Constitutional law - Seventh Circuit applies Ex parte Young doctrine to allow state agency's action against state officials - Indiana Protection and Advocacy Services v. Indiana Family and Social Services Administration.

• Author: Power, Andrew

Article VI of the Constitution establishes the supremacy of federal law over the states, while the Eleventh Amendment grants the states immunity from suit without their consent. (1) The incompatibility of these provisions becomes apparent, however, when a defendant state asserts its immunity in response to an attempt to enforce a valid federal law in federal court. (2) This constitutional contradiction recently divided two circuit courts ruling on suits brought under the same state-managed federal program: the Fourth Circuit held the Eleventh Amendment barred a state agency from enforcing the program's requirements against state officials in federal court, while the Seventh Circuit held the amendment posed no bar. (3) This Case Comment analyzes the Seventh Circuit's decision in Indiana Protection & Advocacy Services v. Indiana Family & Social Services Administration (4) and concludes that the court was correct in holding an independent state agency's suit against named state officials can be heard in federal court under the Supreme Court's Eleventh Amendment exception, the doctrine of Ex parte Young. (5)

In 1986, Congress enacted the Protection and Advocacy for Individuals with Mental Illness Act (PAIMI Act) and provided each state with funds to establish an independent protection and advocacy system to safeguard the rights of the mentally ill. (6) The PAIMI Act requires that these systems receive access to all records of the individuals for whom they advocate and authorizes these systems to pursue legal remedies in federal court when necessary. (7) Indiana designated an independent state agency, Indiana Protection and Advocacy Services (IPAS), as its protection and advocacy system under the PAIMI Act. (8)

Pursuant to the PAIMI Act, IPAS requested the records of two patients during an investigation into allegations of abuse and neglect at a state-operated psychiatric hospital. (9) The hospital, while supplying some of the patient information, denied IPAS's requests for more extensive disclosure. (10) As a result, IPAS filed suit in federal district court, seeking to enjoin the State of Indiana, the Indiana Family and Social Services Administration, and three named state officials from restricting IPAS's reasonable access to all records the PAIMI Act covers. (11) In response, the defendants argued the PAIMI Act did not require the hospital to release the records at issue. (12) The district court granted IPAS's motion for summary judgment, the defendants appealed, and a panel of the Seventh Circuit reversed. (13)

The panel raised the issue of Indiana's constitutional immunity from suit in federal court sua sponte, holding the Eleventh Amendment barred IPAS's federal action. (14) Moreover, the panel held that the Ex parte Young doctrine--which allows suits for prospective relief against state officials (in their official capacities) in federal court--would not lift the constitutional bar, reasoning that the doctrine does not apply when one arm of a state sues another. (15) IPAS successfully petitioned for rehearing en banc, and the court of appeals affirmed the district court's ruling with modifications. (16) The court held that, while the Eleventh Amendment barred the suit against the State of Indiana and its Family and Social Services Administration, the Ex parte Young doctrine authorized the claim against the three named state officials. (17)

The text of the Eleventh Amendment shields states from suits in federal court brought by citizens of other states or nations. (18) The Supreme Court has held that the fundamental principle of sovereign immunity underlies the amendment's text, derived from a longstanding English legal tradition that subjects could not sue the king. (19) The Court has concluded that America's founding generation considered state sovereignty an integral part of the federalist structure and thus adopted the Eleventh Amendment with "swiftness and near unanimity." (20) In a long line of cases, the Court has broadened Eleventh Amendment immunity to bar suits by a state's own citizens and to shield state agencies and officials. (21) The Court has concurrently carved out three exceptions to the bar: waiver--a state may waive its Eleventh Amendment immunity by consenting to be sued in federal court; (22) abrogation--Congress may abrogate a state's Eleventh Amendment immunity pursuant to Section 5 of the Fourteenth Amendment; (23) and the Ex parte Young doctrine--a plaintiff may seek prospective relief against state officials (though not the state itself) in federal court for ongoing violations of federal law. (24)

In Ex parte Young, (25) the Court reasoned that officials no longer represent the state when they act contrary to federal law and, consequently, they relinquish the protection of the Eleventh Amendment. (26) Ex parte Young, decided in 1908, produced a doctrine enabling federal courts to enforce federal law pursuant to the Supremacy Clause while nominally respecting state sovereignty. (27) The Ex parte Young doctrine, however, is not absolute: in Idaho v. Coeur d'Alene Tribe of Idaho, (28) the Court held state sovereignty interests outweighed the supremacy interests Ex parte Young promotes, even when the doctrine was clearly applicable. (29) A majority of the Court upheld Idaho's Eleventh Amendment immunity in the case; two justices went even further, calling for a careful balancing of state interests before applying Ex parte Young and cautioning against "a reflexive reliance on an obvious fiction." (30) Five years later, in an apparent limitation of Coeur d'Alene, the Court in Verizon Maryland Inc. v. Public Service Commission of Maryland (31) lifted the Eleventh Amendment bar and reiterated that "a court need only conduct a straightforward inquiry into whether [the] complaint alleges an ongoing violation of federal law and seeks relief properly characterized as prospective" for Ex parte Young to apply in a suit against state officials. (32)

In Virginia v. Reinhard, (33) however, the Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit declined to conduct the straightforward inquiry prescribed in Verizon Maryland and instead revived the Coeur d'Alene balancing test. (34) The Virginia Office for Protection and Advocacy (VOPA), an independent state agency created under the PAIMI Act, sued three Virginia state officials in federal court, seeking injunctive relief to gain access to patient records pursuant to federal law. (35) The Fourth Circuit, while acknowledging the facts of the case appeared to meet Ex parte Young standards, pointed to one critical difference: the plaintiffs in Ex parte Young and its progeny were private parties, while the plaintiff in Reinhard was a state agency. (36) Bringing an "intramural contest" between a state agency and state officials into federal court, the court reasoned, too greatly infringed on the sovereign dignity of the state. (37) The court, therefore, held that the plaintiff's status as a state agency tilted the Coeur d'Alene balance in the state's favor; as a result, Virginia's Eleventh Amendment immunity barred the suit. (38)

Ten months later, in Indiana Protection & Advocacy Services v. Indiana Family & Social Services Administration, the Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit embraced Verizon Maryland's straightforward inquiry and used Ex parte Young to lift the Eleventh Amendment bar. (39) Like Reinhard, the facts in Indiana Protection concerned an independent state agency suing state officials to enforce provisions of the PAIMI Act in federal court. (40) Unlike the Fourth Circuit, the Seventh Circuit held the agency's suit satisfied all Ex parte Young criteria, as IPAS: named individual state officials as defendants; alleged an ongoing violation of federal law--refusal to disclose records subject to the PAIMI Act; and sought relief that was prospective--future access to those records. (41) The court dismissed the defendants' contention that the case was a state-level interagency dispute. (42) IPAS, the court averred, was not a traditional state agency: its independence from state control over policy, budget, personnel, and governance made it more like an agent of the federal government than of the state. (43) Moreover, the court said its proper focus, consistent with Ex parte Young, should be on the identity of the defendants and the relief sought, not on the identity of the plaintiff. (44)

The court noted that Indiana had neglected to raise its Eleventh Amendment immunity as a defense in the first two rounds of litigation, thus weakening the state's arguments about any injuries to its sovereign dignity. (45) The court rejected the Coeur d'Alene balancing test as an anomaly, maintaining that the Supreme Court and several circuit courts had abandoned it. (46) Even Chief Judge Easterbrook, who raised the issue of Indiana's Eleventh Amendment immunity during the first appellate hearing, joined the majority in accepting Verizon Maryland's straightforward approach and in disagreeing with the Fourth Circuit's holding in Reinhard. (47)

The conflicting holdings in Indiana Protection and Reinhard illustrate two distinct theoretical strains characterizing the Supreme Court's Eleventh Amendment jurisprudence. (48) Professor Carlos Manuel Vazquez categorized these two approaches as the "supremacy strain" and the "state sovereignty strain." (49) The supremacy strain, embodied in the Ex parte Young doctrine and grounded in the Supremacy Clause of the Constitution, emphasizes the practical need for Eleventh Amendment exceptions in...