Forward, Inc. v. MacOmber

── Forward, Inc. v. MacOmber ── Court: Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit Date: April 27, 2026 Category: General FOR PUBLICATION UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS FOR THE NINTH CIRCUIT FORWARD, INC., No. 24-4983 D.C. No. Plaintiff - Appellant, 2:24-cv-00655- JAM-DB v. JEFF MACOMBER; ANNA M. LASSO, OPINION Defendants - Appellees. Appeal from the United States District Court for the Eastern District of California John A. Mendez, District Judge, Presiding Argued and Submitted October 20, 2025 San Francisco, California Filed April 27, 2026 Before: Ronald M. Gould, John B. Owens, and Patrick J. Bumatay, Circuit Judges. Opinion by Judge Owens; Dissent by Judge Gould 2 FORWARD V. MACOMBER SUMMARY* Sovereign Immunity The panel affirmed the district court’s dismissal, for lack of subject matter jurisdiction, of a citizen suit seeking injunctive and declaratory relief under the Resource Conservation and Recovery Act (RCRA) from the Secretary of the California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation and the Director of the California Department of General Services. The Eleventh Amendment shields states from suits brought by citizens in federal court. Under Ex parte Young, 209 U.S. 123 (1908), an exception to this rule, plaintiffs can sue state officers in their official capacities for prospective declaratory or injunctive relief. The sued state officer must have some “fairly direct” connection with the alleged violation of federal law. The panel held that here, the plaintiff did not establish the requisite “fairly direct” connection between defendants and the alleged RCRA violations in the generation of hazardous waste at a cluster of state facilities. Neither defendants’ roles nor their particular actions subjected them to this suit. The panel disagreed with the dissent’s conclusion that “supervision” alone is enough to satisfy Ex parte Young. Dissenting, Judge Gould wrote that the plaintiff adequately showed the required connection between the * This summary constitutes no part of the opinion of the court. It has been prepared by court staff for the convenience of the reader.  FORWARD V. MACOMBER 3 state defendants and the alleged RCRA violations by alleging that the defendants had control over the agencies and their operations alleged to be causing pollution. COUNSEL Thomas M. Bruen (argued) and Erik A. Reinertson, Law Offices of Thomas M. Bruen PC, Walnut Creek, California, for Plaintiff-Appellant. Adam K. Guernsey (argued) and Cassandra L. Goltz, Harrison Temblador Hungerford & Guernsey LLP, Sacramento, California, for Defendants-Appellees. OPINION OWENS, Circuit Judge: This is a suit about who to sue. Forward, which owns and operates a California landfill, has sued two California agency heads over alleged groundwater contamination arising from state facilities. The district court determined that Forward sued the wrong state actors and dismissed the suit for lack of subject-matter jurisdiction. We have jurisdiction under 28 U.S.C. § 1291, and we affirm. I. BACKGROUND Forward, Inc. owns a landfill (“Forward Landfill”) near Stockton, California. This landfill has been the subject of cleanup orders from a local water quality board to remediate 4 FORWARD V. MACOMBER groundwater contamination flowing from the site. Bordering the Forward Landfill is a cluster of state facilities, including N.A. Chaderjian Youth Correctional Facility, the O.H. Close Youth Correctional Facility, Youth Authority Department, the California Health Care Facility, the Delta Center California Conservation Corps., and