## Facts

- Graney and sixteen other plaintiffs were tenured faculty members in the University of Wisconsin system.
- The Board of Regents of the University of Wisconsin (the Board) concluded the university faced serious financial constraints after declining enrollment and the state legislature’s funding decisions.
- Acting on the Board’s determination of financial exigency, university officials informed certain tenured faculty members by letter that they would be laid off for financial reasons.
- The layoff notices set an effective date (including notices effective June 30, 1974) and cited financial exigency at the affected campuses.
- The Board established internal review procedures, including review by faculty committees on the affected campuses.
- Several campus committees voted to rescind the layoffs, but campus chancellors reinstated them, and the Board affirmed the chancellors’ decisions.
- The faculty first sought a preliminary injunction in federal court and litigated federal due-process issues there, but they did not obtain the requested federal injunctive relief.
- The faculty then filed a state-court action seeking damages and declaratory and injunctive relief, asserting (among other claims) breach of contract and violations of due process under the Fourteenth Amendment.
- The faculty relied on Wis. Stat. § 37.31, which limited termination of tenured faculty to terminations “for cause,” defined in terms of efficiency and good behavior, and did not list financial exigency.
- The circuit court granted summary judgment to the defendants and dismissed the action; the faculty appealed.

## Issues

1. Whether the Board of Regents could be sued for monetary damages, or whether it shared the State’s sovereign immunity because it was not an “independent going concern.”
2. Whether the faculty’s due-process claims were barred by res judicata because those issues had already been litigated in the prior federal action arising from the same layoff events.
3. Whether the faculty could obtain declaratory or injunctive relief in circuit court without using the review procedure prescribed by statute and Board rules for challenging the layoffs of tenured faculty.

## Decision

- The Wisconsin Court of Appeals affirmed the circuit court’s summary judgment for the defendants.
- The court held the Board of Regents was not an “independent going concern” and therefore enjoyed the State’s sovereign immunity from suits seeking money damages absent legislative consent.
- The court held the faculty could not relitigate federal due-process issues in state court because those issues had been litigated and decided in the prior federal case; res judicata barred the renewed due-process claims.
- The court held that where a statute provides a specific method for review of an administrative decision (here, review of faculty layoffs), that procedure must be used; bypassing it prevents the circuit court from granting injunctive relief.
- Because the claims for damages were barred by sovereign immunity, the due-process claims were precluded, and the remaining challenges were not properly before the circuit court outside the prescribed review path, summary judgment was proper.

## Legal Principles

- A state agency that functions as an arm of the State, and not as an “independent going concern,” shares the State’s sovereign immunity and cannot be held liable for monetary damages without express legislative authorization.
- Res judicata bars parties from bringing in state court the same constitutional due-process issues that were litigated and resolved in a prior federal action arising out of the same underlying events.
- When the legislature provides a specific review mechanism for challenging an administrative action, a party must use that mechanism; failure to do so deprives the circuit court of authority to grant injunctive relief on that challenge.
- Summary judgment is proper when the dispositive questions are legal (immunity, preclusion, and availability of judicial review) and the record shows no genuine dispute of material fact affecting those questions.

## Conclusion

Graney held that the Board of Regents could not be sued for damages because it shared the State’s sovereign immunity, that the faculty could not revive federal due-process claims already decided in federal court, and that challenges to tenured-faculty layoffs had to proceed through the prescribed review procedure rather than by a separate circuit-court suit for injunctive relief; the court therefore affirmed summary judgment for the defendants.


Graney v. Board of Regents of the University of Wisconsin, 286 N.W.2d 138 (1979)