High court hears sides argue state immunity

The Arkansas Supreme Court, in a lawsuit over back wages sought by a bookstore manager at a Mena community college, dug into the question Thursday of when and why residents can take state agencies to court.

The case in front of the high court, Board of Trustees of the University of Arkansas vs. Matthew Andrews, questions whether the Legislature has the authority to waive a legal doctrine known as sovereign immunity, which protects the government from lawsuits. The Supreme Court heard oral arguments in the case Thursday morning.

Most of the questions during the hour’s worth of debate came from two justices — Rhonda Wood and specially appointed justice Chad Pekron — who needled attorneys on both sides to explain when the state can permit exemptions to sovereign immunity.

“Should there be a point where it’s settled law that we shouldn’t go back and change?” Pekron asked the university system’s attorney, David Curran.

But near the end, Justice Josephine Hart aimed her remarks at Curran — who was delivering his rebuttal — and said the constitution at times conflicts with itself.

“There are other provisions in the constitution that say every wrong has a remedy,” Hart said. “You have to weigh that.”

In Arkansas, the doctrine is established in simple wording in Article 5, Section 20, of the 1874 Constitution, which says, “The State of Arkansas shall never be made defendant in any of her courts.”

Andrews, a former bookstore clerk at Rich Mountain Community College, sued the school in 2013, arguing he was entitled to overtime pay required under Arkansas’ minimum-wage laws. When the community college was merged into the University of Arkansas System in 2017, the system took on the lawsuit.

While in the lower court, the state moved to have the case dismissed as a violation of sovereign immunity. The lower court judge in Polk County declined to dismiss the case, and his decision was appealed to the Supreme Court.

Revisions in the Minimum Wage Act, adopted by lawmakers in 2006, allow public employees to “bring action” against the state or its subdivisions if they are not being compensated according to the law.

Attorneys for the University of Arkansas System — backed up by an amicus curiae, or “friend of the court,” brief signed by Attorney General Leslie Rutledge — said in court filings that the Legislature has no authority to waive the constitution’s sovereign immunity protections.

They pointed to the state Claims Commission, an administrative body established in 1955, as the appropriate venue for claims against state government.

But for decades, the Supreme Court had upheld laws that waived sovereign immunity, Andrews’ attorney, Joshua Sanford, argued Thursday.