On August 8th, Cockle Legal Briefs filed the Petition for Writ of Certiorari in No. __, Wendt-West v. Hawai’i Dept. of Educ., et al. The Petitioner, Curtis Jason Wendt-West, poses three questions to the United States Supreme Court:
- Whether the States, in private suits involving Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, as amended, 42 U.S.C. § 2000e et seq., retain their Eleventh Amendment sovereign immunity in a federal court of another State or whether that immunity, in such cases, is congressionally abrogated “by appropriate legislation” through the enforcement powers of the Fourteenth Amendment.
- Whether the lower courts, before dismissing Mr. Wendt-West, properly considered this Court’s 1976 holding in Fitzpatrick v. Bitzer which affirmed the congressional abrogation of State sovereign immunity in private suits involving Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, as amended, 42 U.S.C. § 2000e et seq.
- Whether Mr. Wendt-West, a pro se litigant, should have been dismissed without prejudice, instead of with prejudice, and whether he should have been allowed an opportunity to amend his complaint to correct defective allegations of personal jurisdiction in the district court or on appeal after filing his motion seeking leave of court to amend pursuant to 28 U.S.C. § 1653.
The case arises out of the United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit. You can access a copy of the Petition here.