Freedom Lawyers of America

By Charles Lane
Washington Post Staff Writer
Thursday, April 24, 2003; Page A06

The Supreme Court yesterday unanimously upheld the right of a Nevada man to sue California tax collection officials for alleged violations of Nevada law in Nevada's courts, a decision that illustrated the limits to the court's recent drive to enhance states' rights.

In a series of cases, the court has enshrined the states' sovereign immunity against lawsuits under federal law, either in federal court or in a state's own courts.

But in this case, a state or its officials were sued in another state under the second state's law. About 35 states and two territories had filed a friend-of-the-court brief urging the justices to rule that states may assert sovereign immunity against such lawsuits in "core" state functions, such as tax collection.

Citing states' need to secure the resources they are owed, they suggested that the court revisit a 1979 ruling that the Constitution does not bar suits against one state in the courts of another. That argument was pitched to the court's five-member conservative majority, which includes Chief Justice William H. Rehnquist -- who, as an associate justice, had vigorously dissented from the 1979 decision.

However, the states' suggestion was brushed aside in an 11-page opinion by Justice Sandra Day O'Connor, a strong supporter of the court's decisions on states' rights.

"We are not presented here with a case in which a State has exhibited a . . . policy of hostility to the public acts of a sister State," O'Connor wrote.

The case involved a suit by Gilbert Hyatt, a millionaire former California resident who was the subject of an aggressive effort by California officials to recoup taxes he allegedly owed.

Hyatt accused the tax collectors of invasion of privacy and fraud, but California argued that they were immune from suit under its law, and demanded that Nevada apply that rule in its courts under the constitutional provision requiring states to give "full faith and credit" to one another's laws.

The case is Franchise Tax Board of California v. Hyatt, No. 02-42.


� 2003 The Washington Post Company