Petrella v. BrownbackPetrella v. Brownback
Tristan L. Duncan, Shook, Hardy & Bacon, L.L.P., Kansas City, Missouri (William F. Northrip, and Zach Chaffee-McClure, Shook, Hardy & Bacon, L.L.P., Kansas City Missouri, and Jonathan S. Massey, Massey & Gail, LLP, Washington, D.C., and Laurence H. Tribe, Cambridge, Massachusetts, with her on the briefs), for Plaintiffs-Appellants.
Arthur S. Chalmers, Hite, Fanning & Honeyman L.L.P., Wichita, Kansas (Gayle B. Tibbets, Hite, Fanning & Honeyman L.L.P., Wichita, Kansas; Jeffrey A. Chanay, Deputy Attorney General, Office of Kansas Attorney General, Topeka, Kansas; Cheryl L. Whelan, General Counsel, Kansas State Department of Education, Topeka, Kansas; Mark A. Ferguson and Eldon J. Shields, Gates, Shields & Ferguson, P.A., Overland Park, Kansas, with him on the brief), for Defendants-Appellees.
Alan L. Rupe, Kutak Rock LLP, Wichita, Kansas (John S. Robb, Somers, Robb & Robb, Newton, Kansas, with him on the brief), for Intervenor-Defendants-Appellees.
EBEL, Circuit Judge
I. BACKGROUND
A. Kansas School District Finance and Quality Performance Act
The Kansas Constitution requires the Kansas legislature to “make suitable provision for finance of the educational interests of the state.”
A few months after Montoy I, the Kansas Legislature passed new legislation that purported to address the Act‘s constitutional shortcomings. The Kansas Supreme Court considered the adequacy of that new legislation in Montoy v. State, 112 P.3d 923 (Kan. 2005) (”Montoy II“). As pertinent to this appeal, the Montoy II court concluded that the new legislation was still inadequate under the Kansas Constitution, both because it still failed to provide enough funding overall, and because its revisions to how local property taxes would be levied and distributed “exacerbate[d] disparities based on district wealth.” Montoy II, 112 P.3d at 937.
After Montoy II, the Kansas Legislature again amended the Act. This latest iteration of the Act,
The Act attempts to ensure equal per-pupil funding across all school districts according to a complex formula. The formula establishes a “Base State Aid Per Pupil” figure, see
The Act requires each school district to levy an ad valorem property tax of 20 mills for school finance purposes.
The Act also authorizes districts to adopt a “Local Option Budget” (“LOB“), which permits a district to raise extra money by levying additional property taxes beyond the 20 mill minimum.
The LOB cap, in some form, has been part of the scheme since the Act was initially enacted in 1992. Initially the cap was 25%. Kan. Sess. Laws 1992, ch. 280, § 29. In 2005 and 2006, responding to the Kansas Supreme Court‘s orders in the Montoy litigation, the legislature increased the cap. Kan. Sess. Laws 2005, ch. 194, § 17; Kan. Sess. Laws 2006, ch. 197, § 19. In holding the Legislature‘s first corrective attempt at a funding scheme was still inadequate, the state high court noted that “the legislation‘s increase in the LOB cap exacerbates the wealth-based disparities between districts.” Montoy II, 112 P.3d at 934.
B. Procedural Background
Appellants are students, and parents of students, in the Shawnee Mission Unified School District (“SMSD“). They filed this action under
Appellants asserted a fundamental liberty interest in directing and participating in the upbringing and education of their children; a fundamental property interest in spending their own money to improve public education in their district, thereby protecting their property values; and a
On Appellees’ motion, the district court dismissed the case for lack of standing. The district court concluded that because the LOB cap was not severable from the rest of the Act, a finding that the LOB cap was unconstitutional would result in the invalidation of the entire Act. Further, because the district court concluded that Kansas law provided no independent taxing authority for school boards, a favorable decision for the plaintiffs would result in the SMSD school board being unable to levy any taxes at all. The court held that, while under other circumstances the “cap can be challenged,” in this case, “[i]t
II. JURISDICTION AND STANDARD OF REVIEW
The district court had jurisdiction over this federal constitutional claim under
This Court reviews a dismissal for lack of standing ”de novo, applying the same standard used by the district court.” Citizens for Responsible Gov‘t State Political Action Comm. v. Davidson, 236 F.3d 1174, 1189 (10th Cir. 2000) (internal quotation marks omitted). Appellants, as the party seeking to invoke federal jurisdiction, bear the burden of establishing standing. See Lujan v. Defenders of Wildlife, 504 U.S. 555, 561 (1992); Nova Health Sys. v. Gandy, 416 F.3d 1149, 1154 (10th Cir. 2005).
III. DISCUSSION
A. Standing
The federal judicial power extends only to “cases” and “controversies.”
1. Injury
The injury alleged must be “concrete and particularized,” and the threat of that injury must be “actual and imminent, not conjectural or hypothetical.” Summers, 555 U.S. at 493. Here, Appellants alleged that that their school district is being “intentionally underfund[ed],” and that they receive less funding per pupil, in violation of their equal protection rights. Aplt. App. at 45 (Complaint at ¶ 6). They alleged that their
2. Causation
The causation prong of Article III standing requires that the injury be “fairly traceable to the challenged action of the defendant.” Lujan, 504 U.S. at 560 (internal alterations omitted). As pled, the LOB cap is the source of Appellants’ alleged injury. But for the LOB cap, Appellants claim, the school district could submit a proposed property tax increase to the voters. This is sufficient to meet the causation requirement. See Duke Power Co. v. Carolina Envt‘l Study Grp., Inc., 438 U.S. 59, 74-78 (1978) (causation requirement satisfied in declaratory judgment action where challenged statute was “but for” cause of plaintiffs’ alleged injuries); Dias v. City & Cnty. of Denver, 567 F.3d 1169, 1178 (10th Cir. 2009) (at motion to dismiss stage, in action against city, county, mayor, and other city officials, plaintiffs’ allegations that challenged ordinance was “but for” cause of injuries sufficed to meet causation requirement).
3. Redressability
Even where injury and causation are sufficiently established, Article III standing will be denied unless it is “likely, as opposed to merely speculative, that the injury will be redressed by a favorable decision.” Lujan, 504 U.S. at 561 (internal quotation marks omitted). The district court‘s conclusion that Appellants’ alleged injury was not redressable was based on an inaccurate characterization of that injury. The injury Appellants claim to suffer is not “the inability of the district to raise unlimited funds through a local tax,” Dist. Ct. op. at 1, but the deprivation of equal protection, suffered personally by Appellants, by virtue of the alleged “intentional underfunding” of their
It is this alleged unequal treatment that constitutes the injury. See Adarand Constructors, Inc. v. Pena, 515 U.S. 200, 211 (1995); NE Fla. Chap., Assoc. Gen. Contractors of Am. v. Jacksonville, 508 U.S. 656, 667 (1993). Unequal treatment may be redressed either by extending the sought-after benefit to the disfavored class, or by withdrawing the benefit from the favored class. See Davis v. Mich. Dept. of Treas., 489 U.S. 803, 817-18 (1989); Heckler v. Mathews, 465 U.S. 728, 740 (1984); see also Iowa-Des Moines Nat. Bank v. Bennett, 284 U.S. 239, 247 (1931). There was no requirement that Appellants in this case show that they would actually have raised more money if the cap were struck down. See Adarand, 515 U.S. at 211 (“The aggrieved party need not allege that he would have obtained the benefit but for the barrier in order to establish standing.“) (internal quotation marks omitted); Regents of Univ. of Cal. v. Bakke, 438 U.S. 265, 280 n.14 (1978) (“[E]ven if Bakke had been unable to prove that he would have been admitted [to medical school] in the absence of the [challenged] special program, it would not follow that he lacked standing.“).
Instead, a favorable decision on the merits could redress the Appellants’ alleged injuries. Without prejudging the merits, Appellants could get meaningful relief under a variety of scenarios. Most preferable to Appellants would be an invalidation of the LOB cap coupled with a finding that the cap is severable. See Local 514 Transp. Workers Union of Am. v. Keating, 358 F.3d 743, 750 (10th Cir. 2004) (finding standing where plaintiff‘s alleged injury was caused by the challenged statute, and characterizing the
The district court reasoned, however, that because Appellants’ “desired remedy” was the excision of the LOB cap alone, and such excision was impossible, Appellants’ alleged injury would not be redressed. Id. But as we have made clear, Appellants’ alleged injury, while flowing from the LOB cap, was not “the inability of the district to raise unlimited funds,” Dist. Ct. op. at 1, but rather the alleged unequal treatment (manifested in, among other things, lower per-pupil funding) that prevented them from
The standing inquiry, at the motion to dismiss stage, asks only whether the plaintiff has sufficiently alleged a cognizable injury, fairly traceable to the challenged conduct that is likely to be redressed by a favorable judicial decision. See Lujan, 504 U.S. at 560-61. In some cases, it may well be that only one remedy will alleviate the injury, such that the unavailability of that remedy, or at least the inability of the court to provide it, means the injury cannot be redressed, and the plaintiff lacks standing. See, e.g., id. at 570-71 (remedy of forcing federal agencies to consult with Secretary of the
We conclude that Appellants have carried their burden to establish the three requirements of Article III standing.
B. Severability and independent taxing authority
As the foregoing discussion of standing makes clear, Appellants’ Article III standing does not depend upon their certain ability to raise funding from within the district. Instead, Appellants have standing because, under the lenient standard applicable at this early stage of the litigation, they have alleged a violation of their right to equal protection that is fairly traceable to the challenged statute, and which would be redressed by a favorable decision on the merits, even if such a decision resulted in the wholesale
Therefore, the district court did not need to determine, at this early stage, whether the challenged LOB cap can be severed from the Act, or whether, if not, other Kansas statutes confer taxing authority on individual school districts. Accordingly, we do not reach those questions, and we VACATE those portions of the district court‘s order. Only if, on remand, the district court concludes that the LOB cap is unconstitutional, should it then determine whether the cap is severable under Kansas law, applying Kansas‘s test for severability as articulated, for example, in Thompson v. KFB Insurance Co., 850 P.2d 773, 782 (Kan. 1993). See Davidson, 236 F.3d at 1195 (“In order to determine whether partial invalidation of a state statute is appropriate, federal courts look to state law.“).
IV. CONCLUSION
For the foregoing reasons, we hold that Appellants have standing to challenge the constitutionality of the LOB cap, regardless of whether the cap is severable from the rest of the Act. The district court‘s dismissal for lack of standing is REVERSED, and its conclusions as to severability and independent taxing authority are VACATED. The case is REMANDED to the district court for a consideration of the merits.