Ninth Circuit Extends Eleventh Amendment Waiver-by-Removal (again)

Steven D. Schwinn, University of Illinois Chicago John Marshall Law School

The Ninth Circuit ruled today in Walden v. Nevada that a state waives its Eleventh Amendment immunity over any federal claims when it removes a case from state to federal court. The court previously ruled that a state waives immunity over only those federal claims that Congress failed to apply to the states by abrogation when a state removes; today's ruling extends that waiver-by-removal rule to all federal claims.

The case arose when Nevada state employees sued the state for violations of the Fair Labor Standards Act in state court. The state removed the case to federal court and moved to dismiss based on state sovereign immunity.

The Ninth Circuit rejected that claim. The court noted that the Supreme Court ruled in Lapides v. Bd. of Regents of Univ. Sys. of Georgia that a state waives Eleventh Amendment immunity when it removes state law claims for which it waived immunity in state court. It further noted that it (the Ninth Circuit) extended Lapides so that a state waives Eleventh Amendment immunity when it removes federal law claims for which Congress validly abrogated state sovereign immunity. Then it said the same reasoning justifies extending waiver-by-removal to any federal claims (congressional abrogation or not). In so ruling, the Court quoted Lapides:

It would seem anomalous or inconsistent for a State both (1) to invoke federal jurisdiction, thereby contending that the "Judicial power of the United States" extends to the case at hand, and (2) to claim Eleventh Amendment immunity, thereby denying that the "Judicial Power of the United States" extends to the case at hand.

The ruling means that the plaintiffs' FLSA case, now in federal court, can move forward.