Home >  Browse the Constitution Annotated >  Eleventh Amendment >  Amdt11.1.3.1 General Scope of State Sovereign Immunity 

Amdt11.1.3.1 General Scope of State Sovereign Immunity

Eleventh Amendment:

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.

Expansion as a formal holding occurred in Hans v. Louisiana,1 a suit against the state by a resident of that state brought in federal court under federal question jurisdiction, alleging a violation of the Contract Clause in the state’s repudiation of its obligation to pay interest on certain bonds. Admitting that the Amendment on its face prohibited only the entertaining of a suit against a state by citizens of another state, or citizens or subjects of a foreign state, the Court nonetheless thought the literal language was an insufficient basis for decision. Rather, wrote Justice Bradley for the Court, the Eleventh Amendment was a result of the shock of surprise throughout the country at the Chisholm decision and reflected the determination that the decision was wrong and that federal jurisdiction did not extend to making defendants of unwilling states.2

Under this view, the amendment reversed an erroneous decision and restored the proper interpretation of the Constitution. The views of the opponents of subjecting states to suit were most sensible and just; and [those views] apply equally to the present case as to that then under discussion. The letter is appealed to now, as it was then, as a ground for sustaining a suit brought by an individual against a State. The reason against it is as strong in this case as it was in that. It is an attempt to strain the Constitution and the law to a construction never imagined or dreamed of.3 The truth is, that the cognizance of suits and actions unknown to the law, and forbidden by the law, was not contemplated by the Constitution when establishing the judicial power of the United States. . . . The suability of a State without its consent was a thing unknown to the law.4 Thus, although the literal terms of the Amendment did not so provide, the manner in which [Chisholm] was received by the country, the adoption of the Eleventh Amendment, the light of history and the reason of the thing,5 led the Court unanimously to hold that states could not be sued by their own citizens on grounds arising under the Constitution and laws of the United States.

Then, in Ex parte New York (No. 1),6 the Court held that, absent consent to suit, a state was immune to suit in admiralty, the Eleventh Amendment’s reference to any suit in law or equity notwithstanding. That a State may not be sued without its consent is a fundamental rule of jurisprudence . . . of which the Amendment is but an exemplification. . . . It is true the Amendment speaks only of suits in law or equity; but this is because . . . the Amendment was the outcome of a purpose to set aside the effect of the decision of this court in Chisholm v. Georgia . . . from which it naturally came to pass that the language of the Amendment was particularly phrased so as to reverse the construction adopted in that case.7 Just as Hans v. Louisiana had demonstrated the impropriety of construing the Amendment so as to permit federal question suits against a state, so it seems to us equally clear that it cannot with propriety be construed to leave open a suit against a State in the admiralty jurisdiction by individuals, whether its own citizens or not.8 An in rem admiralty action may be brought, however, if the state is not in possession of the res.9

And in extending protection against suits brought by foreign governments, the Court made clear the immunity flowed not from the Eleventh Amendment but from concepts of state sovereign immunity generally. Manifestly, we cannot . . . assume that the letter of the Eleventh Amendment exhausts the restrictions upon suits against non-consenting States. Behind the words of the constitutional provisions are postulates which limit and control. There is the . . . postulate that States of the Union, still possessing attributes of sovereignty, shall be immune from suits, without their consent, save where there has been 'a surrender of this immunity in the plan of the convention.' The Federalist No. 81.10

In the 1980s, four Justices, led by Justice Brennan, argued that Hans was incorrectly decided, that the Amendment was intended only to deny jurisdiction against the states in diversity cases, and that Hans and its progeny should be overruled.11 But the remaining five Justices adhered to Hans and in fact stiffened it with a rule of construction quite severe in its effect.12 The Hans interpretation was further solidified with the Court’s ruling in Seminole Tribe of Florida v. Florida,13 that Congress lacks the power under Article I to abrogate state immunity under the Eleventh Amendment, and with its ruling in Alden v. Maine14 that the broad principle of sovereign immunity reflected in the Eleventh Amendment bars suits against states in state courts as well as federal.

Having previously reserved the question of whether federal statutory rights could be enforced in state courts,15 the Court in Alden v. Maine16 held that states could also assert Eleventh Amendment sovereign immunity in their own courts. Recognizing that the application of the Eleventh Amendment, which limits only the federal courts, was a misnomer17 as applied to state courts, the Court nonetheless concluded that the principles of common law sovereign immunity applied absent compelling evidence that the states had surrendered such by the ratification of the Constitution. Although this immunity is subject to the same limitations as apply in federal courts, the Court’s decision effectively limited the application of significant portions of federal law to state governments. Both Seminole Tribe and Alden were also 5-4 decisions with the four dissenting Justices maintaining that Hans was wrongly decided.

This now-institutionalized 5-4 split continued with Federal Maritime Commission v. South Carolina State Ports Authority,18 which held that state sovereign immunity also applies to quasi-judicial proceedings in federal agencies. The operator of a cruise ship devoted to gambling had been denied entry to the Port of Charleston, and subsequently filed a complaint with the Federal Maritime Commission, alleging a violation of the Shipping Act of 1984.19 Justice Breyer, writing for the four dissenting justices, emphasized the executive (as opposed to judicial nature) of such agency adjudications, and pointed out that the ultimate enforcement of such proceedings in federal court was exercised by a federal agency (as is allowed under the doctrine of sovereign immunity). The majority, however, while admitting to a relatively barren historical record, presumed that when a proceeding was unheard of at the time of the founding of the Constitution, it could not subsequently be applied in derogation of a State’s dignity within our system of federalism.20

The Nature of the States’ Immunity

One view of the Eleventh Amendment, set out above in the discussion of Hans v. Louisiana, Ex parte New York, and Principality of Monaco, is that Chisholm was erroneously decided and that the Amendment’s effect, its express language notwithstanding, was to restore the original understanding that Article III’s grants of federal court jurisdiction did not extend to suits against the states. It explains the decision in Edelman v. Jordan,21 in which the Court held that a state could properly raise its Eleventh Amendment defense on appeal after having defended and lost on the merits in the trial court. [I]t has been well settled . . . that the Eleventh Amendment defense sufficiently partakes of the nature of a jurisdictional bar so that it need not be raised in the trial court.22 But that the bar is not wholly jurisdictional seems established as well.23

Moreover, if under Article III there is no jurisdiction of suits against states, the settled principle that states may consent to suit24 becomes conceptually difficult, as it is not possible to confer jurisdiction where it is lacking through the consent of the parties.25 And there is jurisdiction under Article III of some suits against states, such as those brought by the United States or by other states.26 Furthermore, Congress is able in at least some instances to legislate away state immunity,27 although it may not enlarge Article III jurisdiction.28 The Court has declared that the principle of sovereign immunity [reflected in the Eleventh Amendment] is a constitutional limitation on the federal judicial power established in Art. III, but almost in the same breath has acknowledged that [a] sovereign’s immunity may be waived.29

Another explanation of the Eleventh Amendment is that it merely recognized the continued vitality of the doctrine of sovereign immunity as established prior to the Constitution: a state was not subject to suit without its consent.30 This view also has support in modern case law: the States’ immunity from suit is a fundamental aspect of the sovereignty which the States enjoyed before the ratification of the Constitution, and which they retain today . . . .31 The Court in dealing with questions of governmental immunity from suit has traditionally treated interchangeably precedents dealing with state immunity and those dealing with Federal Governmental immunity.32 Viewing the Amendment and its radiations into Article III in this way provides a consistent explanation of the consent to suit as a waiver.33 The limited effect of the doctrine in this context in federal court arises from the fact that traditional sovereign immunity arose in a unitary state, barring unconsented suit against a sovereign in its own courts or the courts of another sovereign. But upon entering the Union the states surrendered their sovereignty to some undetermined and changing degree to the national government, a sovereign that does not have plenary power over them but that is more than their coequal.34

Within the area of federal court jurisdiction, the issue becomes the extent to which the states upon entering the Union gave up their immunity to suit in federal court. Chisholm held, and enactment of the Eleventh Amendment reversed the holding, that the states had given up their immunity to suit in diversity cases based on common law or state law causes of action; Hans v. Louisiana and subsequent cases held that the Amendment in effect codified an understanding of broader immunity to suits based on federal causes of action.35 Other cases have held that the states did give up their immunity to suits by the United States or by other states and that subjection to suit continues.36

Still another view of the Eleventh Amendment is that it embodies a state sovereignty principle limiting the power of the Federal Government.37 In this respect, the federal courts may not act without congressional guidance in subjecting states to suit, and Congress, which can act to the extent of its granted powers, is constrained by judicially created doctrines requiring it to be explicit when it legislates against state immunity.38

Questions regarding the constitutional dimensions of sovereign immunity have also arisen in the context of interstate sovereign immunity when a private party institutes an action against a state in another state’s court. In the now-overturned 1979 decision of Nevada v. Hall, the Court held that while states are free as a matter of comity to accord each other immunity or to respect any established limits on liability, the Constitution does not compel a state to grant another state immunity in its courts.39 In Hall, California residents who were severely injured in a car crash with a Nevada state university employee on official business sued the university and the State of Nevada in California court.40 After considering the scope of sovereign immunity as it existed prior to and in the early days of independence, the doctrine’s effect on the framing of the Constitution, and specific aspects of the Constitution that qualify the sovereignty of the several States, such as the Full Faith and Credit Clause,41 the Court concluded that [n]othing in the Federal Constitution authorizes or obligates this Court to frustrate California’s policy of full compensation in its courts for injuries on its highways resulting from the negligence of state or non-state actors out of enforced respect for the sovereignty of Nevada.42

Forty years later, the Court overruled Hall in Franchise Tax Board of California v. Hyatt (Franchise Tax Board III), holding that States retain their sovereign immunity from private suits brought in the courts of other States.43 The case involved a tort action by a private party against a California state agency in Nevada’s courts.44 The sole question before the Court was whether to overrule Nevada v. Hall, a question over which the Court divided in 2016.45 As the majority in Franchise Tax Board III read the historical record, although interstate sovereign immunity may have existed as a voluntary practice of comity at the time of the founding, the Constitution fundamentally adjust[ed] the States’ relationship with each other and curtail[ed] their ability, as sovereigns, to decline to recognize each other’s immunity.46 The Court reiterated the view embraced in several of its decisions since Hall that in proposing the Eleventh Amendment in response to Chisholm v. Georgia, Congress acted not to change but to restore the original constitutional design.47 Accordingly, the Court explained, the sovereign immunity of the States . . . neither derives from, nor is limited by, the terms of the Eleventh Amendment.48 Moreover, the Court reasoned, [n]umerous provisions in the Constitution support the view that interstate sovereign immunity is embe[dded] . . . within the constitutional design.49 Among other provisions, the Court cited Article I insofar as it divests the States of the traditional diplomatic and military tools that foreign sovereigns possess and Article IV’s Full Faith and Credit Clause, which requires that state-court judgments be accorded full effect in other States and preclude[s] States from ‘adopt[ing] any policy of hostility to the public Acts’ of other States.50 Accordingly, because sovereign immunity was inherent in the constitutional design, the Court concluded that the State of California could not be sued in Nevada absent the former state’s consent.51

Suits Against States

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.52

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.53 Thus, where a federal law authorized a bankruptcy trustee to recover preferential transfers made to state educational institutions,54 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.55

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.56 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.57 The Court has consistently refused to extend Eleventh Amendment sovereign immunity to counties, cities, or towns,58 even though such political subdivisions exercise a slice of state power.59 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.60 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.61

Footnotes

  1.  Jump to essay-1134 U.S. 1 (1890).
  2.  Jump to essay-2134 U.S. at 11.
  3.  Jump to essay-3134 U.S. at 14–15.
  4.  Jump to essay-4134 U.S. at 15, 16.
  5.  Jump to essay-5134 U.S. at 18. The Court acknowledged that Chief Justice Marshall’s opinion in Cohens v. Virginia, 19 U.S. (6 Wheat.) 264, 382–83, 406–07, 410–12 (1821), was to the contrary, but observed that the language was unnecessary to the decision and thus dictum, and though made by one who seldom used words without due reflection, ought not to outweigh the important considerations referred to which lead to a different conclusion. 134 U.S. at 20.
  6.  Jump to essay-6256 U.S. 490 (1921).
  7.  Jump to essay-7256 U.S. at 497–98.
  8.  Jump to essay-8256 U.S. at 498. See also Florida Dep’t of State v. Treasure Salvors, 458 U.S. 670 (1982); Welch v. Texas Dep’t of Highways and Transp., 483 U.S. 468 (1987).
  9.  Jump to essay-9California v. Deep Sea Research, Inc., 523 U.S. 491 (1998) (application of the Abandoned Shipwreck Act) (distinguishing Ex parte New York and Treasure Salvors as involving in rem actions against property actually in possession of the state).
  10.  Jump to essay-10Principality of Monaco v. Mississippi, 292 U.S. 313, 322–23 (1934) (footnote omitted); Breard v. Greene, 523 U.S. 371, 377 (1998) (foreign nation may not contest validity of criminal conviction after state’s failure at time of arrest to comply with notice requirements of Vienna Convention on Consular Relations). Similarly, relying on Monaco, the Court held that the Amendment bars suits by Indian tribes against non-consenting states. Blatchford v. Native Village of Noatak, 501 U.S. 775 (1991).
  11.  Jump to essay-11E.g., Atascadero State Hosp. v. Scanlon, 473 U.S. 234, 246 (1985) (dissenting); Welch v. Texas Dep’t of Highways & Pub. Transp., 483 U.S. 468, 496 (1987) (dissenting); Dellmuth v. Muth, 491 U.S. 223, 233 (1989) (dissenting); Port Authority Trans-Hudson Corp. v. Feeney, 495 U.S. 299, 309 (1990) (concurring). Joining Justice Brennan were Justices Marshall, Blackmun, and Stevens. See also Pennsylvania v. Union Gas Co., 491 U.S. 1, 23 (1989) (Justice Stevens concurring).
  12.  Jump to essay-12E.g., Pennhurst State School & Hosp. v. Halderman, 465 U.S. 89, 97–103 (1984) (opinion of the Court by Justice Powell); Atascadero State Hosp. v. Scanlon, 473 U.S. 234, 237–40, 243–44 n.3 (1985) (opinion of the Court by Justice Powell); Welch v. Texas Dep’t of Highways & Pub. Transp., 483 U.S. 468, 472–74, 478–95 (1987) (plurality opinion of Justice Powell); Pennsylvania v. Union Gas Co., 491 U.S. 1, 29 (1989) (Justice Scalia concurring in part and dissenting in part); Dellmuth v. Muth, 491 U.S. 223, 227–32 (1989) (opinion of the Court by Justice Kennedy); Hoffman v. Connecticut Dep’t of Income Maintenance, 492 U.S. 96, 101 (1989) (plurality opinion of Justice White); id. at 105 (concurring opinions of Justices O’Connor and Scalia); Port Authority Trans-Hudson Corp. v. Feeney, 495 U.S. 299, 305 (1990) (opinion of the Court by Justice O’Connor).
  13.  Jump to essay-13517 U.S. 44 (1996).
  14.  Jump to essay-14527 U.S. 706 (1999).
  15.  Jump to essay-15Employees of the Dep’t of Public Health and Welfare v. Department of Public Health and Welfare, 411 U.S. 279, 287 (1973).
  16.  Jump to essay-16527 U.S. 706 (1999).
  17.  Jump to essay-17527 U.S. at 713.
  18.  Jump to essay-18535 U.S. 743 (2002). Justice Breyer’s dissenting opinion describes a need for continued dissent from the majority’s sovereign immunity holdings. 535 U.S. at 788.
  19.  Jump to essay-1946 U.S.C. §§ 40101 et seq.
  20.  Jump to essay-20535 U.S. at 755, 760.
  21.  Jump to essay-21415 U.S. 651 (1974).
  22.  Jump to essay-22415 U.S. at 678. The Court relied on Ford Motor Co. v. Department of Treasury of Indiana, 323 U.S. 459 (1945), where the issue was whether state officials who had voluntarily appeared in federal court had authority under state law to waive the state’s immunity. Edelman has been followed in Sosna v. Iowa, 419 U.S. 393, 396 n.2 (1975); Mt. Healthy City Bd. of Educ. v. Doyle, 429 U.S. 274, 278 (1977), with respect to the Court’s responsibility to raise the Eleventh Amendment jurisdictional issue on its own motion.
  23.  Jump to essay-23See Patsy v. Florida Board of Regents, 457 U.S. 496, 515–16 n.19 (1982), in which the Court bypassed the Eleventh Amendment issue, which had been brought to its attention, because of the interest of the parties in having the question resolved on the merits. See id. at 520 (Justice Powell dissenting).
  24.  Jump to essay-24Clark v. Barnard, 108 U.S. 436 (1883).
  25.  Jump to essay-25E.g., People’s Band v. Calhoun, 102 U.S. 256, 260–61 (1880). See Justice Powell’s explanation in Patsy v. Florida Board of Regents, 457 U.S. 496, 528 n.13 (1982) (dissenting) (no jurisdiction under Article III of suits against unconsenting states).
  26.  Jump to essay-26See, e.g., the Court’s express rejection of the Eleventh Amendment defense in these cases. United States v. Texas, 143 U.S. 621 (1892); South Dakota v. North Carolina, 192 U.S. 286 (1904).
  27.  Jump to essay-27E.g., Fitzpatrick v. Bitzer, 427 U.S. 445 (1976); Pennsylvania v. Union Gas Co., 491 U.S. 1 (1989).
  28.  Jump to essay-28The principal citation is, of course, Marbury v. Madison, 5 U.S. (1 Cr.) 137 (1803).
  29.  Jump to essay-29Pennhurst State School & Hosp. v. Halderman, 465 U.S. 89, 98, 99 (1984).
  30.  Jump to essay-30As Justice Holmes explained, the doctrine is based on the logical and practical ground that there can be no legal right as against the authority that makes the law on which the right depends. Kawananakoa v. Polyblank, 205 U.S. 349, 353 (1907). Of course, when a state is sued in federal court pursuant to federal law, the Federal Government, not the defendant state, is the authority that makes the law creating the right of action. See Seminole Tribe of Florida v. Florida, 517 U.S. 44, 154 (1996) (Justice Souter dissenting). On the sovereign immunity of the United States, see supra pp. 746-48. For the history and jurisprudence, see Jaffe, Suits Against Governments and Officers: Sovereign Immunity, 77 Harv. L. Rev. 1 (1963).
  31.  Jump to essay-31Alden v. Maine, 527 U.S. 706, 713 (1999).
  32.  Jump to essay-32See, e.g., United States v. Lee, 106 U.S. 196, 210–14 (1882); Belknap v. Schild, 161 U.S. 10, 18 (1896); Hopkins v. Clemson Agricultural College, 221 U.S. 636, 642–43, 645 (1911).
  33.  Jump to essay-33A sovereign may consent to suit. E.g., United States v. Sherwood, 312 U.S. 584, 586 (1941); United States v. United States Fidelity & Guaranty Co., 309 U.S. 506, 514 (1940).
  34.  Jump to essay-34See Fletcher, supra.
  35.  Jump to essay-35For a while only Justice Brennan advocated this view, Parden v. Terminal Ry., 377 U.S. 184 (1964); Employees of the Dep’t of Pub. Health and Welfare v. Department of Pub. Health and Welfare, 411 U.S. 279, 298 (1973) (dissenting), but in time he was joined by three others. See, e.g., Atascadero State Hosp. v. Scanlon, 473 U.S. 234, 247 (1985) (Justice Brennan, joined by Justices Marshall, Blackmun, and Stevens, dissenting).
  36.  Jump to essay-36E.g., United States v. Texas, 143 U.S. 621 (1892); South Dakota v. North Carolina, 192 U.S. 286 (1904). See Kansas v. Colorado, 533 U.S. 1 (2001) (state may seek damages from another state, including damages to its citizens, provided it shows that the state has an independent interest in the proceeding).
  37.  Jump to essay-37E.g., Fitzpatrick v. Bitzer, 427 U.S. 445, 456 (1976); Quern v. Jordan, 440 U.S. 332, 337 (1979).
  38.  Jump to essay-38See Hutto v. Finney, 437 U.S. 678 (1978), in which the various opinions differ among themselves as to the degree of explicitness required. See also Quern v. Jordan, 440 U.S. 332, 343–45 (1979). As noted in the previous section, later cases stiffened the rule of construction. The parallelism of congressional power to regulate and to legislate away immunity is not exact. Thus, in Employees of the Dep’t of Pub. Health and Welfare v. Department of Pub. Health and Welfare, 411 U.S. 279 (1973), the Court strictly construed congressional provision of suits as not reaching states, while in Maryland v. Wirtz, 392 U.S. 183 (1968), it had sustained the constitutionality of the substantive law.
  39.  Jump to essay-39440 U.S. 410, 426 (1979), overruled by Franchise Tax Bd. v. Hyatt, 139 S. Ct. 1485, 1492 (2019) [hereinafter Franchise Tax Bd. III.]
  40.  Jump to essay-40Id. at 411–12.
  41.  Jump to essay-41Id. at 414–18.
  42.  Jump to essay-42Id. at 426. In the Court’s view, for a federal court to infer from the structure of our Constitution and nothing else, that California is not free in this case to enforce its policy of full compensation, that holding would constitute the real intrusion on the sovereignty of the States—and the power of the people—in our Union.Id. at 426–27.
  43.  Jump to essay-43Franchise Tax Bd. III, 139 S. Ct. 1485, 1492 (2019).
  44.  Jump to essay-44Id. at 1490-91.
  45.  Jump to essay-45Id. at 1491; see also Franchise Tax Bd. of Cal. v. Hyatt, 136 S. Ct. 1277, 1279 (2016) (The Court is equally divided on this question, and we consequently affirm the Nevada courts’ exercise of jurisdiction over California.); Franchise Tax Bd. III, 139 S. Ct. at 1490–91 (explaining that the two prior Franchise Tax Board decisions centered on interpretations of the Full Faith and Credit Clause of Article IV of the Constitution).
  46.  Jump to essay-46Franchise Tax Bd. III, 139 S. Ct. at 1493, 1497.
  47.  Jump to essay-47Id. at 1496 (quoting Alden v. Maine, 527 U.S. 706, 722 (1999)).
  48.  Jump to essay-48Id. (quoting Alden, 527 U.S. at 713).
  49.  Jump to essay-49Id. at 1497.
  50.  Jump to essay-50Id. at 1497 (citation omitted).
  51.  Jump to essay-51Id. at 1499. The Court reasoned that stare decisis did not compel it to follow Hall even though some plaintiffs, such as Hyatt, relied on that decision in litigation against states. Id. at1499. In the Court’s view, Hall failed to account for the historical understanding of state sovereign immunity and stood as an outlier in [the Court’s] sovereign immunity jurisprudence. Id.
  52.  Jump to essay-52See 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 ship-wrecked vessel, the Eleventh Amendment does not bar federal court in rem admiralty jurisdiction where the res is not in the possession of the sovereign).
  53.  Jump to essay-53Central Virginia Community College v. Katz, 546 U.S. 356, 362–63 (2006). The Court has cautioned, however, that Katz's analysis is limited to the context of the Bankruptcy Clause. Specifically, the Court has described the Clause as sui generis or unique among Article I's grants of authority, and, unlike other such grants, the Bankruptcy Clause itself abrogated state sovereign immunity in bankruptcy proceedings. See Allen v. Cooper, 140 S. Ct. 994, 1002–03 (2020) (observing that Katz points to a good-for-one-clause-only holding and does not cast further doubt on Seminole Tribe's general rule that Article I cannot justify haling a State into federal court).
  54.  Jump to essay-54A 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).
  55.  Jump to essay-55546 U.S. at 373.
  56.  Jump to essay-56Lake 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).
  57.  Jump to essay-57See, 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.
  58.  Jump to essay-58Northern 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).
  59.  Jump to essay-59Lake County Estates v. Tahoe Regional Planning Agency, 440 U.S. 391, 400–01 (1979) (quoting earlier cases).
  60.  Jump to essay-60Chicot County v. Sherwood, 148 U.S. 529 (1893).
  61.  Jump to essay-61Lake County Estates v. Tahoe Regional Planning Agency, 440 U.S. 391 (1979); Petty v. Tennessee-Missouri Bridge Comm’n, 359 U.S. 275 (1959).
Back to top