Nevada Department of Human Resources v. Hibbs

538 U.S 721

Case Year: 2003

Case Ruling: 6-3, Affirmed

Opinion Justice: Rehnquist

FACTS

An issue that has come before the Court several times in recent years is congressional legislation that allows citizens to sue state governments in federal court. A five-justice majority has consistently acted to protect states against such lawsuits over the objections of a four-justice minority that believes Congress should be given broad latitude to expand access to the courts. Board of Trustees of the University of Alabama v. Garrett (2001) continues this line of cases. InGarrett the dispute centered on provisions of the Americans with Disabilities Act of 1990. The Court held that Congress could not pass legislation granting individuals the right to sue a state that does not agree to be sued. Two years later, however, in Nevada Department of Human Resources v. Hibbs (2003), justices approved an act of Congress abrogating the state's immunity to be sued in federal court under the federal Family and Medical Leave Act (FMLA). Chief Justice Rehnquist, who in previous cases had consistently voted to shield the states from suit, wrote the opinion of the Court. What differences between the two cases prompted the Court to reach different conclusions?

In 1993 Congress passed the FMLA. The law entitles eligible employees to take up to twelve weeks of unpaid leave annually in response to specified family situations, including a serious health problem facing a child, spouse, or parent. It also creates an employee right to seek equitable relief and monetary damages in state or federal court against any employer who denies the rights guaranteed by the statute.

In 1997 William Hibbs, an employee in the welfare division of the Nevada Department of Human Resources, requested FMLA leave in order to care for his wife, who had sustained neck injuries in an automobile accident. The department granted Hibbs the requested leave, allowing him to take the full twelve weeks and permitting him to take the time intermittently as needed between May and December of that year. Hibbs did so until August 5, after which he did not return to work. In October the department informed Hibbs that he was required to report back to work by November 12. When Hibbs failed to do so, he was fired.

Hibbs filed suit in federal district court and requested damages, claiming that the department had violated his FMLA rights. Nevada claimed that such a lawsuit against the state was prohibited by the Eleventh Amendment and the state's sovereign immunity. Agreeing with the state, the district court ruled that the suit was barred and further held that Hibbs had suffered no violation of his rights under the Fourteenth Amendment. The court of appeals reversed.

 

CHIEF JUSTICE REHNQUIST DELIVERED THE OPINION OF THE COURT.

For over a century now, we have made clear that the Constitution does not provide for federal jurisdiction over suits against non-consenting States. Board of Trustees of Univ. of Ala. v. Garrett (2001); Kimel v. Florida Bd. of Regents (2000); College Savings Bank v. Florida Prepaid Postsecondary Ed. Expense Bd. (1999); Seminole Tribe of Fla. v. Florida (1996); Hans v. Louisiana (1890).

Congress may, however, abrogate such immunity in federal court if it makes its intention to abrogate unmistakably clear in the language of the statute and acts pursuant to a valid exercise of its power under §5 of the Fourteenth Amendment.... This case turns, then, on whether Congress acted within its constitutional authority when it sought to abrogate the States' immunity for purposes of the FMLA's family-leave provision.

In enacting the FMLA, Congress relied on two of the powers vested in it by the Constitution: its Article I commerce power and its power under §5 of the Fourteenth Amendment to enforce that Amendment's guarantees. Congress may not abrogate the States' sovereign immunity pursuant to its Article I power over commerce. Seminole Tribe. Congress may, however, abrogate States' sovereign immunity through a valid exercise of its §5 power, for "the Eleventh Amendment, and the principle of state sovereignty which it embodies, are necessarily limited by the enforcement provisions of §5 of the Fourteenth Amendment." Fitzpatrick v. Bitzer (1976).

Two provisions of the Fourteenth Amendment are relevant here: Section 5 grants Congress the power "to enforce" the substantive guarantees of §1--among them, equal protection of the laws--by enacting "appropriate legislation." Congress may, in the exercise of its §5 power, do more than simply proscribe conduct that we have held unconstitutional. "'Congress' power "to enforce" the Amendment includes the authority both to remedy and to deter violation of rights guaranteed thereunder by prohibiting a somewhat broader swath of conduct, including that which is not itself forbidden by the Amendment's text.'"Garrett, (quoting Kimel). In other words, Congress may enact so-called prophylactic legislation that proscribes facially constitutional conduct, in order to prevent and deter unconstitutional conduct....

The FMLA aims to protect the right to be free from gender-based discrimination in the workplace. We have held that statutory classifications that distinguish between males and females are subject to heightened scrutiny. See, e.g., Craig v. Boren, (1976). For a gender-based classification to withstand such scrutiny, it must "serv[e] important governmental objectives," and "the discriminatory means employed [must be] substantially related to the achievement of those objectives."United States v. Virginia (1996). The State's justification for such a classification "must not rely on overbroad generalizations about the different talents, capacities, or preferences of males and females." We now inquire whether Congress had evidence of a pattern of constitutional violations on the part of the States in this area.

The history of the many state laws limiting women's employment opportunities is chronicled in--and, until relatively recently, was sanctioned by--this Court's own opinions. For example, in Bradwell v. State (1873), and Goesaert v. Cleary (1948) the Court upheld state laws prohibiting women from practicing law and tending bar, respectively. State laws frequently subjected women to distinctive restrictions, terms, conditions, and benefits for those jobs they could take. In Muller v. Oregon (1908), for example, this Court approved a state law limiting the hours that women could work for wages, and observed that 19 States had such laws at the time. Such laws were based on the related beliefs that (1) woman is, and should remain, "the center of home and family life," Hoyt v. Florida (1961), and (2) "a proper discharge of [a woman's] maternal functions--having in view not merely her own health, but the well-being of the race--justif[ies] legislation to protect her from the greed as well as the passion of man," Muller. Until our decision in Reed v. Reed (1971), "it remained the prevailing doctrine that government, both federal and state, could withhold from women opportunities accorded men so long as any 'basis in reason'"--such as the above beliefs--"could be conceived for the discrimination."

Congress responded to this history of discrimination by abrogating States' sovereign immunity in Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, and we sustained this abrogation in Fitzpatrick. But state gender discrimination did not cease. "[I]t can hardly be doubted that ... women still face pervasive, although at times more subtle, discrimination ... in the job market." Frontiero v. Richardson (1973). According to evidence that was before Congress when it enacted the FMLA, States continue to rely on invalid gender stereotypes in the employment context, specifically in the administration of leave benefits. Reliance on such stereotypes cannot justify the States' gender discrimination in this area. Virginia. The long and extensive history of sex discrimination prompted us to hold that measures that differentiate on the basis of gender warrant heightened scrutiny; here, as in Fitzpatrick, the persistence of such unconstitutional discrimination by the States justifies Congress' passage of prophylactic §5 legislation.

As the FMLA's legislative record reflects, a 1990 Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) survey stated that 37 percent of surveyed private-sector employees were covered by maternity leave policies, while only 18 percent were covered by paternity leave policies. The corresponding numbers from a similar BLS survey the previous year were 33 percent and 16 percent, respectively. While these data show an increase in the percentage of employees eligible for such leave, they also show a widening of the gender gap during the same period. Thus, stereotype-based beliefs about the allocation of family duties remained firmly rooted, and employers' reliance on them in establishing discriminatory leave policies remained widespread.

Congress also heard testimony that "[p]arental leave for fathers ... is rare. Even ... [w]here child-care leave policies do exist, men, both in the public and private sectors, receive notoriously discriminatory treatment in their requests for such leave."... This and other differential leave policies were not attributable to any differential physical needs of men and women, but rather to the pervasive sex-role stereotype that caring for family members is women's work.

Finally, Congress had evidence that, even where state laws and policies were not facially discriminatory, they were applied in discriminatory ways....

In sum, the States' record of unconstitutional participation in, and fostering of, gender-based discrimination in the administration of leave benefits is weighty enough to justify the enactment of prophylactic §5 legislation.

We reached the opposite conclusion in Garrett and Kimel. In those cases, the §5 legislation under review responded to a purported tendency of state officials to make age- or disability-based distinctions. Under our equal protection case law, discrimination on the basis of such characteristics is not judged under a heightened review standard, and passes muster if there is "a rational basis for doing so at a class-based level, even if it 'is probably not true' that those reasons are valid in the majority of cases." Kimel. Thus, in order to impugn the constitutionality of state discrimination against the disabled or the elderly, Congress must identify, not just the existence of age- or disability-based state decisions, but a "widespread pattern" of irrational reliance on such criteria. We found no such showing with respect to the ADEA [Age Discrimination in Employment Act of 1967] and Title I of the Americans with Disabilities Act of 1990 (ADA)....

Stereotypes about women's domestic roles are reinforced by parallel stereotypes presuming a lack of domestic responsibilities for men. Because employers continued to regard the family as the woman's domain, they often denied men similar accommodations or discouraged them from taking leave. These mutually reinforcing stereotypes created a self-fulfilling cycle of discrimination that forced women to continue to assume the role of primary family caregiver, and fostered employers' stereotypical views about women's commitment to work and their value as employees. Those perceptions, in turn, Congress reasoned, lead to subtle discrimination that may be difficult to detect on a case-by-case basis....

By creating an across-the-board, routine employment benefit for all eligible employees, Congress sought to ensure that family-care leave would no longer be stigmatized as an inordinate drain on the workplace caused by female employees, and that employers could not evade leave obligations simply by hiring men. By setting a minimum standard of family leave for all eligible employees, irrespective of gender, the FMLA attacks the formerly state-sanctioned stereotype that only women are responsible for family care giving, thereby reducing employers' incentives to engage in discrimination by basing hiring and promotion decisions on stereotypes.

... In the dissent's view, in the face of evidence of gender-based discrimination by the States in the provision of leave benefits, Congress could do no more in exercising its §5 power than simply proscribe such discrimination. But this position cannot be squared with our recognition that Congress "is not confined to the enactment of legislation that merely parrots the precise wording of the Fourteenth Amendment," but may prohibit "a somewhat broader swath of conduct, including that which is not itself forbidden by the Amendment's text." Kimel. For example, this Court has upheld certain prophylactic provisions of the Voting Rights Act as valid exercises of Congress' §5 power, including the literacy test ban and preclearance requirements for changes in States' voting procedures. See, e.g., Katzenbach v. Morgan (1966); Oregon v. Mitchell (1970);South Carolina v. Katzenbach....

... [T]he FMLA is narrowly targeted at the fault line between work and family--precisely where sex-based overgeneralization has been and remains strongest--and affects only one aspect of the employment relationship.

... Moreover, the cause of action under the FMLA is a restricted one: The damages recoverable are strictly defined and measured by actual monetary losses, and the accrual period for backpay is limited by the Act's 2-year statute of limitations (extended to three years only for willful violations).

For the above reasons, we conclude that [the Act] is congruent and proportional to its remedial object, and can "be understood as responsive to, or designed to prevent, unconstitutional behavior."

The judgment of the Court of Appeals is therefore Affirmed.

JUSTICE STEVENS, CONCURRING IN THE JUDGMENT.

The plain language of the Eleventh Amendment poses no barrier to the adjudication of this case because respondents are citizens of Nevada. The sovereign immunity defense asserted by Nevada is based on what I regard as the second Eleventh Amendment, which has its source in judge-made common law, rather than constitutional text. Pennsylvania v. Union Gas Co.(1989) (STEVENS, J., concurring). As long as it clearly expresses its intent, Congress may abrogate that common-law defense pursuant to its power to regulate commerce "among the several States." The family-care provision of the Family and Medical Leave Act of 1993 is unquestionably a valid exercise of a power that is "broad enough to support federal legislation regulating the terms and conditions of state employment." Fitzpatrick (STEVENS, J., concurring in judgment). Accordingly, Nevada's sovereign immunity defense is without merit.

JUSTICE KENNEDY, WITH WHOM JUSTICE SCALIA AND JUSTICE THOMAS JOIN, DISSENTING.

The Family and Medical Leave Act of 1993 makes explicit the congressional intent to invoke §5 of the Fourteenth Amendment to abrogate state sovereign immunity and allow suits for money damages in federal courts. The specific question is whether Congress may impose on the States this entitlement program of its own design, with mandated minimums for leave time, and then enforce it by permitting private suits for money damages against the States. This in turn must be answered by asking whether subjecting States and their treasuries to monetary liability at the insistence of private litigants is a congruent and proportional response to a demonstrated pattern of unconstitutional conduct by the States. [The Act's leave provision], in my respectful view, is invalid to the extent it allows for private suits against the unconsenting States....

The Court is unable to show that States have engaged in a pattern of unlawful conduct which warrants the remedy of opening state treasuries to private suits. The inability to adduce evidence of alleged discrimination, coupled with the inescapable fact that the federal scheme is not a remedy but a benefit program, demonstrate the lack of the requisite link between any problem Congress has identified and the program it mandated....

... What is at issue is only whether the States can be subjected, without consent, to suits brought by private persons seeking to collect moneys from the state treasury. Their immunity cannot be abrogated without documentation of a pattern of unconstitutional acts by the States, and only then by a congruent and proportional remedy. There has been a complete failure by respondents to carry their burden to establish each of these necessary propositions. I would hold that the Act is not a valid abrogation of state sovereign immunity and dissent with respect from the Court's conclusion to the contrary.

JUSTICE SCALIA, DISSENTING.

I join JUSTICE KENNEDY'S dissent, and add one further observation: The constitutional violation that is a prerequisite to "prophylactic" congressional action to "enforce" the Fourteenth Amendment is a violation by the State against which the enforcement action is taken. There is no guilt by association, enabling the sovereignty of one State to be abridged under §5 of the Fourteenth Amendment because of violations by another State, or by most other States, or even by 49 other States....

Today's opinion for the Court does not even attempt to demonstrate that each one of the 50 States covered by [the Act] was in violation of the Fourteenth Amendment. It treats "the States" as some sort of collective entity which is guilty or innocent as a body. "[T]he States' record of unconstitutional participation in, and fostering of, gender-based discrimination," it concludes, "is weighty enough to justify the enactment of prophylactic §5 legislation." This will not do. Prophylaxis in the sense of extending the remedy beyond the violation is one thing; prophylaxis in the sense of extending the remedy beyond the violator is something else....