Alaska Employment Law

The 9th Circuit panel that sat in Anchorage in August has affirmed District Judge John Sedwick’s dismissal of John Mun’s FLSA and Title VII claims against the University of Alaska.  The unpublished opinion goes into significant detail only as to the FLSA matter, and there only as to the University’s sovereign immunity defense. 

The  panel wrote:

sovereign immunity bars Mun’s Fair Labor Standards Act (“FLSA”) retaliation claim. When the original complaint was filed, Alaska Stat. § 09.50.250 (2003) authorized a “person or corporation having a contract, quasi-contract, or tort claim against the state [to] bring an action against the state.” Devoid of any reference to federal court, this statute does not make a “clear declaration” that the state intended to submit itself to federal jurisdiction. Coll. Sav. Bank v. Fla. Prepaid Postsecondary Educ. Expense Bd., 527 U.S. 666, 675 (1999) (internal quotation marks omitted). Moreover, even if the statute in effect at the time this action was commenced could be construed as a waiver of sovereign immunity, the statute has since been amended. Alaska Stat. § 09.50.250 (2005) now provides that actions against the state may be brought only “in a state court.” And a state may withdraw its consent even as to pending actions. See Coll. Sav. Bank, 527 U.S. at 676 (stating that a state may “alter the conditions of its waiver and apply those changes to a pending suit”); see also Beers v. Arkansas, 61 U.S. 527, 529 (1857) (noting that a state “may withdraw its consent whenever it may suppose that justice to the public requires it”). Thus, sovereign immunity applies.

Mun v. Univ. of Alaska, 2008 WL 3925858 (9th Cir. Aug. 26, 2008)(unpub.)