleventh Amendment.
All parties accepted that the Department "is an arm of the State of Utah." Slip op. at 5. That's a pretty damaging admission for Eleventh Amendment purposes, given the usual rule we noted above. Nor did Williams sue the state officials in their personal capacities (one of the "ways around" the usual rule). He instead "argues that Eleventh Amendment immunity does not bar his claims." Id. How so?
Mr. Williams argues that the Eleventh Amendment does not apply to Fifth Amendment takings claims. He relies on Lucas v. South Carolina Coastal Council, 505 U.S. 1003 (1992), where the Supreme Court addressed a Fifth Amendment takings claim brought against the “newly created South Carolina Coastal Council,” id. at 1008. But in that case, the Court was not asked to rule on the Eleventh Amendment or whether the defendant-Council was an arm of the state. To the extent Mr. Williams relies on Lucas as permitting a Fifth Amendment takings claim against all governmental agencies, including UDOC, that reliance is misplaced. Eleventh Amendment immunity does not apply to “counties and similar municipal corporations,” Mt. Healthy City Sch. Dist. Bd. of Educ. v. Doyle, 429 U.S. 274, 280 (1977), but it does apply to arms of the state, Peterson, 707 F.3d at 1205.
Slip op. at 6-7. (And Lucas sued in South Carolina state court where a state enjoys no Eleventh Amendment immunity, obviously.)
But what about the self-executing nature of the Fifth Amendment's Just Compensation requirement (coupled with the Supreme Court's recent pronouncement in Knick that yes, this is a federal claim)?
First, the Tenth Circuit joined those courts which have held that a "Fifth Amendment Takings Clause [claim] is barred by Eleventh Amendment immunity ... as long as a remedy is available in state court." Slip op. at 7. Because everyone agreed that Utah's state courts could hear Williams' claim for a Fifth/Fourteenth Amendment taking, the Tenth Circuit concluded he must go there, and not federal court.
Second, Knick:
We recognize the Supreme Court’s recent holding that a property owner may bring a federal suit claiming a Fifth Amendment taking without first bringing suit in state court. See Knick v. Twp. of Scott, No. 17-647, 2019 WL 2552486, at *7, *13 (U.S. June 21, 2019). But Knick did not involve Eleventh Amendment immunity, which is the basis of our holding in this case. Therefore, we hold that the takings claim against the UDOC Defendants must be dismissed based on Eleventh Amendment immunity, and we remand this claim to the district court with instructions to dismiss it without prejudice. See Colby, 849 F.3d at 1278 (holding dismissal based on Eleventh Amendment immunity is without prejudice).
Slip op. at 8. Game, set, match.
But what about the Ninth Circuit's reasoning in a somewhat similar case, recently decided (and now the subject of a cert petition)? In Guerin v. Fowler, 899 F.3d 1112 (9th Cir. 2018), that court held the State of Washington could not raise the Eleventh Amendment as defense even though the plaintiffs asserted a takings claim seeking to recover compensation. The court concluded that the plaintiffs were not seeking an award of money damages, but rather equitable relief: an injunction ordering the state officials to return the wrongly withheld interest.
The State of Washington's cert petition framed the Eleventh Amendment question this way: "Does the Eleventh Amendment provide a state immunity from a claim in federal court for money damages, when the claim is framed as a request for an injunction ordering the State to provide compensation to Plaintiffs?"
Does this create a conflict with the Tenth Circuit in Williams? We haven't seen the Williams complaint, so are not sure how he framed the relief sought (damages or just compensation for the takings vs a positive injunction to compel the return of wrongfully withheld monies). Maybe we need to track that down.
Williams v. Utah Dep't of Corrections, No. 18-4058 (10th Cir. July 8, 2019)
