Suits Against States
The Judicial power of the United States shall not be construed to extend to any suit in law or equity, commenced or prosecuted against one of the United States by Citizens of another State, or by Citizens or Subjects of any Foreign State.
Annotations
Despite the apparent limitations of the Eleventh Amendment, individuals may, under certain circumstances, bring constitutional and statutory cases against states. In some of these cases, the state’s sovereign immunity has either been waived by the state or abrogated by Congress. In other cases, the Eleventh Amendment does not apply because the procedural posture is such that the Court does not view them as being against a state. As discussed below, this latter doctrine is most often seen in suits to enjoin state officials. However, it has also been invoked in bankruptcy and admiralty cases, where the res, or property in dispute, is in fact the legal target of a dispute.64
The application of this last exception to the bankruptcy area has become less relevant, because even when a bankruptcy case is not focused on a particular res, the Court has held that a state’s sovereign immunity is not infringed by being subject to an order of a bankruptcy court. “The history of the Bankruptcy Clause, the reasons it was inserted in the Constitution, and the legislation both proposed and enacted under its auspices immediately following ratification of the Constitution demonstrate that it was intended not just as a grant of legislative authority to Congress, but also to authorize limited subordination of state sovereign immunity in the bankruptcy arena.”65 Thus, where a federal law authorized a bankruptcy trustee to recover “preferential transfers” made to state educational institutions,66 the court held that the sovereign immunity of the state was not infringed despite the fact that the issue was “ancillary” to a bankruptcy court’s in rem jurisdiction.67
Because Eleventh Amendment sovereign immunity inheres in states and not their subdivision or establishments, a state agency that wishes to claim state sovereign immunity must establish that it is acting as an arm of the state: “agencies exercising state power have been permitted to invoke the [Eleventh] Amendment in order to protect the state treasury from liability that would have had essentially the same practical consequences as a judgment against the State itself.”68 In evaluating such a claim, the Court will examine state law to determine the nature of the entity, and whether to treat it as an arm of the state.69 The Court has consistently refused to extend Eleventh Amendment sovereign immunity to counties, cities, or towns,70 even though such political subdivisions exercise a “slice of state power.”71 Even when such entities enjoy immunity from suit under state law, they do not have Eleventh Amendment immunity in federal court and the states may not confer it.72 Similarly, entities created pursuant to interstate compacts (and subject to congressional approval) are not immune from suit, absent a showing that the entity was structured so as to take advantage of the state’s constitutional protections.73
Consent to Suit and Waiver.—The immunity of a state from suit is a privilege which it may waive at its pleasure. A state may expressly consent to being sued in federal court by statute.74 But the conclusion that there has been consent or a waiver is not lightly inferred; the Court strictly construes statutes alleged to consent to suit. Thus, a state may waive its immunity in its own courts without consenting to suit in federal court,75 and a general authorization “to sue and be sued” is ordinarily insufficient to constitute consent.76 “The Court will give effect to a State’s waiver of Eleventh Amendment immunity ‘only where stated by the most express language or by such overwhelming implication from the text as [will] leave no room for any other reasonable construction.’ A State does not waive its Eleventh Amendment immunity by consenting to suit only in its own courts, and ‘[t]hus, in order for a state statute or constitutional provision to constitute a waiver of Eleventh Amendment immunity, it must specify the State’s intention to subject itself to suit in federal court.’”77
Thus, in Port Authority Trans-Hudson Corp. v. Feeney,78 an expansive consent “to suits, actions, or proceedings of any form or nature at law, in equity or otherwise” was deemed too “ambiguous and general” to waive immunity in federal court, because it might be interpreted to reflect only a state’s consent to suit in its own courts. But, when combined with language specifying that consent was conditioned on venue being laid “within a county or judicial district, established by one of said States or by the United States, and situated wholly or partially within the Port of New York District,” waiver was effective.79
In a few cases, the Court has found a waiver by implication, but the vitality of these cases is questionable. In Parden v. Terminal Railway,80 the Court ruled that employees of a state-owned railroad could sue the state for damages under the Federal Employers’ Liability Act. One of the two primary grounds for finding lack of immunity was that by taking control of a railroad which was subject to the FELA, enacted some 20 years previously, the state had effectively accepted the imposition of the Act and consented to suit.81 Distinguishing Parden as involving a proprietary activity,82 the Court later refused to find any implied consent to suit by states participating in federal spending programs; participation was insufficient, and only when waiver has been “stated by the most express language or by such overwhelming implications from the text as [will] leave no room for any other reasonable construction,” will it be found.83 . Further, even if a state becomes amenable to suit under a statutory condition on accepting federal funds, remedies, especially monetary damages, may be limited, absent express language to the contrary.84
A state may waive its immunity by initiating or participating in litigation. In Clark v. Barnard,85 the state had filed a claim for disputed money deposited in a federal court, and the Court held that the state could not thereafter complain when the court awarded the money to another claimant. However, the Court is loath to find a waiver simply because of the decision of an official or an attorney representing the state to litigate the merits of a suit, so that a state may at any point in litigation raise a claim of immunity based on whether that official has the authority under state law to make a valid waiver.86 However, this argument is only available when the state is brought into federal court involuntarily. If a state voluntarily agrees to removal of a state action to federal court, the Court has held it may not then invoke a defense of sovereign immunity and thereby gain an unfair tactical advantage.87
Congressional Withdrawal of Immunity.—The Constitution grants Congress power to regulate state action by legislation. At least in some instances when Congress does so, it may subject the states themselves to suit by individuals to implement the legislation. The clearest example arises from the Civil War Amendments, which directly restrict state powers and expressly authorize Congress to enforce these restrictions through appropriate legislation.88 Thus, “the Eleventh Amendment and the principle of state sovereignty which it embodies . . . are necessarily limited, by the enforcement provisions of § 5 of the Fourteenth Amendment.”89 The power to enforce the Civil War Amendments is substantive, however, not being limited to remedying judicially cognizable violations of the amendments, but extending as well to measures that in Congress’s judgment will promote compliance.90 The principal judicial brake on this power to abrogate state immunity in legislation enforcing the Civil War Amendments is the rule requiring that congressional intent to subject states to suit be clearly stated.91
In the 1989 case of Pennsylvania v. Union Gas Co.,92 the Court— temporarily at least—ended years of uncertainty by holding expressly that Congress acting pursuant to its Article I powers (as opposed to its Fourteenth Amendment powers) may abrogate the Eleventh Amendment immunity of the states, so long as it does so with sufficient clarity. Twenty-five years earlier the Court had stated that same principle,93 but only as an alternative holding, and a later case had set forth a more restrictive rule.94 The premises of Union Gas were that by consenting to ratification of the Constitution, with its Commerce Clause and other clauses empowering Congress and limiting the states, the states had implicitly authorized Congress to divest them of immunity, that the Eleventh Amendment was a restraint upon the courts and not similarly upon Congress, and that the exercises of Congress’s powers under the Commerce Clause and other clauses would be incomplete without the ability to authorize damage actions against the states to enforce congressional enactments. The dissenters disputed each of these strands of the argument, and, while recognizing the Fourteenth Amendment abrogation power, would have held that no such power existed under Article I.
Pennsylvania v. Union Gas lasted less than seven years before the Court overruled it in Seminole Tribe of Florida v. Florida.95 Chief Justice Rehnquist, writing for a 5–4 majority, concluded Union Gas had deviated from a line of cases, tracing back to Hans v. Louisiana,96 that viewed the Eleventh Amendment as implementing the “fundamental principle of sovereign immunity [that] limits the grant of judicial authority in Article III.”97 Because “the Eleventh Amendment restricts the judicial power under Article III, . . . Article I cannot be used to circumvent the constitutional limitations placed upon federal jurisdiction.”98 Subsequent cases have upheld this interpretation.99
Section 5 of the Fourteenth Amendment, of course, is another matter. Fitzpatrick v. Bitzer,100 which was “based upon a rationale wholly inapplicable to the Interstate Commerce Clause, viz. , that the Fourteenth Amendment, adopted well after the adoption of the Eleventh Amendment and the ratification of the Constitution, operated to alter the pre-existing balance between state and federal power achieved by Article III and the Eleventh Amendment,” remains good law.101 This ruling has led to a significant number of cases that examined whether a statute that might be applied against non-state actors under an Article I power, could also, under section 5 of the Fourteenth Amendment, be applied against the states.102
In another line of case, a different majority of the Court focused not so much on the authority Congress used to subject states to suit as on the language Congress used to overcome immunity. Henceforth, the Court held in a 1985 decision, and even with respect to statutes that were enacted prior to promulgation of this judicial rule of construction, “Congress may abrogate the States’ constitutionally secured immunity from suit in federal court only by making its intention unmistakably clear in the language of the statute” itself.103 This means that no legislative history will suffice at all.104
Indeed, at one time a plurality of the Court apparently believed that only if Congress refers specifically to state sovereign immunity and the Eleventh Amendment will its language be unmistakably clear.105 Thus, the Court held in Atascadero that general language subjecting to suit in federal court “any recipient of Federal assistance” under the Rehabilitation Act was deemed insufficient to satisfy this test, not because of any question about whether states are “recipients” within the meaning of the provision but because “given their constitutional role, the states are not like any other class of recipients of federal aid.”106 As a result of these rulings, Congress began to use the “magic words” the Court appeared to insist on.107 Later, however, the Court has accepted less precise language,108 and in at least one context, has eliminated the requirement of specific abrogation language altogether.109
Even before the decision in Alden v. Maine,110 when the Court believed that Eleventh Amendment sovereign immunity did not apply to suits in state courts, the Court applied its rule of strict construction to require “unmistakable clarity” by Congress in order to subject states to suit.111 Although the Court was willing to recognize exceptions to the clear statement rule when the issue involved subjection of states to suit in state courts, the Court also suggested the need for “symmetry” so that states’ liability or immunity would be the same in both state and federal courts.112
64 See Tennessee Student Assistance Corp. v. Hood, 541 U.S. 440, 446–48 (2004) (exercise of bankruptcy court’s in rem jurisdiction over a debtor’s estate to discharge a debt owed to a state does not infringe the state’s sovereignty); California v. Deep Sea Research, Inc., 523 U.S. 491, 507–08 (1998) (despite state claims over shipwrecked vessel, the Eleventh Amendment does not bar federal court in rem admiralty jurisdiction where the res is not in the possession of the sovereign).
65 Central Virginia Community College v. Katz, 546 U.S. 356, 362–63 (2006).
66 A “preferential transfer” was defined as the transfer of a property interest from an insolvent debtor to a creditor, which occurred on or within 90 days before the filing of a bankruptcy petition, and which exceeds what the creditor would have been entitled to receive under such bankruptcy filing. 11 U.S.C. § 547(b).
67 546 U.S. at 373.
68 Lake County Estates v. Tahoe Regional Planning Agency, 440 U.S. 391, 400–01 (1979), citing Edelman v. Jordan, 415 U.S. 651 (1974), and Ford Motor Co. v. Department of Treasury, 323 U.S. 459 (1945). The fact that a state agency can be indemnified for the costs of litigation does not divest the agency of its Eleventh Amendment immunity. Regents of the University of California v. Doe, 519 U.S. 425 (1997).
69 See, e.g., Mt. Healthy City Bd. of Educ. v. Doyle, 429 U.S. 274, 280 (1977) (local school district not an arm of the state based on (1) its designation in state law as a political subdivision, (2) the degree of supervision by the state board of education, (3) the level of funding received from the state, and (4) the districts’ empowerment to generate their own revenue through the issuance of bonds or levying taxes.
70 Northern Insurance Company of New York v. Chatham County, 547 U.S. 189, 193 (2006) (counties have neither Eleventh Amendment immunity nor residual common law immunity). See Mt. Healthy City Bd. of Educ. v. Doyle, 429 U.S. 274 (1977); Moor v. County of Alameda, 411 U.S. 693 (1973); Workman v. City of New York, 179 U.S. 552 (1900); Lincoln County v. Luning, 133 U.S. 529 (1890). In contrast to their treatment under the Eleventh Amendment, the Court has found that state immunity from federal regulation under the Tenth Amendment extends to political subdivisions as well. See Printz v. United States, 521 U.S. 898 (1997).
71 Lake County Estates v. Tahoe Regional Planning Agency, 440 U.S. 391, 400–01 (1979) (quoting earlier cases).
72 Chicot County v. Sherwood, 148 U.S. 529 (1893).
73 Lake County Estates v. Tahoe Regional Planning Agency, 440 U.S. 391 (1979); Petty v. Tennessee-Missouri Bridge Comm’n, 359 U.S. 275 (1959).
74 Gunter v. Atlantic Coast Line R.R., 200 U.S. 273, 284 (1906).
75 Smith v. Reeves, 178 U.S. 436 (1900); Murray v. Wilson Distilling Co., 213 U.S. 151, 172 (1909); Graves v. Texas Co., 298 U.S. 393, 403–04 (1936); Great Northern Life Ins. Co. v. Read, 322 U.S. 47 (1944).
76 Great Northern Life Ins. Co. v. Read, 322 U.S. 47, 54 (1944); Ford Motor Co. v. Department of Treasury, 323 U.S. 459 (1945); Kennecott Copper Corp. v. State Tax Comm’n, 327 U.S. 573 (1947); Petty v. Tennessee-Missouri Bridge Comm’n, 359 U.S. 275 (1959); Florida Dep’t of Health v. Florida Nursing Home Ass’n, 450 U.S. 147 (1981). Compare Patsy v. Florida Bd. of Regents, 457 U.S. 496, 519 n.* (1982) (Justice White concurring), with id. at 522 and n.5 (Justice Powell dissenting).
77 Port Authority Trans-Hudson Corp. v. Feeney, 495 U.S. 299, 305–06 (1990) (internal citations omitted; emphasis in original).
78 495 U.S. 299 (1990).
79 495 U.S. at 306–07. But see Atascadero State Hosp. v. Scanlon, 473 U.S. 234, 241 (1985).
80 377 U.S. 184 (1964). The alternative but interwoven ground had to do with Congress’s power to withdraw immunity. See also Petty v. Tennessee-Missouri Bridge Comm’n, 359 U.S. 275 (1959).
81 The implied waiver issue aside, Parden subsequently was overruled, a plurality of the Court emphasizing that Congress had failed to abrogate state immunity unmistakably. Welch v. Texas Dep’t of Highways and Pub. Transp., 483 U.S. 468 (1987). Justice Powell’s plurality opinion was joined by Chief Justice Rehnquist and by Justices White and O’Connor. Justice Scalia, concurring, thought Parden should be overruled because it must be assumed that Congress enacted the FELA and other statutes with the understanding that Hans v. Louisiana shielded states from immunity. Id. at 495.
82 Edelman v. Jordan, 415 U.S. 651, 671–72 (1974). For the same distinction in the Tenth Amendment context, see National League of Cities v. Usery, 426 U.S. 833, 854 n.18 (1976).
83 Edelman v. Jordan, 415 U.S. 651 (1974) (quoting id. at 673, Murray v. Wilson Distilling Co., 213 U.S. 151, 171 (1909)); Florida Dep’t of Health v. Florida Nursing Home Ass’n, 450 U.S. 147 (1981). Of the four Edelman dissenters, Justices Marshall and Blackmun found waiver through knowing participation, 415 U.S. at 688. In Florida Dep’t, Justice Stevens noted he would have agreed with them had he been on the Court at the time but that he would now adhere to Edelman. Id. at 151.
84 Sossamon v. Texas, 563 U.S. ___, No. 08–1438, slip op. (2011).
85 108 U.S. 436 (1883).
86 Ford Motor Co. v. Department of Treasury, 323 U.S. 459, 466–467 (1945); Edelman v. Jordan, 415 U.S. 651, 677–678 (1974).
87 Lapides v. Board of Regents, 535 U.S. 613 (2002).
88 Fitzpatrick v. Bitzer, 427 U.S. 445 (1976); Hutto v. Finney, 437 U.S. 678 (1978); City of Rome v. United States, 446 U.S. 156 (1980). More recent cases affirming Congress’s § 5 powers include Pennhurst State School & Hosp. v. Halderman, 465 U.S. 89, 99 (1984); Atascadero State Hosp. v. Scanlon, 473 U.S. 234, 238 (1985); and Dellmuth v. Muth, 491 U.S. 223, 227 (1989).
89 Fitzpatrick v. Bitzer, 427 U.S. 445, 456 (1976) (under the Fourteenth Amendment, Congress may “provide for private suits against States or state officials which are constitutionally impermissible in other contexts.”).
90 In Maher v. Gagne, 448 U.S. 122 (1980), the Court found that Congress could validly authorize imposition of attorneys’ fees on the state following settlement of a suit based on both constitutional and statutory grounds, even though settlement had prevented determination that there had been a constitutional violation. Maine v. Thiboutot, 448 U.S. 1 (1980), held that § 1983 suits could be premised on federal statutory as well as constitutional grounds. Other cases in which attorneys’ fees were awarded against states are Hutto v. Finney, 437 U.S. 678 (1978); and New York Gaslight Club v. Carey, 447 U.S. 54 (1980). See also Frew v. Hawkins, 540 U.S. 431 (2004) (upholding enforcement of consent decree).
91 Even prior to the tightening of the clear statement rule over the past several subject application of the rule curbed congressional enforcement. Fitzpatrick v. Bitzer, 427 U.S. 445 451–53 (1976); Hutto v. Finney, 437 U.S. 678, 693–98 (1978). Because of its rule of clear statement, the Court in Quern v. Jordan, 440 U.S. 332 (1979), held that in enacting 42 U.S.C. § 1983, Congress had not intended to include states within the term “person” for the purpose of subjecting them to suit. The question arose after Monell v. New York City Dep’t of Social Services, 436 U.S. 658 (1978), reinterpreted “person” to include municipal corporations. Cf. Alabama v. Pugh, 438 U.S. 781 (1978). The Court has reserved the question whether the Fourteenth Amendment itself, without congressional action, modifies the Eleventh Amendment to permit suits against states, Milliken v. Bradley, 433 U.S. 267, 290 n.23 (1977), but the result in Milliken, holding that the Governor could be enjoined to pay half the cost of providing compensatory education for certain schools, which would come from the state treasury, and in Scheuer v. Rhodes, 416 U.S. 232 (1974), permitting imposition of damages upon the governor, which would come from the state treasury, is suggestive. But see Mauclet v. Nyquist, 406 F. Supp. 1233 (W.D.N.Y. 1976) (refusing money damages under the Fourteenth Amendment), appeal dismissed sub nom. Rabinovitch v. Nyquist, 433 U.S. 901 (1977). The Court declined in Ex parte Young, 209 U.S. 123, 150 (1908), to view the Eleventh Amendment as modified by the Fourteenth.
92 491 U.S. 1 (1989). The plurality opinion of the Court was by Justice Brennan and was joined by the three other Justices who believed Hans was incorrectly decided. See id. at 23 (Justice Stevens concurring). The fifth vote was provided by Justice White, id. at 45, 55–56 (Justice White concurring), although he believed Hans was correctly decided and ought to be maintained and although he did not believe Congress had acted with sufficient clarity in the statutes before the Court to abrogate immunity. Justice Scalia thought the statutes were express enough but that Congress simply lacked the power. Id. at 29. Chief Justice Rehnquist and Justices O’Connor and Kennedy joined relevant portions of both opinions finding lack of power and lack of clarity.
93 Parden v. Terminal Railway, 377 U.S. 184, 190–92 (1964). See also Employees of the Dep’t of Pub. Health and Welfare v. Department of Pub. Health and Welfare, 411 U.S. 279, 283, 284, 285–86 (1973).
94 Edelman v. Jordan, 415 U.S. 651, 672 (1974).
95 517 U.S. 44 (1996) (invalidating a provision of the Indian Gaming Regulatory Act authorizing an Indian tribe to sue a state in federal court to compel performance of a duty to negotiate in good faith toward the formation of a compact).
96 134 U.S. 1 (1890).
97 517 U.S. at 64 (quoting Pennhurst State School & Hosp. v. Halderman, 465 U.S. 89, 97–98 (1984).
98 517 U.S. at 72–73. Justice Souter’s dissent undertook a lengthy refutation of the majority’s analysis, asserting that the Eleventh Amendment is best understood, in keeping with its express language, as barring only suits based on diversity of citizenship, and as having no application to federal question litigation. Moreover, Justice Souter contended, the state sovereign immunity that the Court mistakenly recognized in Hans v. Louisiana was a common law concept that “had no constitutional status and was subject to congressional abrogation.” 517 U.S. at 117. The Constitution made no provision for wholesale adoption of the common law, but, on the contrary, was premised on the view that common law rules would always be subject to legislative alteration. This “imperative of legislative control grew directly out of the Framers’ revolutionary idea of popular sovereignty.” Id. at 160.
99 College Savings Bank v. Florida Prepaid Postsecondary Educ. Expense Bd., 527 U.S. 666 (1999) (the Trademark Remedy Clarification Act, an amendment to the Lanham Act, did not validly abrogate state immunity); Florida Prepaid Postsecondary Educ. Expense Bd. v. College Savings Bank, 527 U.S. 627 (1999) (amendment to patent laws abrogating state immunity from infringement suits is invalid); Kimel v. Florida Bd. of Regents, 528 U.S. 62 (2000) (abrogation of state immunity in the Age Discrimination in Employment Act is invalid).
100 427 U.S. 445 (1976).
101 Seminole Tribe, 517 U.S. at 65–66.
102 See Fourteenth Amendment, Congressional Definition of Fourteenth Amendment Rights, infra.
103 Atascadero State Hosp. v. Scanlon, 473 U.S. 234, 242 (1985) (emphasis added).
104 See, particularly, Dellmuth v. Muth, 491 U.S. 223, 230 (1989) (“legislative history generally will be irrelevant”), and Hoffman v. Connecticut Dep’t of Income Maintenance, 492 U.S. 96, 103–04 (1989).
105 Justice Kennedy for the Court in Dellmuth, 491 U.S. at 231, expressly noted that the statute before the Court did not demonstrate abrogation with unmistakably clarity because, inter alia, it “makes no reference whatsoever to either the Eleventh Amendment or the States’ sovereign immunity.” Justice Scalia, one of four concurring Justices, expressed an “understanding” that the Court’s reasoning would allow for clearly expressed abrogation of immunity “without explicit reference to state sovereign immunity or the Eleventh Amendment.” Id. at 233.
106 Atascadero State Hosp. v. Scanlon, 473 U.S. 234, 246 (1985). See also Dellmuth v. Muth, 491 U.S. 223 (1989).
107 In 1986, following Atascadero, Congress provided that states were not to be immune under the Eleventh Amendment from suits under several laws barring discrimination by recipients of federal financial assistance. Pub. L. 99–506, § 1003, 100 Stat. 1845 (1986), 42 U.S.C. § 2000d–7. Following Dellmuth, Congress amended the statute to insert the explicit language. Pub. L. 101–476, § 103, 104 Stat. 1106 (1990), 20 U.S.C. § 1403. See also the Copyright Remedy Clarification Act, Pub. L. 101–553, § 2, 104 Stat. 2749 (1990), 17 U.S.C. § 511 (making states and state officials liable in damages for copyright violations).
108 Kimel v. Florida Board of Regents, 528 U.S. 62, 74–78 (2000). In Kimel, statutory language authorized age discrimination suits “against any employer (including a public agency),” and a “public agency” was defined to include “the government of a State or political subdivision thereof.” The Court found this language to be sufficiently clear evidence of intent to abrogate state sovereign immunity. The relevant portion of the opinion was written by Justice O’Connor, and joined by Chief Justice Rehnquist and Justices Stevens, Scalia, Souter, Ginsberg, Breyer and Stevens. But see Raygor v. Regents of the University of Minnesota, 534 U.S. 533 (2002) (federal supplemental jurisdiction statute which tolls limitations period for state claims during pendency of federal case not applicable to claim dismissed on the basis of Eleventh Amendment immunity).
109 Central Virginia Community College v. Katz, 546 U.S. 356, 363 (2006) (abrogation of state sovereign immunity under the Bankruptcy Clause was effectuated by the Constitution, so it need not additionally be done by statute); id. at 383 (Justice Thomas dissenting).
110 527 U.S. 706 (1999).
111 Will v. Michigan Dep’t of State Police, 491 U.S. 58 (1989) (holding that states and state officials sued in their official capacity could not be made defendants in § 1983 actions in state courts).
112 Hilton v. South Carolina Pub. Rys. Comm’n, 502 U.S. 197, 206 (1991) (interest in “symmetry” is outweighed by stare decisis, the FELA action being controlled by Parden v. Terminal Ry.).
