High court expands state protections

Extending its quest to rework the balance of power between the federal government and the states, a deeply divided Supreme Court on Tuesday narrowly ruled that a federal agency cannot adjudicate a complaint filed against a state by a private party.

The 5-4 decision expands protections the court has handed to states in recent years as it has freed them from intensive federal oversight by reviving once-dormant constitutional doctrines.

In a series of rulings in recent terms, the court has breathed new life into the Constitution’s 11th Amendment.

The amendment protects states from private lawsuits in federal court unless the states agree to them or unless Congress properly authorizes such suits. In recent terms, the court has said Congress lacked authority to permit suits against states for violating federal patent and trademark laws and wage laws, as well as age and disability discrimination statutes.

Those decisions have served to broadly protect states from being taken to court by a private party. Tuesday’s decision focuses on another forum: lawsuits before an independent federal agency.

Looks `like a lawsuit’

In its decision, written by Justice Clarence Thomas, the court said the similarities between a lawsuit filed in court and a complaint before an administrative agency were “overwhelming.” Even the appeals court, Thomas noted, had concluded that the proceeding “walks, talks, and squawks very much like a lawsuit.”

As a result, the court said, the same principles that shielded states from lawsuits also applied in proceedings before administrative agencies.

The constitutional balance of power between states and the federal government was designed to “ensure the protection of our fundamental liberties,” the court said, and to “reduce the risk of tyranny and abuse from either front.”

4 justices critical

The court’s four liberal justices, John Paul Stevens, David Souter, Ruth Bader Ginsburg and Stephen Breyer, have been harshly critical of the court’s recent states’ rights decisions. Tuesday’s ruling was no exception.

It prompted a biting dissent from Breyer, who read portions aloud from the bench. He said he feared the opinion would prove “randomly destructive” and undermine enforcement of health and safety laws against state employers or investigations of improper medical care in state hospitals.

“Today’s decision reaffirms the need for continued dissent,” Breyer said.

Even those generally supportive of the court’s earlier states’ rights decisions appeared troubled by Tuesday’s decision. Douglas Kmiec, dean of the Catholic University School of Law, said the decision was “debatable” as a legal matter because it was not anchored in the text of the Constitution.

South Carolina case

The case involves the efforts of South Carolina Maritime Services Inc., a cruise ship company that features onboard gambling, to dock at the port of Charleston, S.C. The State Ports Authority denied the company’s cruise ship a berthing space, citing its policy of refusing vessels whose primary purpose is gambling.

Maritime Services filed a complaint with the Federal Maritime Commission, arguing that the Ports Authority’s treatment of the company was unfair because the state agency allowed other cruise ships with onboard gambling to berth. The complaint asked that the Ports Authority allow Maritime Services to berth and sought monetary damages and attorneys’ fees.

The Ports Authority said that under the 11th Amendment it was protected from a suit before a federal agency. A unanimous panel of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 4th Circuit agreed.

In affirming the appeals court, the justices emphasized the “strong similarities” between agency proceedings and civil litigation.

“Simply put, if the Framers thought it an impermissible affront to a state’s dignity to be required to answer the complaints of private parties in federal courts, we cannot imagine that they would have found it acceptable to compel a state to do exactly the same thing before the administrative tribunal of an agency,” Thomas wrote for the court.

In both instances, the court said, a state is required to defend itself in an “adversarial proceeding against a private party before an impartial federal officer.”

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In reaching its decision, the court looked not to the words of the Constitution or to history, because both are silent on the issue. Instead, it looked to the similarities between lawsuits in court and complaints before federal agencies and concluded that the Constitution’s framers would have thought the states possessed immunity from agency proceedings, as well.

Kmiec called that approach troubling, though he has supported the court’s previous states’ rights decisions.

“I like to believe state sovereignty is anchored in the text of the Constitution,” he said. “I applaud it as a policy matter, but as a legal matter, I think it is far more debatable.”

In dissent, Breyer also was critical of the court’s reasoning, which he said “lacks any firm anchor in the Constitution’s text” and is not grounded in history.