Supreme Court strikes down Washington State law related to Hanford workers

On June 21, the U.S. Supreme Court called a workers’ compensation law enacted in 2018 in Washington State unconstitutional, as it applied only to certain workers at a federal facility in the State who were “engaged in the performance of work, either directly or indirectly, for the United States.”

The facility in question is the Hanford Site, a former nuclear weapons production facility and current Department of Energy cleanup site. Most workers at the site involved in the cleanup are federal contract workers—people employed by private companies under contract with the Federal Government. A smaller number of workers involved in the cleanup include State employees, private employees, and federal employees who work directly for the Federal Government.

As compared to Washington’s general workers’ compensation scheme, the 2018 law made it easier for federal contract workers at Hanford to establish their entitlement to workers’ compensation, thus increasing workers’ compensation costs for the Federal Government.

The United States brought suit against Washington state, arguing that Washington’s law violates the Supremacy Clause by discriminating against the Federal Government. The District Court concluded that the law was constitutional because it fell within the scope of a federal waiver of immunity contained in 40 U. S. C. §3172. The Ninth Circuit affirmed. The Supreme Court disagreed.

Held: Washington’s law facially discriminates against the Federal Government and its contractors. Justice Stephen Breyer delivered the unanimous opinion of the Court.

In the opinion, the Court first ruled that the case is not moot. A case is not moot unless it is impossible for the Court to grant any effectual relief. The Court found that it is not impossible for the United States to recover money if the Court rules in its favor, and thus it is within the jurisdiction of the Court to issue a ruling.

The opinion went on the discuss arguments pertaining to the Supremacy Clause. The Constitution’s Supremacy Clause generally immunizes the Federal Government from state laws that directly regulate or discriminate against it. Congress, however, can authorize such laws by waiving this constitutional immunity.

A state law discriminates against the Federal Government or its contractors if it “single[s them] out” for less favorable “treatment,” or if it regulates them unfavorably on some basis related to their governmental “status.” The Supreme Court found that Washington’s law violates these principles by singling out the Federal Government for unfavorable treatment. The law explicitly treats federal workers differently than state or private workers, and imposes costs upon the Federal Government that state and private entities do not bear. The law thus violates the Supremacy Clause unless Congress has consented to such regulation through waiver.

Congress waives the Federal Government’s immunity “only when and to the extent there is a clear congressional mandate.” Washington argues that Congress has waived federal immunity from state workers’ compensation laws on federal lands and projects through §3172(a), which says that “[t]he state authority charged with enforcing and requiring compliance with the state workers’ compensation laws . . . may apply [those] laws to all land and premises in the State which the Federal Government owns,” as well as “to all projects, buildings, constructions, improvements, and property in the State and belonging to the Government, in the same way and to the same extent as if the premises were under the exclusive jurisdiction of the State.”

The Court found, however, that one can reasonably read the statute as containing a narrower waiver of immunity than Washington read, namely, as only authorizing a State to extend its generally applicable state workers’ compensation laws to federal lands and projects within the State. Section 3172’s waiver thus does not “clear[ly] and unambiguous[ly]” authorize a State to enact a discriminatory law that facially singles out the Federal Government for unfavorable treatment.

The Supreme Court also held that Washington’s arguments to the contrary are unconvincing.

Washington emphasizes that the waiver statute allows a State to apply its workers’ compensation laws to federal premises “as if the premises were under the exclusive jurisdiction of the State.” But those words follow the phrase “in the same way and to the same extent” and, read together, the language could plausibly be interpreted to allow only the extension of generally applicable workers’ compensation laws to federal premises. The statute thus does not clearly and unambiguously permit the discrimination contained in Washington’s “federal workers only” law.

Washington next points to other congressional waivers of intergovernmental immunity that explicitly maintain the constitutional prohibition on discriminatory state laws. But the fact that Congress more explicitly preserved the immunity in other contexts does not mean that Congress clearly waived it in §3172(a).

Finally, Washington relies on Goodyear Atomic Corp. v. Miller, a case decided by the Supreme Court in 1988 that stated “the activities of federal installations are shielded by the Supremacy Clause from direct state regulation unless Congress provides "clear and unambiguous" authorization for such regulation.” That decision, however, said nothing about laws—such as the one here—that explicitly discriminate against the Federal Government. If anything, statements from Goodyear Atomic tend to support, not undermine, the Supreme Court’s decision today.

To read the full syllabus and Supreme Court opinion, please click here.