Arkansas Department of Human Services and John M. Selig

Summary

The court held that sovereign immunity did not bar the school districts’ requests for declaratory and injunctive relief challenging the Department of Human Services’ liability-insurance rule, because the legislature expressly authorized declaratory challenges to agency rules and the injunction could enforce the resulting judgment. It held that sovereign immunity barred the districts’ request for costs and attorney’s fees and that statutory immunity barred claims against the agency director in his individual capacity. The court dismissed the portion of the appeal challenging the underlying applicability of the insurance requirement because only immunity issues were properly before it. Justice Danielson, dissenting, would have dismissed the entire appeal for lack of an express circuit-court ruling on immunity.