Document ID: ./input/supremecourt_opinions/opinions/20pdf/19-1039_8n5a.pdf
Page Number: 29

Cite as:  594 U. S. ____ (2021) 

1 

GORSUCH, J., dissenting 

SUPREME COURT OF THE UNITED STATES 

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No. 19–1039 
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PENNEAST PIPELINE COMPANY, LLC, PETITIONER 
v. NEW JERSEY, ET AL. 

ON WRIT OF CERTIORARI TO THE UNITED STATES COURT OF 
APPEALS FOR THE THIRD CIRCUIT 

[June 29, 2021] 

JUSTICE  GORSUCH,  with  whom  JUSTICE  THOMAS  joins,

dissenting. 

I join JUSTICE BARRETT’s dissenting opinion in full, which
ably explains why this case implicates New Jersey’s struc-
tural immunity and how New Jersey never waived that im-
munity in the summer months of 1787.  I write only to ad-
dress  one  recurring  source  of  confusion  in  this  area  and
which the Court does not address.  In the same breath, the 
district court said an Eleventh Amendment objection “is a 
challenge  to  a  district  court’s  subject  matter  jurisdiction”
and yet “it does not implicate federal subject matter juris-
diction.”  App. to Pet. for Cert. 64–65.  Both statements can-
not  be  true.  This  Court,  it  seems,  has  contributed  to  the 
confusion.  It has “sometimes referred to the States’ immun-
ity from suit as ‘Eleventh Amendment immunity.’ ”  Alden 
v. Maine, 527 U. S. 706, 713 (1999); see also, e.g., ante, at 
20.  Though  it  might  be  a  “convenient  shorthand,”  the 
phrase is “a misnomer.”  Alden, 527 U. S., at 713.  States 
have two distinct federal-law immunities from suit.1 

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1 States may also have state-law immunity from suit in a state forum. 
That immunity derives from a State’s “sole control” of “its own courts.” 
Alden, 527 U. S., at 740, 749.  A State is free to develop its own justicia-
bility rules governing state tribunals.  See Missouri v. Lewis, 101 U. S. 
22, 30 (1880); ASARCO Inc. v. Kadish, 490 U. S. 605, 617 (1989).  That