United States Court of Appeals For the First Circuit
No. 24-1098
LUTHER C. PARENTE; ERIC L. STEWART,
Plaintiffs, Appellees,
v.
NELSON LEFEBVRE, in his official capacity as Warden of the Department of Corrections Intake Service Center; MICHELLE GARRIEPY, JENNIFER MAGEAU, and NANCY RUOTOLO HULL, in their official capacities as Registered Nurses for the Department of Corrections; RHODE ISLAND DEPARTMENT OF CORRECTIONS,
Defendants, Appellants,
ASHBEL T. WALL, individually; MATTHEW KETTLE, individually and in his official capacity as Warden of the Department of Corrections Maximum Security Facility; JENNIFER CLARKE, individually and in her official capacity as Medical Director of the Rhode Island Department of Corrections; SIMON MELNICK, individually and in his official capacity as Corrections Physician of the Department of Corrections; TEJ BANSAL, individually and in her official capacity as Corrections Physician of the Rhode Island Department of Corrections; MARTIN J. BAUERMEISTER, individually and in his official capacity as Psychiatrist of the Rhode Island Department of Corrections; FRED H. VOHR, individually; PATRICIA ANNE COYNE-FAGUE, in her official capacity as Director of the Rhode Island Department of Corrections; WAYNE J. SALISBURY, JR., in his official capacity as Acting Director of the Rhode Island Department of Corrections; NELSON LEFEBVRE, in his individual capacity; MICHELLE GARRIEPY, in her individual capacity; JENNIFER MAGEAU, in her individual capacity; NANCY RUOTOLO HULL, in her individual capacity,
Defendants.
APPEAL FROM THE UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT FOR THE DISTRICT OF RHODE ISLAND [Hon. Mary S. McElroy, District Judge]
Before
Gelpí and Rikelman, Circuit Judges Katzmann,* Judge
James J. Arguin, Special Assistant Attorney General, Office of the Attorney General of Rhode Island, for appellants. Chloe A. Davis, with whom Richard A. Sinapi and Sinapi Law Associates, Ltd. were on brief, for appellees.
December 5, 2024
* Of the United States Court of International Trade, sitting by designation. GELPÍ, Circuit Judge. Plaintiffs-Appellees Luther C.
Parente ("Parente") and Eric L. Stewart ("Stewart") sued the Rhode
Island Department of Corrections and its staff (collectively,
"RIDOC") for failing to properly treat their preexisting medical
conditions. They allege various federal and state constitutional,
statutory, and common law bases for relief, including a claim under
the Rhode Island Civil Rights Act of 1990 ("RICRA"). Only the
RICRA claim is before us. The district court denied RIDOC's motion
for summary judgment on Eleventh Amendment grounds as to RICRA.
RIDOC argues that the district court erred in holding that
violations of civil rights under RICRA are subject to the general
waiver of Eleventh Amendment immunity under Rhode Island's Tort
Claims Act.1 Parente and Stewart respond that the Rhode Island
Supreme Court's decision in Laird v. Chrysler Corp., 460 A.2d 425
(R.I. 1983), establishes that RICRA claims must be subject to this
general waiver. In evaluating the Eleventh Amendment question
posed by this appeal, we conclude that there is "special reason"
to certify the underlying state-law issue to the Rhode Island
Supreme Court. Figueroa-Rodriguez v. Aquino, 863 F.2d 1037, 1045
(1st Cir. 1988) ("[I]f the [federal] court felt there was special
reason to do so, it could certify the [state-law] issue to the
[relevant state supreme court], whose finding of waiver, if made,
1 Individual-capacity defendants are not parties to this appeal.
- 3 - would be binding . . . notwithstanding the statute's lack of
explicit language.").
I. BACKGROUND
We begin by recounting the facts and procedural history
of the case. A lengthy summary of the facts is unnecessary for
this opinion. Instead, we opt to briefly recite only those facts
necessary to understand the parties' arguments. For greater
detail, consult Parente v. Wall, 708 F. Supp. 3d 192, 197-99
(D.R.I. 2023).
A. Parente and Stewart's Allegations
Parente and Stewart entered RIDOC's custody with
preexisting injuries.2 Parente injured his ankles while attempting
to evade arrest. After several visits to non-RIDOC hospitals
following his arrest, medical staff diagnosed Parente with a
calcaneal fracture of his right foot and ankle and additional
fractures in his left heel and ankle. Parente's hospital discharge
papers recommended, among other things, that he use a carter pillow
to elevate his feet, ice his injuries, use a trauma chair with arm
rails, and take medication to manage his pain and to prevent blood
clots. Stewart, on the other hand, entered custody having already
sprained his ankle about a month before his arrest. His treating
2 In addition to their physical injuries, Parente and Stewart had long histories of psychiatric conditions.
- 4 - physicians at a non-RIDOC hospital advised him to use crutches, to
keep his leg elevated, to apply ice on his ankle, and to use
medication to manage his pain.
Parente and Stewart sued RIDOC on February 10, 2016,
alleging various federal and state constitutional, statutory, and
common law bases for relief. They amended that complaint for the
second time on June 22, 2020. Generally, they claimed that RIDOC's
medical and correctional staff failed to meet their medical needs.
Because of the limited nature of this appeal and our decision, we
discuss only Count II of their Second Amended Complaint -- the
claims under RICRA, R.I. Gen. Laws § 42-112-1 to -2. Specifically,
Parente and Stewart allege that RIDOC's corrections and medical
staff "discriminated against" them and caused them to "suffer harm"
by "depriv[ing] them of their rights under RICRA," including their
"rights to reasonable accommodations." In its answer, RIDOC denied
the allegations contained in Count II and asserted that it was
immune from liability under RICRA, pursuant to the Eleventh
Amendment to the United States Constitution.
B. District Court Proceedings
On February 23, 2023, the parties filed cross motions
for summary judgment. With respect to Count II, RIDOC pressed its
sovereign immunity argument. But the district court disagreed
with RIDOC's assessment. In denying RIDOC's motion, the district
court reasoned that Rhode Island had adopted a general waiver of
- 5 - its sovereign immunity for "all actions of tort" through the
enactment of the State Tort Claims Act. Parente, 708 F. Supp. 3d
at 211 (emphasis added) (quoting Laird, 460 A.2d at 427). The
district court analogized an action for damages under RICRA to an
action for damages under the since-amended Civil Rights Act of
1968, which "sound[ed] basically in tort," and determined that
RICRA was thus not subject to Eleventh Amendment immunity. Id.
(quoting Curtis v. Loether, 415 U.S. 189, 195 (1974)); see also 42
U.S.C. § 3612 (1974), repealed and amended by Fair Housing
Amendments Act of 1988, Pub. L. No. 100-430, § 8(2), 102 Stat.
1619, 1625. Accordingly, the district court concluded that the
general waiver enacted under the State Tort Claims Act also applied
to actions under RICRA. Parente, 708 F. Supp. 3d at 212.
The district court further explained that the Rhode
Island Supreme Court held in Pellegrino v. Rhode Island Ethics
Commission, 788 A.2d 1119, 1123-24 (R.I. 2002), that "a waiver of
sovereign immunity may be implicit and need not be express in the
statute that gives rise to the cause of action." Parente, 708 F.
Supp. 3d at 211. Therefore, the district court reasoned, the
critical question here was "whether discrimination actions [under
RICRA] sound in tort." Id. The district court, relying on
precedent from various federal and state cases,3 answered that
3 The district court cites the following federal and state cases in its decision: Curtis, 415 U.S. at 195; Rathbun v. - 6 - question in the affirmative, holding that "Rhode Island's general
waiver of sovereign immunity statute requires us to find that
immunity has been waived." Parente, 708 F. Supp. 3d at 212.
RIDOC timely appealed that decision. We have
jurisdiction under the collateral order doctrine to review the
district court's decision to deny RIDOC immunity under the Eleventh
Amendment. Nieves-Marquez v. Puerto Rico, 353 F.3d 108, 122-23
(1st Cir. 2003) (citing P.R. Aqueduct & Sewer Auth. v. Metcalf &
Eddy, Inc., 506 U.S. 139, 147 (1993)).
II. DISCUSSION
A. Sovereign Immunity and the State Tort Claims Act
"The Eleventh Amendment generally bars suits against
states and state officials" in federal court. Doe v. Shibinette,
16 F.4th 894, 903 (1st Cir. 2021) (citing Ex parte Young, 209 U.S.
123 (1908)). States "may waive [their] eleventh amendment immunity
to suit." Della Grotta v. Rhode Island, 781 F.2d 343, 346 (1st
Cir. 1986) (citations omitted), abrogated on other grounds by Will
v. Mich. Dep't of State Police, 491 U.S. 58 (1989). The question
of whether the state has waived sovereign immunity against suit in
Autozone, Inc., 361 F.3d 62, 67, 70 (1st Cir. 2004); Acevedo Lopez v. Police Dep't of P.R., 247 F.3d 26, 29 (1st Cir. 2001); Milton v. Scrivner, Inc., 53 F.3d 1118, 1120-21 (10th Cir. 1995); Mancuso v. Douglas Elliman LLC, 808 F. Supp. 2d 606, 632 (S.D.N.Y. 2011); McMillan v. Lincoln Fed. Sav. Loan Ass'n, 678 F. Supp. 89, 92 (D.N.J. 1988); Marrapese v. Rhode Island, 500 F. Supp. 1207, 1221-22 (D.R.I. 1980); Pellegrino, 788 A.2d at 1123-24; and Laird, 460 A.2d at 427-28, 430.
- 7 - federal court is one of federal law. When evaluating whether a
statute includes such a waiver, this court "will find waiver only
where stated 'by the most express language or by such overwhelming
implications from the text as [will] leave no room for any other
reasonable construction.'" Davidson v. Howe, 749 F.3d 21, 28 (1st
Cir. 2014) (alteration in original) (first quoting Edelman v.
Jordan, 415 U.S. 651, 673 (1974); then quoting Murray v. Wilson
Distilling Co., 213 U.S. 151, 171 (1909)). We can also find a
waiver of Eleventh Amendment immunity as a matter of federal law
if a state's highest court has expressly held that the state
statute at issue includes such a waiver. See Della Grotta, 781
F.2d at 347 (explaining that the rule "that waiver may not be
inferred from a less than explicit statute" was "designed to
protect a state from a federal court's ill-founded, possibly
mistaken, view of what its state legislature really intended").
The State Tort Claims Act, R.I. Gen. Laws § 9-31-1(a),
provides that Rhode Island is "liable in all actions of tort in
the same manner as a private individual or corporation" (emphasis
added). In Laird, the Rhode Island Supreme Court interpreted the
State Tort Claims Act to contain "sweeping language abrogating the
sovereign immunity of the state as well as all other political
subdivisions in Rhode Island," including for suits in federal
court. 460 A.2d at 428. RICRA, on the other hand, protects
individuals from discrimination. R.I. Gen. Laws § 42-112-1 to -2.
- 8 - Section 42-112-1(a) provides, in relevant part, that "[a]ll
persons within the state, regardless of race, color, religion,
sex, disability, age, or country of ancestral origin,
have . . . the same rights . . . to the full and equal benefit of
all laws and proceedings for the security of persons and property."
RICRA does not expressly state whether the state is immune from
suit.
RIDOC argues that the district court erred by broadening
that waiver of the state's Eleventh Amendment immunity from suit
to include cases brought under RICRA. RIDOC rests its argument on
the stringent test articulated by the U.S. Supreme Court in
Edelman, which is that a state's waiver of sovereign immunity must
be presented in "the most express language or by such overwhelming
implications from the text as [will] leave no room for any other
reasonable construction." 415 U.S. at 673 (internal quotation
marks and citation omitted). Since RICRA neither expressly
mentions waiving sovereign immunity nor implicitly suggests it
through such an "overwhelming implication[]," id., RIDOC argues
that the district court erred in interpreting the State Tort Claims
Act to have waived Eleventh Amendment immunity over claims based
on RICRA.
B. Certification
This court typically reviews de novo a district court's
denial of an Eleventh Amendment immunity-based motion for summary
- 9 - judgment. Fresenius Med. Care Cardiovascular Res., Inc. v. P.R.
& the Caribbean Cardiovascular Ctr. Corp., 322 F.3d 56, 60 (1st
Cir. 2003) (citing Arecibo Cmty. Health Care, Inc. v. Puerto Rico,
270 F.3d 17, 22 (1st Cir. 2001)). For Rhode Island to have waived
its sovereign immunity for civil rights claims under RICRA, those
claims need to be considered "actions of tort" under the State
Tort Claims Act. R.I. Gen. Laws § 9-31-1(a).
As we noted above, whether a state has waived Eleventh
Amendment immunity is a question of federal constitutional law.
See Edelman, 415 U.S. at 673. Ordinarily, "we will not consider
a State to have waived its sovereign immunity" where "a statute is
susceptible of multiple plausible interpretations." Sossamon v.
Texas, 563 U.S. 277, 288 (2011) (holding that a state's acceptance
of federal funds pursuant to the ambiguous terms of a federal
statute did not constitute waiver). And in most cases,
certification to a state's highest court is not the appropriate
remedy. See Micomonaco v. Washington, 45 F.3d 316, 322 (9th Cir.
1995) (resolving, rather than certifying, the question of whether
a Washington statute waived Eleventh Amendment immunity); see also
Minotti v. Lensink, 798 F.2d 607, 611 (2d Cir. 1986) (concluding
that a Connecticut statute, which the Connecticut Supreme Court
interpreted to waive sovereign immunity in state court, did not
unambiguously waive Eleventh Amendment immunity in federal court
and therefore finding no waiver). Of course, federal courts need
- 10 - to interpret state law while deciding the ultimate federal question
at issue: whether a state has waived Eleventh Amendment immunity.
See Atascadero State Hosp. v. Scanlon, 473 U.S. 234, 241 (1985)
(reading a California constitutional provision not to waive
sovereign immunity but only to authorize the state legislature's
waiver of sovereign immunity and therefore declining to find
waiver). Accordingly, we have held that where there is "special
reason to do so," a federal court grappling with an underlying
state-law issue while interpreting a state statute may "certify
the issue to" the relevant state supreme court, "whose finding of
waiver, if made, would be binding . . . notwithstanding the
statute's lack of explicit language." Figueroa-Rodriguez, 863
F.2d at 1045.
Here, we are presented with one such special reason to
certify. The parties' dispute focuses on the scope of Laird, a
Rhode Island Supreme Court decision. In particular, counsel for
Parente and Stewart contended at oral argument that Laird alone
establishes waiver in this case. She pointed to Laird's
interpretation of the State Tort Claims Act as reflecting "a
legislative intent to place the state in the same position as any
other private litigant and thus amenable to suit in either state
or federal court," and Laird's reasoning that "in order to have an
actionable claim against the state, just as with a private
defendant, a plaintiff must show that there was a breach of a duty
- 11 - owed to him or her in an individual capacity and not merely a
breach of some obligation owed to the general public." 460 A.2d
at 429-30 (citing Ryan v. State Dep't of Transp., 420 A.2d 841,
843 (R.I. 1980)). Counsel for Parente and Stewart therefore frames
the issue as one requiring us to interpret a potential ambiguity
in Laird itself. In these circumstances, we choose to exercise
our discretion to certify the state-law question below to the Rhode
Island Supreme Court. In so doing, we reserve for a later date
the federal constitutional question of whether state law, as
interpreted by the Rhode Island Supreme Court, waives immunity "by
the most express language or by such overwhelming implications
from the text as [will] leave no room for any other reasonable
construction." Edelman, 415 U.S. at 673 (internal quotation marks
and citation omitted).
The Rhode Island Supreme Court "may answer questions of
law certified to it" if the state-law question "may be
determinative of the cause then pending in the certifying court"
and "it appears to the certifying court there is no controlling
precedent in the decisions of the Supreme Court." R.I. Sup. Ct.
R. 6. The conditions necessary for certification, in our view,
are satisfied here.
We begin by considering how the question we certify may
be determinative of the issue before us. As mentioned, the State
Tort Claims Act waived Eleventh Amendment immunity for "all actions
- 12 - of tort." R.I. Gen. Laws §9-31-1(a) (emphasis added). The Rhode
Island Supreme Court in Laird held that the Rhode Island
legislature, by enacting this provision, intended "to place the
state in the same position as any other private litigant and thus
amenable to suit in either state or federal court." 460 A.2d at
430. But Parente and Stewart do not bring claims under the State
Tort Claims Act. Rather, their claims hinge on alleged violations
of their rights under RICRA -- a separate statute that is silent
as to immunity. R.I. Gen. Laws § 42-112-1 to -2. Thus, a
subsidiary state-law question in this appeal is whether claims
under RICRA are "actions of tort" under the State Tort Claims Act.
If they are not, then the Eleventh Amendment would bar their RICRA
claims. And as noted above, we have held that a state's highest
court can speak with finality on whether a state statute was
intended to waive the state's Eleventh Amendment immunity. Della
Grotta, 781 F.2d at 347. Therefore, an answer from the Rhode
Island Supreme Court on this open question of state law may be
outcome-determinative.
Having concluded that the answer to the certified
question may be determinative of the issue before us, we next
address the lack of dispositive state court precedent. The Rhode
Island Supreme Court has not addressed whether RICRA claims are
covered by the general waiver of sovereign immunity under the State
Tort Claims Act.
- 13 - The district court relied on Pellegrino, 788 A.2d 1119,
in which the Rhode Island Supreme Court held that the state had
waived its sovereign immunity in suits brought by former members
of the Rhode Island Ethics Commission in state court. The Court
found waiver "by necessary implication from the very statutory
terms that provided for specific compensation" to be paid to the
plaintiffs for attending commission meetings. Id. at 1123-24.
But unlike the plaintiffs in Pellegrino, Parente and Stewart do
not suggest that the text of the statute at issue (here, RICRA)
necessarily implies a waiver. Instead, they rely on the express
waiver in the State Tort Claims Act. The more precise question is
whether the text of the State Tort Claims Act, properly construed,
includes waiver of immunity over RICRA claims. Pellegrino is
therefore inapplicable here.4
The district court's reliance on the U.S. Supreme
Court's decision in Loether was similarly misplaced. In Loether,
the Court held that a private enforcement action arising under the
Civil Rights Act for money damages "sound[ed] basically in tort"
4 Further, Pellegrino concerned waiver of Rhode Island's sovereign immunity in state, not federal, court. To the extent that the district court suggested that Pellegrino's holding was in tension with our holding in Acevedo Lopez, 247 F.3d at 29, we disagree. Both cases acknowledge that immunity may be waived by necessary implication from statutory text. See Pellegrino, 788 A.2d at 1223 (phrasing it as "necessary implication"); Acevedo Lopez, 247 F.3d at 28 (phrasing it as "overwhelming implication[]" precluding "any other reasonable construction" (quoting Edelman, 415 U.S. at 673)).
- 14 - and, in turn, was an action "to enforce legal rights" triggering
the Seventh Amendment's jury-trial guarantee. 415 U.S. at 196-97.
RICRA, on the other hand, authorizes both money damages and
"injunctive and other appropriate equitable relief." R.I. Gen.
Laws § 42-112-2 (2024). Hence, the statute at issue in Loether is
not fully analogous here, where Parente and Stewart request damages
and injunctive relief on the basis of RICRA. And in any event,
whether RICRA is an "action[] of tort" is a question of Rhode
Island law, so any reasoning as to analogous federal laws might be
persuasive but not binding. W. Rsrv. Life Assur. Co. v. ADM
Assocs., LLC, 737 F.3d 135, 136 (1st Cir. 2013) ("[T]he Rhode
Island Supreme Court is the ultimate arbiter of matters of Rhode
Island law . . . .").
For these reasons, we conclude that it is an open
question under Rhode Island law whether discrimination claims
under RICRA are covered by the waiver of sovereign immunity
articulated in the State Tort Claims Act.
III. CONCLUSION
In light of the foregoing, we certify the following
question to the Rhode Island Supreme Court:
1. Whether discrimination claims under the Rhode Island
Civil Rights Act of 1990, R.I. Gen. Laws § 42-112-1 to -2, are
"actions of tort" under the State Tort Claims Act, R.I. Gen. Laws
§ 9-31-1(a)?
- 15 - We would welcome further guidance from the Rhode Island
Supreme Court on any other relevant aspects of Rhode Island law
that it understands would aid in the proper resolution of the
issues pending in this matter.
The clerk of this court is directed to forward to the
Rhode Island Supreme Court, under the official seal of this court,
a copy of the certified question, this opinion, the district
court's opinion, and the merits briefs and appendices filed by the
parties. We retain jurisdiction over this issue pending resolution
of this certified question.
It is so ordered.
- 16 -