In Louisiana State v. Jefferson Parish School Board, No. 22-30143 (5th Cir. Aug. 22, 2023), the Fifth Circuit dismisses the State of Louisiana’s continuation of a case in federal court against a local school board that sought to discipline two student who displayed weapons during remote-learning sessions during the COVID lockdown. (The original decision was published July 25, 2023 but is withdrawn and substituted here with this opinion after the full court denied petitions for rehearing en banc.)
“The Jefferson Parish School Board (JPSB) separately suspended two students for individually having a BB gun visible during virtual school. Each student’s family sued the school board, in part seeking a declaration that the school board’s virtual learning disciplinary policy is unconstitutional. Louisiana intervened, agreeing with the families on the constitutionality of JPSB’s policy and separately challenging JPSB’s disciplinary actions as ultra vires. JPSB settled with the families, ending the private suits. Louisiana wants to continue the case, citing its broad interest in compliance with its laws. The question before us is whether Louisiana has standing to do so.”
During the pendency of the two disciplinary actions, the state legislature passed into law the Ka’Mauri Harrison Act, named after one of the plaintiffs, which prohibited school districts from disciplining students caught on camera during virtual instruction while engaged in lawful and constitutionally protected activity in their homes. The law applied retroactively to the plaintiffs and provided administrative and judicial procedures to review disciplinary actions that might violate the Act.
Ultimately, the cases wound up in state court, then removed by the school board JPSB to federal court based on federal-question jurisdiction. In a curious twist, the plaintiffs challenged the constitutionality of the new state Act (because both plaintiffs’ suspensions, despite the new law and student-friendly procedures, were nevertheless upheld through in court).
“The district court granted Louisiana leave to intervene as a matter of right because the suit challenged the constitutionality of a state statute. In its intervenor complaint, Louisiana alleged that JPSB is violating state and federal law in several ways, mainly by: (1) ‘acting ultra vires’ in its disciplinary policies and actions; (2) violating several Louisiana statutes and (3) violating students’ and their parents’ due process rights under the state and federal constitutions.”
After the private cases settled, the JPSB moved to dismiss the continuation of the case by Louisiana. The motion was granted on the ground that the state lacked Article III standing “in its parens patriae capacity. [The district court] concluded that Louisiana failed to satisfy the doctrine’s requirements because the state failed to show a quasi-sovereign interest in protecting students from JPSB’s alleged discrimination and that its alleged injury affects a substantial portion of its population.”
The Fifth Circuit affirms, ordering remand of the case back to state court. While recognizing that a state may have standing in an action “on behalf of themselves or in the interest of their residents in a parens patriae capacity,” the panel notes that in addition to meeting the Article III minima (injury-in-fact, fairly traceable, redressable), the state must also establish a “quasi-sovereign interest ‘apart from the interests of particular private parties.’”
Ultimately, the panel holds that Louisiana fails to establish injury-in-fact.
First, there was no injury to the state’s sovereign interests. “Louisiana’s purported sovereign injury is that JPSB is allegedly violating state and federal law. Such a violation does not become an injury until Louisiana brings an enforcement action against JPSB to bring JPSB into compliance with the law, and JPSB or another entity hinders the state from doing so. Only then would there exist a controversy for us to resolve within the limits of federalism.”
Second, there was no “quasi-sovereign interest in preventing its political subdivisions from violating the constitutional rights of 52,000 public schoolchildren” that is separate from the students’ interest. “Louisiana’s asserted interest here is wholly derivative of the interests of JPSB’s students. Louisiana is not asserting a separate injury such as being denied its full participation in the federal system, nor does it allege injury to its citizens health or economic well-being in a way that also implicates its own interests.”
Finally, the state argues that “it has a proprietary interest in JPSB keeping its governmental funding, which turns on its obedience to state and federal law,” but the panel concludes that the “alleged harms ‘rel[y] on a highly attenuated chain of possibilities’” and “Louisiana’s possible exposure to recoupment is uncertain.”
The Fifth Circuit grants one change to the judgment, though, ordering a remand to state court under 28 U.S.C. § 1447(c) rather than dismissal.
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