Nevada Department of Human Resources v. Hibbs
Encyclopedia
Nevada Department of Human Resources v. Hibbs, 538 U.S. 721 (2003), was a United States
Supreme Court
case which held that the Family and Medical Leave Act of 1993
was "narrowly targeted" at "sex-based overgeneralization" and was thus a "valid exercise of its power under Section 5 of the Fourteenth Amendment."
and money damages.
In enacting the FMLA, Congress invoked two of the powers it possesses under the Constitution
. In regulating private employers under the FMLA, it invoked its power under the Commerce Clause
. In regulating public employers, it relied on its power under Section 5 of the Fourteenth Amendment. Section 5 gives Congress the power "to enforce, by appropriate legislation, the provisions of [the Fourteenth Amendment]." One of these provisions is the Equal Protection Clause
, which prohibits states from denying to persons within their jurisdiction "the equal protection of the laws." It was its power to enforce the Equal Protection Clause which Congress invoked in enacting the FMLA.
(1890), the Supreme Court of the United States
held that the Eleventh Amendment
prohibits states from being sued in federal court without their consent by their own citizens, despite the Eleventh Amendment's literal language. Congress, however, when acting under its Section 5 power, may abrogate state sovereign immunity and allow states to be sued for money damages. The Supreme Court has held that Congress may do this only if the private remedies it enacts under Section 5 have "congruence and proportionality" to the constitutional wrongs which it seeks to redress. Without the requisite congruence and proportionality, Congress cannot constitutionally authorize private litigants to recover money damages from the states, although such litigants can sue for equitable relief.
Hibbs then sued the Department in the United States District Court for the District of Nevada
for alleged violations of the FMLA. He sought money damages and other relief. The district court granted the Department summary judgment
, finding that Hibbs's claim under the FMLA was barred by the Eleventh Amendment. Hibbs appealed the ruling to the United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit
, which held that the FMLA was a valid exercise of Congress's power under the Fourteenth Amendment, and reversed the district court's grant of summary judgment. Thereafter the Supreme Court granted certiorari
.
William Rehnquist
, began by reaffirming City of Boerne v. Flores
(1997), which was the first case to set down the "congruence and proportionality" requirement for laws enacted under Section 5 of the Fourteenth Amendment. The Court stated that while "Congress' power to enforce' the [Fourteenth] 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,", the remedies which Congress enacts to enforce the Amendment must not constitute "an attempt to substantively redefine the States' legal obligations." To prevent Congress from doing this, the Court said, its case law required Section 5 legislation to "exhibit 'congruence and proportionality between the injury to be prevented or remedied and the means adopted to that end.'"
The Court acknowledged that Congress, by enacting the FMLA, had sought "to protect the right to be free from gender-based discrimination in the workplace." The FMLA was meant to protect that right by guaranteeing to working women, who Congress found usually bear the primary responsibility for family caretaking, the right to take unpaid leave to deal with this responsibility while still retaining employment. Whether the FMLA was constitutional depended on whether Congress had evidence that the states were systematically violating women's workplace rights. Citing Bradwell v. Illinois
and Goesaert v. Cleary
, the majority acknowledged that there was a long history of legally sanctioned discrimination against women in employment opportunities.
Congress, the majority said, first responded to this inequality by passing Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964
. Title VII's abrogation of state sovereign immunity was upheld in Fitzpatrick v. Bitzer
, "[b]ut," the Court said, "state gender discrimination did not cease." The Court noted that "the persistence of such unconstitutional discrimination by the States justifie[d]" the passage of the FMLA, which was designed to prevent further discrimination.
Moreover, continued the majority, Congress had evidence that state-offered parental leave for fathers was rare, and stated that "[t]his 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." Even in states where the laws were supposed to offer parental leave for fathers, such laws "were applied in discriminatory ways." Taking these conditions into account, the majority concluded, Congress was justified in passing the FMLA.
The Court added that earlier cases which had struck down laws passed under Section 5 of the Fourteenth Amendment — cases such as Kimel v. Florida Board of Regents
and Board of Trustees of the University of Alabama v. Garrett
— were distinguishable. Those cases concerned legislation which Congress had enacted in order to combat what it considered discrimination on the basis of age and disability. The Court stated that because such discrimination is not subjected to heightened scrutiny under the Constitution, and because the laws invalidated in Kimel and Garrett prohibited almost all such discrimination, the previous cases struck down laws which bore little "congruence and proportionality" to the wrongs they sought to remedy. Gender-based discrimination, by contrast, is subjected to intermediate scrutiny under the Constitution, and so in enacting the FMLA "it was easier for Congress to show a pattern of state constitutional violations." In addition, the majority noted, the FMLA placed certain limitations on the right of employees to take leave and limited the amount of damages which aggrieved plaintiffs could recover for violations. For those reasons, the Court said, "we conclude that [the FMLA's private remedy] is congruent and proportional to its remedial object, and can 'be understood as responsive to, or designed to prevent, unconstitutional behavior.'"
.
Justice Stevens concurred in the judgment only. He doubted that the FMLA was independently valid under Section 5 of the Fourteenth Amendment, but believed that it was a constitutional use of congressional power under the Commerce Clause. Reiterating a position he and other justices had taken in past decisions, however, Justice Stevens stated that the Eleventh Amendment did not prevent Congress from enacting legislation under the Commerce Clause to allow citizens to sue their own states for money damages. Thus, he concluded, Hibbs's suit was not barred by sovereign immunity and could proceed.
", and because he believed the majority had not shown that each of the 50 states had engaged in gender-based violations of the Equal Protection Clause, Justice Scalia concluded that the FMLA was unconstitutional.
Justice Kennedy's dissent, joined by both Justice Scalia and Justice Thomas, argued that Congress simply had not established that the states "engage[d] in widespread discrimination on the basis of gender in the provision of family leave benefits." Justice Kennedy believed the evidence summarized by the Court was too isolated and anecdotal to established such a pattern of discrimination. He also argued that the states had actually "been ahead of Congress in providing gender-neutral family leave benefits." The fact that gender classifications are subjected to heightened scrutiny, he said, "[did] not alter [his] conclusion," because Hibbs still bore the "burden to show that Congress identified a history and pattern of unconstitutional employment discrimination by the States." This was a burden, said Justice Kennedy, which Hibbs had not met. Thus the FMLA amounted to a substantive change in the reach of the Fourteenth Amendment, not an enforcement of its provisions, and under Boerne, this was unconstitutional.
United States
The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...
Supreme Court
Supreme Court of the United States
The Supreme Court of the United States is the highest court in the United States. It has ultimate appellate jurisdiction over all state and federal courts, and original jurisdiction over a small range of cases...
case which held that the Family and Medical Leave Act of 1993
Family and Medical Leave Act of 1993
The Family and Medical Leave Act of 1993 is a United States federal law requiring covered employers to provide employees job-protected unpaid leave for qualified medical and family reasons. These reasons include personal or family illness, military service, family military leave, pregnancy,...
was "narrowly targeted" at "sex-based overgeneralization" and was thus a "valid exercise of its power under Section 5 of the Fourteenth Amendment."
The FMLA
The Family and Medical Leave Act (FMLA) allows eligible employees to take up to 12 work weeks of unpaid leave annually for several reasons, including the birth of a child or the "serious health condition" of the employee's spouse, child, or parent. The FMLA also authorizes employees whose rights under the FMLA have been violated to sue their employer for equitable reliefEquitable remedy
Equitable remedies are judicial remedies developed and granted by courts of equity, as opposed to courts of common law. Equitable remedies were granted by the Court of Chancery in England, and remain available today in most common law jurisdictions. In many jurisdictions, legal and equitable...
and money damages.
In enacting the FMLA, Congress invoked two of the powers it possesses under the Constitution
United States Constitution
The Constitution of the United States is the supreme law of the United States of America. It is the framework for the organization of the United States government and for the relationship of the federal government with the states, citizens, and all people within the United States.The first three...
. In regulating private employers under the FMLA, it invoked its power under the Commerce Clause
Commerce Clause
The Commerce Clause is an enumerated power listed in the United States Constitution . The clause states that the United States Congress shall have power "To regulate Commerce with foreign Nations, and among the several States, and with the Indian Tribes." Courts and commentators have tended to...
. In regulating public employers, it relied on its power under Section 5 of the Fourteenth Amendment. Section 5 gives Congress the power "to enforce, by appropriate legislation, the provisions of [the Fourteenth Amendment]." One of these provisions is the Equal Protection Clause
Equal Protection Clause
The Equal Protection Clause, part of the Fourteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution, provides that "no state shall ... deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws"...
, which prohibits states from denying to persons within their jurisdiction "the equal protection of the laws." It was its power to enforce the Equal Protection Clause which Congress invoked in enacting the FMLA.
State sovereign immunity
In Hans v. LouisianaHans v. Louisiana
Hans v. Louisiana, , was a decision of the United States Supreme Court determining that the Eleventh Amendment prohibits the citizen of a U.S. state to sue that state in a federal court.-Facts:The plaintiff, Hans, was a citizen of the state of Louisiana...
(1890), the Supreme Court of the United States
Supreme Court of the United States
The Supreme Court of the United States is the highest court in the United States. It has ultimate appellate jurisdiction over all state and federal courts, and original jurisdiction over a small range of cases...
held that the Eleventh Amendment
Eleventh Amendment to the United States Constitution
The Eleventh Amendment to the United States Constitution, which was passed by the Congress on March 4, 1794, and was ratified on February 7, 1795, deals with each state's sovereign immunity. This amendment was adopted in order to overrule the U.S. Supreme Court's decision in Chisholm v...
prohibits states from being sued in federal court without their consent by their own citizens, despite the Eleventh Amendment's literal language. Congress, however, when acting under its Section 5 power, may abrogate state sovereign immunity and allow states to be sued for money damages. The Supreme Court has held that Congress may do this only if the private remedies it enacts under Section 5 have "congruence and proportionality" to the constitutional wrongs which it seeks to redress. Without the requisite congruence and proportionality, Congress cannot constitutionally authorize private litigants to recover money damages from the states, although such litigants can sue for equitable relief.
Facts and procedural history of the case
William Hibbs worked for the Nevada Department of Human Resources in its Welfare Division. He requested leave from the Department under the FMLA in order to care for his wife, who had been in a car accident and undergone neck surgery. The Department granted the request and told Hibbs he could use the full 12 weeks of FMLA leave intermittently as needed between May and December 1997. He used the leave intermittently until August 5 of that year, after which he did not return to work. In October the Department informed Hibbs that he had exhausted his FMLA leave and was required to report to work by November 12. When he failed to report, he was fired.Hibbs then sued the Department in the United States District Court for the District of Nevada
United States District Court for the District of Nevada
The United States District Court for the District of Nevada is the Federal district court whose jurisdiction is the state of Nevada. The court has locations in Las Vegas and Reno....
for alleged violations of the FMLA. He sought money damages and other relief. The district court granted the Department summary judgment
Summary judgment
In law, a summary judgment is a determination made by a court without a full trial. Such a judgment may be issued as to the merits of an entire case, or of specific issues in that case....
, finding that Hibbs's claim under the FMLA was barred by the Eleventh Amendment. Hibbs appealed the ruling to the United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit
United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit
The United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit is a U.S. federal court with appellate jurisdiction over the district courts in the following districts:* District of Alaska* District of Arizona...
, which held that the FMLA was a valid exercise of Congress's power under the Fourteenth Amendment, and reversed the district court's grant of summary judgment. Thereafter the Supreme Court granted certiorari
Certiorari
Certiorari is a type of writ seeking judicial review, recognized in U.S., Roman, English, Philippine, and other law. Certiorari is the present passive infinitive of the Latin certiorare...
.
Majority opinion
The majority, in an opinion authored by Chief JusticeChief Justice of the United States
The Chief Justice of the United States is the head of the United States federal court system and the chief judge of the Supreme Court of the United States. The Chief Justice is one of nine Supreme Court justices; the other eight are the Associate Justices of the Supreme Court of the United States...
William Rehnquist
William Rehnquist
William Hubbs Rehnquist was an American lawyer, jurist, and political figure who served as an Associate Justice on the Supreme Court of the United States and later as the 16th Chief Justice of the United States...
, began by reaffirming City of Boerne v. Flores
City of Boerne v. Flores
City of Boerne v. Flores, 521 U.S. 507 , was a Supreme Court case concerning the scope of Congress's enforcement power under the fifth section of the Fourteenth Amendment...
(1997), which was the first case to set down the "congruence and proportionality" requirement for laws enacted under Section 5 of the Fourteenth Amendment. The Court stated that while "Congress' power to enforce' the [Fourteenth] 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,", the remedies which Congress enacts to enforce the Amendment must not constitute "an attempt to substantively redefine the States' legal obligations." To prevent Congress from doing this, the Court said, its case law required Section 5 legislation to "exhibit 'congruence and proportionality between the injury to be prevented or remedied and the means adopted to that end.'"
The Court acknowledged that Congress, by enacting the FMLA, had sought "to protect the right to be free from gender-based discrimination in the workplace." The FMLA was meant to protect that right by guaranteeing to working women, who Congress found usually bear the primary responsibility for family caretaking, the right to take unpaid leave to deal with this responsibility while still retaining employment. Whether the FMLA was constitutional depended on whether Congress had evidence that the states were systematically violating women's workplace rights. Citing Bradwell v. Illinois
Bradwell v. Illinois
Bradwell v. State of Illinois, 83 U.S. 130 , was a United States Supreme Court case that solidified the narrow reading of the Privileges or Immunities Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment, and determined that the right to practice a profession was not among these privileges...
and Goesaert v. Cleary
Goesaert v. Cleary
Goesaert v. Cleary, 335 U.S. 464 , was a United States Supreme Court case in which the Court upheld a Michigan law which prohibited women from being licensed as a bartender in all cities having a population of 50,000 or more, unless their father or husband owned the establishment. Craig v. Boren, ...
, the majority acknowledged that there was a long history of legally sanctioned discrimination against women in employment opportunities.
Congress, the majority said, first responded to this inequality by passing Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964
Civil Rights Act of 1964
The Civil Rights Act of 1964 was a landmark piece of legislation in the United States that outlawed major forms of discrimination against African Americans and women, including racial segregation...
. Title VII's abrogation of state sovereign immunity was upheld in Fitzpatrick v. Bitzer
Fitzpatrick v. Bitzer
Fitzpatrick v. Bitzer, 427 U.S. 445 , was a United States Supreme Court decision that determined that the U.S. Congress has the power to abrogate the Eleventh Amendment sovereign immunity of the states, if this is done pursuant to its Fourteenth Amendment power to enforce upon the states the...
, "[b]ut," the Court said, "state gender discrimination did not cease." The Court noted that "the persistence of such unconstitutional discrimination by the States justifie[d]" the passage of the FMLA, which was designed to prevent further discrimination.
Moreover, continued the majority, Congress had evidence that state-offered parental leave for fathers was rare, and stated that "[t]his 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." Even in states where the laws were supposed to offer parental leave for fathers, such laws "were applied in discriminatory ways." Taking these conditions into account, the majority concluded, Congress was justified in passing the FMLA.
The Court added that earlier cases which had struck down laws passed under Section 5 of the Fourteenth Amendment — cases such as Kimel v. Florida Board of Regents
Kimel v. Florida Board of Regents
Kimel v. Florida Board of Regents, 528 U.S. 62 was a United States Supreme Court case that determined that the Congress's enforcement powers under the Fourteenth Amendment to the Constitution did not extend to the abrogation of state sovereign immunity under the Eleventh Amendment where the...
and Board of Trustees of the University of Alabama v. Garrett
Board of Trustees of the University of Alabama v. Garrett
Board of Trustees of the University of Alabama v. Garrett, 531 U.S. 356 , was a United States Supreme Court case about Congress's enforcement powers under the Fourteenth Amendment to the Constitution...
— were distinguishable. Those cases concerned legislation which Congress had enacted in order to combat what it considered discrimination on the basis of age and disability. The Court stated that because such discrimination is not subjected to heightened scrutiny under the Constitution, and because the laws invalidated in Kimel and Garrett prohibited almost all such discrimination, the previous cases struck down laws which bore little "congruence and proportionality" to the wrongs they sought to remedy. Gender-based discrimination, by contrast, is subjected to intermediate scrutiny under the Constitution, and so in enacting the FMLA "it was easier for Congress to show a pattern of state constitutional violations." In addition, the majority noted, the FMLA placed certain limitations on the right of employees to take leave and limited the amount of damages which aggrieved plaintiffs could recover for violations. For those reasons, the Court said, "we conclude that [the FMLA's private remedy] is congruent and proportional to its remedial object, and can 'be understood as responsive to, or designed to prevent, unconstitutional behavior.'"
Concurrences
Justice Souter and Justice Stevens both wrote brief concurrences. Justice Souter, in whose concurrence Justices Ginsburg and Breyer joined, concurred in the Court's opinion. He believed that "[e]ven on this Court's view of the scope of congressional power under § 5 of the Fourteenth Amendment," the FMLA was a valid enactment. He emphasized, however, that he still disagreed with the Court's interpretation of Congress's power of enforcement under the Fourteenth Amendment, citing to dissents in Kimel, Garrett, and Florida Prepaid Postsecondary Education Expense Board v. College Savings BankFlorida Prepaid Postsecondary Education Expense Board v. College Savings Bank
Florida Prepaid Postsecondary Education Expense Board v. College Savings Bank, 527 U.S. 627 , was a decision by the Supreme Court of the United States relating to the doctrine of sovereign immunity....
.
Justice Stevens concurred in the judgment only. He doubted that the FMLA was independently valid under Section 5 of the Fourteenth Amendment, but believed that it was a constitutional use of congressional power under the Commerce Clause. Reiterating a position he and other justices had taken in past decisions, however, Justice Stevens stated that the Eleventh Amendment did not prevent Congress from enacting legislation under the Commerce Clause to allow citizens to sue their own states for money damages. Thus, he concluded, Hibbs's suit was not barred by sovereign immunity and could proceed.
Dissents
Both Justice Scalia and Justice Kennedy filed dissents. Justice Scalia joined Justice Kennedy's dissent but wished to "add one further observation." A legal action filed against Nevada under legislation enacted in order to protect against future violations of the Equal Protection Clause, Justice Scalia said, could not be justified by showing "violations by another State, or by most other States, or even by 49 other States." Rather, the plaintiff had to show that Congress was preventing violations of the Fourteenth Amendment "by the State against which the enforcement action is taken," which in this case was Nevada. Because Congress could not rely on what he termed "guilt by associationGuilt by Association
Guilt by Association can refer to:* Association fallacy - sometimes called "guilt by association".* Guilt by Association Vol. 1 - album by Engine Room Recordings.* Guilt by Association Vol. 2 - album by Engine Room Recordings....
", and because he believed the majority had not shown that each of the 50 states had engaged in gender-based violations of the Equal Protection Clause, Justice Scalia concluded that the FMLA was unconstitutional.
Justice Kennedy's dissent, joined by both Justice Scalia and Justice Thomas, argued that Congress simply had not established that the states "engage[d] in widespread discrimination on the basis of gender in the provision of family leave benefits." Justice Kennedy believed the evidence summarized by the Court was too isolated and anecdotal to established such a pattern of discrimination. He also argued that the states had actually "been ahead of Congress in providing gender-neutral family leave benefits." The fact that gender classifications are subjected to heightened scrutiny, he said, "[did] not alter [his] conclusion," because Hibbs still bore the "burden to show that Congress identified a history and pattern of unconstitutional employment discrimination by the States." This was a burden, said Justice Kennedy, which Hibbs had not met. Thus the FMLA amounted to a substantive change in the reach of the Fourteenth Amendment, not an enforcement of its provisions, and under Boerne, this was unconstitutional.