Blanche E. GREENLESS, on behalf of herself and all others similarly situated, Plaintiff, Appellant, v. Lincoln C. ALMOND, in his capacity as Governor of the State of Rhode Island; Christine Ferguson, in her capacity as Director of the Department of Human Services for the State of Rhode Island; and Sheldon Whitehouse, in his capacity as Attorney General for the State of Rhode Island, Defendants, Appellees.
No. 01-1410.
United States Court of Appeals, First Circuit.
Heard Oct. 2, 2001. Decided Jan. 28, 2002.
277 F.3d 601
Neil F.X. Kelly, Special Assistant Attorney General, with whom Sheldon Whitehouse, Attorney General, was on brief for appellees.
Before LYNCH, Circuit Judge, COFFIN, Senior Circuit Judge, and YOUNG,* District Judge.
* Of the District of Massachusetts, sitting by designation.
This case concerns claims made on the allocation of monies to the states, specifically Rhode Island, from the 1998 Master Settlement Agreement in the tobacco litigation.
Blanche E. Greenless appeals the dismissal of her suit under
The district court dismissed Greenless‘s suit without a hearing as barred by the doctrine of state sovereign immunity embodied in the Eleventh Amendment. We affirm the dismissal of the action, but on different grounds, holding that Greenless has failed to state a claim on which relief can be granted due to a recent amendment of the Medicaid statute. We do not reach the difficult question whether a claim of the sort Greenless asserts, if provided by federal law, would be barred by the Eleventh Amendment.
I.
A. Facts
During the 1990s, more than forty of the fifty states, including Rhode Island, filed suits against the major manufacturers of tobacco products. See State v. Brown & Williamson Tobacco Corp., No. 97-3058 (R.I. Sup.Ct. Dec. 17, 1998) (consent decree and final judgment). The exact theories of recovery varied from state to state. Generally, the states alleged that the tobacco industry had misled the public by concealing the risks of cigarette smoking and had therefore caused the states to spend vast sums of public money on providing health care for those made ill by tobacco. Unlike prior attempts to hold tobacco manufacturers liable for smoking-related illnesses or deaths, the states’ suits resulted in a lucrative settlement, recorded by the Master Settlement Agreement. See National Association of Attorneys General, Master Settlement Agreement, at http://www.naag.org/tobac/cigmsa.rtf (Nov. 23, 1998). According to Greenless, under the Agreement Rhode Island will receive approximately $1.408 billion.1
The expenditures on health care on which the state‘s suits relied arose in significant part through the Medicaid program. The Medicare and Medicaid programs are the two largest sources of public funding for health care in the United States. Medicare, which provides health care primarily to the elderly and to some individuals with disabilities, receives funds exclusively from the federal government. Medicaid, which provides health care primarily to the indigent, receives funds from both the federal government and the states. State Medicaid expenditures consume large portions of states’ budgets; in fiscal year 2000, Rhode Island spent 22.6% of its budget on Medicaid. Rhode Island Department of Human Services, Annual Report: Fiscal Year 2000: Rhode Island
The recovery of Medicaid expenditures from the tobacco industry arguably brought into play certain aspects of the federal Medicaid statute. When a state agrees to participate in Medicaid by enacting a statute, it must create a plan that meets requirements specified by Congress. That state Medicaid plan must “provide that, as a condition of eligibility for medical assistance under the State plan ... the individual is required—(A) to assign the State any rights ... to payment for medical care from any third party.”
Moreover, when a state, acting on an individual‘s assignment of his or her rights, has recovered from a third party compensation for state expenditures to provide health care via Medicaid, the state may not necessarily keep all of the money. Instead,
[s]uch part of any amount collected by the State under an assignment made under the provisions of this section shall be retained by the State as is necessary to reimburse it for medical assistance payments made on behalf of an individual with respect to whom such assignment was executed (with appropriate reimbursement of the Federal Government to the extent of its participation in the financing of such medical assistance), and the remainder of such amount collected shall be paid to such individual.
If these provisions apply to the Master Settlement Agreement (Rhode Island claims they do not because the suit was brought not as a
Congress has recently amended the statute. The 1999 Emergency Supplemental Appropriations Act exempts from the normal procedures by which the federal government takes its share of state recoveries “any amount recovered or paid to a State as part of the comprehensive settlement of November 1998 between manufacturers of tobacco products ... and State Attorneys General.” Pub.L. No. 106-31, § 3031, 113
The parties agree that this new language removes any claim to the states’ tobacco settlement money by the federal government. The question presented by this appeal is whether the language also removes any possible claim to that money under federal law by the individuals whose illnesses caused the states to spend the money.
B. History
Greenless filed this suit in the District of Rhode Island against the various defendants in their official capacities, claiming that Rhode Island must pay her and the members of her class the amount by which the tobacco settlement exceeds its actual costs. She alleged this amount to be substantial. For her cause of action she relied on
The defendants moved to dismiss on two grounds. First, they argued that Greenless‘s suit is barred under the Eleventh Amendment by state sovereign immunity as a suit for, in effect, money damages against the treasury of a state. Second, they argued that Greenless has no cause of action under
II.
Our review of the district court‘s judgment in this case is de novo. See Mills v. Maine, 118 F.3d 37, 41 (1st Cir. 1997) (reviewing de novo a dismissal on Eleventh Amendment grounds); Garita Hotel Ltd. P‘ship v. Ponce Fed. Bank, F.S.B., 958 F.2d 15, 17 (1st Cir.1992) (same for failure to state a claim). As always, we may affirm a district court‘s judgment on any grounds supported by the record. Doe v. Anrig, 728 F.2d 30, 32 (1st Cir. 1984). Moreover, this circuit has held that federal courts need not answer questions of state sovereign immunity under the Eleventh Amendment before answering other, easier legal questions that would decide a case. Parella v. Ret. Bd. of the R.I. Employees’ Ret. Sys., 173 F.3d 46, 53-57 (1st Cir.1999) (declining to apply to cases involving the Eleventh Amendment the rule of Steel Co. v. Citizens for a Better Env‘t, 523 U.S. 83, 118 S.Ct. 1003, 140 L.Ed.2d 210 (1998), in which “a majority of justices rejected the use of ‘hypothetical jurisdiction’ “).
Other plaintiffs have brought cases similar to this one against numerous other states. None have yet succeeded.3 The only circuit courts4 to address the Eleventh Amendment question, the Fifth and Tenth Circuits, have held that the Amendment would not prevent the plaintiffs in a case such as this one from obtaining the relief they seek, if that relief were available under federal law. Harris v. Owens, 264 F.3d 1282, 1289-94 (10th Cir.2001) (holding that the relief requested is permissible under the doctrine of Ex parte Young); Watson v. Texas, 261 F.3d 436, 440-43 (5th Cir.2001) (holding that Texas waived its sovereign immunity in the settlement agreement).
Every court to consider the question has, however, decided that
In summary, the courts that have considered questions of state sovereign immunity similar to those presented by this case have split, and the circuit courts among this group have held the Eleventh Amendment not to bar claims such as Greenless‘s. Those that have considered statutory questions similar to those here are so far unanimous, although different courts have followed different reasoning to the same conclusion.
We do not decide any question of state sovereign immunity today. We will, however, sketch the outlines of the question on the facts of this case in order to explain our reasons for avoiding it. As a general matter the several states are immune under the Eleventh Amendment from private suit in the federal courts, absent their consent.6 Among the exceptions to this rule is the doctrine of Ex parte Young, 209 U.S. 123, 28 S.Ct. 441, 52
Greenless claims to seek a prospective remedy for an allegedly ongoing violation of federal law that will recur each time the state actually receives an installment payment of the tobacco settlement. The defendants claim she seeks retrospective compensation for the alleged violation that the state committed when it reached agreement with the tobacco industry without providing that a portion of the proceeds would go to Greenless and her class. Because of the Supreme Court‘s recent reinvigoration of the doctrine of state sovereign immunity, see, e.g., Seminole Tribe v. Florida, 517 U.S. 44, 116 S.Ct. 1114, 134 L.Ed.2d 252 (1996); Alden v. Maine, 527 U.S. 706, 119 S.Ct. 2240, 144 L.Ed.2d 636 (1999), private plaintiffs’ ability to enforce congressionally enacted restraints on the states’ use of many types of funds may well turn on just such questions to a degree few readers of Edelman would have predicted when that case was decided.
It is not, however, the role of the federal courts to answer legal questions unless specific cases need answers. This principle applies with special force to complex questions of constitutional law, so that courts often avoid such questions by choosing to focus on other aspects of a case that adequately dispose of the controversy between the parties. See Ashwander v. Tenn. Valley Auth., 297 U.S. 288, 347, 56 S.Ct. 466, 80 L.Ed. 688 (1936) (Brandeis, J., concurring) (“The Court will not pass upon a constitutional question although properly presented by the record, if there is also present some other ground upon which the case may be disposed of.“); U.S.I. Props. Corp. v. M.D. Constr. Co., 230 F.3d 489, 495 (1st Cir.2000) (avoiding a complex Eleventh Amendment question in favor of a simpler statutory subject matter jurisdiction question); Parella, 173 F.3d at 56. In this case, the constitutional question is difficult; but, as we discuss below, at least one statutory question is easy and disposes completely of Greenless‘s suit. We therefore bypass the constitutional question, as have the Second, Seventh, and Eleventh Circuits, in favor of the easier question whether plaintiffs have stated a claim on which relief may be granted.7
B. Statutory interpretation
There are two reasons to doubt whether the amended Medicaid statute will support Greenless‘s claim. The first reason is that it is not clear whether any of the money recovered by Rhode Island is money to which Greenless and her class can stake a claim under
Greenless makes two arguments against this reading of
The “implied repeal” argument is an odd one because at issue is not whether Congress totally repealed
Courts do not lightly assume that one statute has implicitly repealed another. This principle is a product of a set of beliefs about the legislative process—in particular, a belief that Congress, focused as it usually is on a particular problem, should not be understood to have eliminated without specific consideration another program that was likely the product of sustained attention.
C.R. Sunstein, Interpreting Statutes in the Regulatory State, 103 Harv. L.Rev. 405, 475 (1989) (footnote omitted). These concerns have less force where, as here, Congress was responding to a recent event, the Master Settlement Agreement, and was clear in its language. The only even arguable doubt is whether that repeal covered Medicaid recipients’ possible claims as well as the federal government‘s. In our view the plain statutory language means both.8
The presumption against retroactivity also does not affect the result in this case. It is true that as a general matter Congress must speak clearly to make its legislation retroactive. Landgraf v. USI Film Prods., 511 U.S. 244, 280, 114 S.Ct. 1483, 128 L.Ed.2d 229 (1994).9 Whatever the proper characterization of the relief Greenless seeks in this case, Congress made its intent clear in the amendment, which “applies to all funds received under the Master Settlement Agreement, whether past, present, or future.” Harris, 264 F.3d at 1296.
III.
To avoid the unnecessary resolution of a difficult constitutional question, we have assessed the merits of Greenless‘s case and have found that she has failed to state a claim upon which relief may be granted. Therefore, although we do not reach the reasoning of the district court‘s opinion, its judgment dismissing the case is affirmed.
Notes
The agency must distribute collections as follows—
(a) To itself, an amount equal to State Medicaid expenditures for the individual on whose right the collection was based.
(b) To the Federal Government, the federal share of the State Medicaid expenditures, minus any incentive payment made in accordance with [a related provision]....
(c) To the recipient, any remaining amount....
42 C.F.R. § 433.154 (2000).