Document ID: ./input/supremecourt_opinions/opinions/19pdf/18-877_dc8f.pdf
Page Number: 7

4 

ALLEN v. COOPER 

Opinion of the Court 

it seeks to remedy.  895 F. 3d 337, 350 (2018).  Florida Pre-
paid  had  applied  that  principle  to  reject  Congress’s  at-
tempt, in the Patent Remedy Act, to abolish the States’ im-
munity from patent infringement suits.  See 527 U. S., at 
630.  In  the  Fourth  Circuit’s  view,  nothing  distinguished 
the  CRCA.    That  abrogation,  the  court  reasoned,  was 
“equally broad” and rested on a “similar legislative record”
of  constitutional  harm.  895  F. 3d,  at  352.  So  Section  5 
could not save the law. 

Because the Court of Appeals held a federal statute inva-
lid, this Court granted certiorari.  587 U. S. ___ (2019).  We 
now affirm. 

II 

In  our  constitutional  scheme,  a  federal  court  generally
may not hear a suit brought by any person against a non-
consenting State.  That bar is nowhere explicitly set out in 
the Constitution.  The text of the Eleventh Amendment (the
single most relevant provision) applies only if the plaintiff 
is not a citizen of the defendant State.2  But this Court has 
long understood that Amendment to “stand not so much for 
what it says” as for the broader “presupposition of our con-
stitutional structure which it confirms.”  Blatchford v. Na-
tive  Village  of  Noatak,  501  U. S.  775,  779  (1991).    That 
premise, the Court has explained, has several parts.  First, 
“each  State  is  a  sovereign  entity  in  our  federal  system.” 
Seminole Tribe of Fla. v. Florida, 517 U. S. 44, 54 (1996). 
Next, “[i]t is inherent in the nature of sovereignty not to be
amenable to [a] suit” absent consent.  Id., at 54, n. 13  (quot-
ing The Federalist No. 81, p. 487 (C. Rossiter ed. 1961) (A.
Hamilton)).  And  last,  that  fundamental  aspect  of  sover-
eignty  constrains  federal  “judicial  authority.”  Blatchford, 
—————— 

2 The Eleventh Amendment reads: “The Judicial Power of the United 
States shall not be construed to extend to any suit in law or equity, com-
menced or prosecuted against one of the United States by Citizens of an-
other State, or by Citizens or Subjects of any Foreign State.”