UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS November 12, 2024

Christopher M. Wolpert FOR THE TENTH CIRCUIT Clerk of Court _________________________________

JEFFREY GOOD,

Plaintiff - Appellant,

v. No. 22-3286

THE UNITED STATES DEPARTMENT OF EDUCATION; THE HIGHER EDUCATION LOAN AUTHORITY OF THE STATE OF MISSOURI,

Defendants - Appellees. _________________________________

Appeal from the United States District Court for the District of Kansas (D.C. No. 2:21-CV-02539-JAR-ADM) _________________________________ Nandan M. Joshi, Public Citizen Litigation Group, Washington, DC (Allison M. Zieve, Public Citizen Litigation Group, Washington, DC, and Mark D. Molner, Evans & Mullinix, P.A., Shawnee, Kansas, with him on the briefs), for Plaintiff-Appellant. Matthew D. Guletz, Thompson Coburn LLP, St. Louis, Missouri, for Defendant- Appellee, Higher Education Loan Authority of the State of Missouri. Brian M. Boynton, Principal Deputy Assistant Attorney General, Civil Division, U.S. Department of Justice, Washington DC; Kate E. Brubacher, United States Attorney, Wichita, Kansas; and Mark B. Stern, Sarah Carroll, and David L. Peters, Attorneys, Appellate Staff Civil Division with the U.S. Department of Justice, Washington, DC, on the brief for Defendant-Appellee, United States Department of Education. _________________________________ Before HOLMES, Chief Judge, MATHESON, and EID, Circuit Judges. _________________________________ Appellate Case: 22-3286 Document: 105-1 Date Filed: 11/12/2024 Page: 2

HOLMES, Chief Judge. _________________________________

After finding errors on his credit report, Plaintiff-Appellant Jeffrey Good sued, inter alia, the United States Department of Education (“the Department”) and the Higher Education Loan Authority of the State of Missouri (“MOHELA”) under the Fair Credit Reporting Act (“FCRA”), 15 U.S.C. §§ 1681–1681x. The United States District Court for the District of Kansas ruled in favor of the Department and MOHELA and dismissed Mr. Good’s claims against them. Specifically, the district court granted the Department’s motion to dismiss because FCRA did not waive the United States’ sovereign immunity from suit, so the Department (as a United States agency) was entitled to sovereign immunity. And the district court granted MOHELA’s motion for judgment on the pleadings because it concluded that MOHELA was an arm of the State of Missouri and entitled to share in Missouri’s Eleventh Amendment immunity from suit.

Mr. Good appeals from the district court’s dismissal of his claims against both the Department and MOHELA. With respect to the Department, we need not linger long: the parties agree that the district court’s dismissal of the claims against the Department must be reversed in light of the Supreme Court’s recent decision in Department of Agriculture Rural Development Rural Housing Service v. Kirtz, 601 U.S. 42, 64 (2024).

The question of whether MOHELA is an arm of the State of Missouri entitled to immunity from suit, however, requires a deeper discussion. It is an issue that has

2 Appellate Case: 22-3286 Document: 105-1 Date Filed: 11/12/2024 Page: 3

divided the courts that have addressed it. After carefully considering the parties’ arguments, we conclude that MOHELA is not an arm of the state entitled to Eleventh Amendment immunity.

Accordingly, exercising appellate jurisdiction under 28 U.S.C. § 1291, we reverse the district court’s judgment and remand this matter for a