Document ID: ./input/supremecourt_opinions/opinions/21pdf/20-603_o758.pdf
Page Number: 32

10 

TORRES v. TEXAS DEPARTMENT OF PUBLIC SAFETY 

THOMAS, J., dissenting 

decisions,  therefore,  undermined  Alden’s  categorical  hold-
ing.4  It  is  only  the  Court’s  holding  today  that  does  so.  I 
would adhere to Alden and reaffirm that the States did not 
surrender  the  immunity  applicable  in  their  own  courts 
when  they  delegated  the  enumerated  powers—including 
the  war  powers—to  Congress  in  Article  I.    And,  because 
Torres has not invoked a waiver of immunity under state
law, I would affirm the judgment of the Texas Court of Ap-
peals. 

III
  Even if Alden’s holding were not alone dispositive, thus 
requiring us to consider our “plan of the Convention” prec-
edents applicable to private actions in federal court, I would 
still conclude that the States have not waived their immun-
ity to private damages actions authorized by the war pow-
ers. 

—————— 

4 The  Court  asserts  that  “those  opinions’  reasoning  . . .  is  not  so  lim- 
ited” to render them inapplicable to state courts.  Ante, at 15.  But the 
reasoning in Katz is necessarily limited to federal courts, given that fed-
eral  district  courts  have  “original  and  exclusive  jurisdiction”  over  all 
bankruptcy proceedings under Title 11.  28 U. S. C. §1334(a).  Nor is it 
probable that PennEast silently carved an exception from Alden’s cate-
gorical rule.  The Framers did not even think to address state sovereign
immunity in state courts because “the sovereign’s right to assert immun-
ity from suit in its own courts was a principle so well established that no
one conceived it would be altered by the new Constitution.”  Alden, 527 
U. S., at 741.  We should not read PennEast to establish, without discus-
sion, something inconceivable to the founding generation.  See 527 U. S., 
at 743. 

Similarly unconvincing is the Court’s assumption that “waiver pursu-
ant to the plan of the Convention,” necessarily “displaces the background 
principles  of  state  sovereign  immunity  wherever  those  suits  proceed.” 
Ante, at 15.  For instance, we have held that “the only forums in which 
the  States  have  consented  to  suits  by  one  another  and  by  the  Federal 
Government are Article III courts.”  Franchise Tax Bd. of Cal. v. Hyatt, 
587 U. S. ___, ___ (2019) (slip op., at 10) (emphasis added).  A surrender 
of immunity in federal court therefore does not necessarily translate to a 
surrender of immunity in state court.