Document ID: ./input/supremecourt_opinions/opinions/20pdf/19-1039_8n5a.pdf
Page Number: 38.0

6 

PENNEAST PIPELINE CO. v. NEW JERSEY 

BARRETT, J., dissenting 

The Court cannot muster even a single decision involving
a private condemnation suit against a State, let alone any 
decision holding that the States lack immunity from such
suits.  It relies exclusively on suits brought by States, suits
brought by the United States, suits brought by private par-
ties against other private parties, and suits brought by In-
dian  tribes  against  private  parties—none  of  which  impli-
cate state sovereign immunity.  See Kohl, 91 U. S. 367 (suit 
by United States); Guy F. Atkinson Co., 313 U. S. 508 (suit 
by Oklahoma); Luxton v. North River Bridge Co., 153 U. S. 
525  (1894)  (suit  by  private  company  to  condemn  private 
land); Stockton v. Baltimore & N. Y. R. Co., 32 F. 9 (CC NJ 
1887)  (suit  by  New  Jersey);  Cherokee  Nation  v.  Southern 
Kansas R. Co., 135 U. S. 641 (1890) (suit by Cherokee Na-
tion against private company).

Moreover,  no  one  disputes  that  for  75  years  after  the
founding,  it  was  unsettled  whether  the  Federal  Govern-
ment could even exercise eminent domain over private land 
within  a  State.  See  Baude,  Rethinking  the  Federal  Emi-
nent Domain Power, 122 Yale L. J. 1738, 1741, 1761–1777 
(2013).  It was then 77 years more before we held that “[t]he
fact that land is owned by a state is no barrier to its con-
demnation by the United States.”  Guy F. Atkinson Co., 313 
U. S., at 534.  Given the length of time that these questions 
lingered, it strains credulity to say that history unequivo-
cally establishes that States surrendered their immunity to 
private condemnation suits in the plan of the Convention. 
The  Court  downplays  “the  historical  absence  of  private
condemnation suits against state-owned lands,” noting that
we did not rely on historical examples when we held that
States consented in the plan of the Convention to suits by
the Federal Government.  Ante, at 18–19 (citing Texas, 143 
U. S. 621).  But in that decision, the supremacy of the Fed-
eral Government in our constitutional structure, along with
textual cues, were sufficient to resolve the question.  Id., at 
644–646.  Here, there is no basis for drawing an analogous