Sovereign Immunity.

• Author: Hawkins, Derek
• Position: Driftless Area Land Conservancy's lawsuit

Byline: Derek Hawkins

7th Circuit Court of Appeals

Case Name: Driftless Area Lan Conservancy, et al., v. Rebecca Valcq, et al.,

Case No.: 20-3325

Officials: SYKES, Chief Judge, and FLAUM and ROVNER, Circuit Judges.

Focus: Sovereign Immunity

This appeal is another chapter in concurrent federal and state litigation challenging the construction of a $500 million, 100-mile power line in southwestern Wisconsin. In September 2019 the Public Service Commission of Wisconsin issued a permit authorizing two transmission companies and an electricity cooperative to build and operate the line. A few months later, two environmental groups filed lawsuits in both federal and state court seeking to invalidate the permit. As relevant here, the parallel suits allege that two of the three commissioners had disqualifying conflicts of interest and should have recused themselves. Both suits raise federal due-process claims; the state litigation also invokes state recusal law and contests the permit on other state-law grounds.

The case was last here at an early stage of the proceedings when the district judge rejected the permit holders' motion to intervene. We reversed that decision and remanded with instructions to grant the intervention motion. Driftless Area Land Conservancy v. Huebsch ("Driftless I"), 969 F.3d 742 (7th Cir. 2020). Rulings on dismissal motions followed, and the judge significantly narrowed the scope of the case. But he denied the commissioners' motion to dismiss based on sovereign immunity. The case...