Opinion ID: 110753
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: The Eleventh Amendment.[1]

Text: In this reverse discrimination action, petitioner, an employee of the Florida International University, brought suit under 42 U. S. C. § 1983 against the Board of Regents of the State of Florida. [2] She did not name the individual Regents as defendants. She sued for $500,000 in damages, and for injunctive and other equitable relief. See ante, at 498-499, n. 2. The Board filed a motion to dismiss, arguing that petitioner's suit was premature in light of her failure to exhaust available administrative remedies. The District Court agreed and granted the motion to dismiss. On petitioner's appeal, the Board added the bar of the Eleventh Amendment to its defense. [3] It argued that as an instrumentality of the State, the Board could not be subjected to suit in federal court absent a waiver of immunity. [4] And it asserted that there had been no waiver. Although the Board of Regents was created as a body corporate with power to sue and be sued . . . to plead and be impleaded in all courts of law and equity, Fla. Stat. § 240.205(4)(1) (1981), it is well established that language such as this does not operate to waive the defense of the Eleventh Amendment. [5] In reply, petitioner argued that whether or not the statute creating the Board amounted to a waiver  and petitioner believed that it did  the Eleventh Amendment simply was irrelevant to the equitable claims she had lodged against the State. See Reply Brief for Petitioner 3-4. Neither the Court of Appeals panel nor the Court of Appeals en banc addressed the Board's Eleventh Amendment defense. They directed their attention solely to the question of exhaustion of administrative remedies. The panel held that there was no exhaustion requirement in § 1983 suits and remanded to the District Court for consideration of the Board's Eleventh Amendment argument. Patsy v. Florida International University, 612 F. 2d 946 (1980). The Court of Appeals, sitting en banc, reversed, holding that § 1983 plaintiffs must exhaust available and reasonable administrative remedies. Patsy v. Florida International University, 634 F. 2d 900 (1981). Again the court did not consider the Board's Eleventh Amendment defense. The Eleventh Amendment question was raised before this Court, at the first opportunity after the Court of Appeals' decision, in the Board's response to the petition for writ of certiorari. The Board argued, as it had on appeal, that it was an arm of the State and that it had not waived its immunity from suit in federal court. [6] Again petitioner answered that at most the Eleventh Amendment defense would bar her claim for damages. And, even as to this claim, petitioner now argued that the Amendment would not bar damages if the Board could meet the claim out of its own funds  e. g., from gifts and bequests  rather than from the state treasury. These arguments were repeated at oral argument. [7]
The Court views the jurisdictional question presented by the Eleventh Amendment as if it were of little or no importance. Its entire discussion of the question is relegated to a conclusory note at the end of the opinion. See ante, at 515-516, n. 19. The Court concedes that the Amendment and the bar of sovereign immunity are jurisdictional, but only in the sense that the State may raise the claim at any point in the proceedings. The statement is then made that the Amendment is not jurisdictional in the sense that it must be raised and decided by this Court on its own motion. Ibid. [8] The Court cites to no authority in support of this statement, [9] and it would be surprising if any existed. The reason that the Eleventh Amendment question may be raised at any point in the proceedings is precisely because it places limits on the basic authority of federal courts to entertain suits against a State. The history and text of the Eleventh Amendment, the principle of sovereign immunity exemplified by it, and the well-established precedents of this Court make clear that today's decision misconceives our jurisdiction and the purpose of this Amendment. A basic principle of our constitutional system is that the federal courts are courts of limited jurisdiction. Their authority extends only to those matters within the judicial power of the United States as defined by the Constitution. In language that could not be clearer, the Eleventh Amendment removes from the judicial power, as set forth in Art. III, suits commenced or prosecuted against one of the United States. When an Amendment to the Constitution states in plain language that the judicial power of the United States shall not be construed to extend to suits against a State, from what source does the Court today derive its jurisdiction? The Court's back-of-the-hand treatment of this threshold issue offers no answer. Questions of jurisdiction and of the legitimate exercise of power are fundamental in our federal constitutional system. [10]
The Eleventh Amendment was adopted as a response to this Court's assumption of original jurisdiction in a suit brought against the State of Georgia. Chisholm v. Georgia, 2 Dall. 419 (1793). Relying upon express language in Art. III extending the judicial power to controversies between a State and citizens of another State, the Court found that it had jurisdiction. The decision is said to have created a shock throughout the country. See Hans v. Louisiana, 134 U. S. 1, 11 (1890). The Amendment was adopted shortly thereafter, and the Court understood that it had been overruled:  `the amendment being constitutionally adopted, there could not be exercised any jurisdiction, in any case, past or future, in which a State was sued by the citizens of another State, or by citizens or subjects of any foreign state.'  Ibid. In light of the history and wording of the Amendment, the Court has viewed the Amendment as placing explicit limits on the judicial power as defined by Art. III. See Nevada v. Hall, 440 U. S. 410, 421 (1979). But more than that, and beyond the express provisions of the Amendment, the Court has recognized that the Amendment stands for a principle of sovereign immunity by which the grant of authority in Art. III itself must be measured. [11] Thus, in Hans v. Louisiana, supra , the Court held that the federal judicial power did not extend to a suit against a nonconsenting State by one of its own citizens. Although the Eleventh Amendment by its terms does not apply to such suits, the Court found that the language of the Amendment was but an illustration of a larger principle: Federal jurisdiction over suits against a State, absent consent, was not contemplated by the Constitution when establishing the judicial power of the United States. Id., at 15. [12] See Smith v. Reeves, 178 U. S. 436 (1900). Similarly, in Ex parte New York, 256 U. S. 490 (1921), the Court found that despite the Eleventh Amendment's specific reference to suits in law or equity, the principle of sovereign immunity exemplified by the Amendment would not permit the extension of federal admiralty jurisdiction over a nonconsenting State. The Court applied the same approach in Monaco v. Mississippi, 292 U. S. 313 (1934), in which the Court refused to take jurisdiction over a suit against a State by a foreign state. On its face, Art. III provided jurisdiction over suits between a State . . . and foreign States. Nor did the Eleventh Amendment specifically exempt the States from suit by a foreign state. Nevertheless, the Court concluded that the judicial power of the United States, granted by Art. III, did not extend so far: We think that Madison correctly interpreted Clause one of § 2 of Article III of the Constitution as making provision for jurisdiction of a suit against a State by a foreign State in the event of the State's consent but not otherwise. Id., at 330. In this case a resident of the State of Florida has sued a Board exercising a major function of the State's sovereign authority. As prior decisions have held, whether this case is viewed only under the Eleventh Amendment  with its explicit limitation on federal jurisdiction  or under Art. III, the analysis must be the same. Absent consent, the judicial power of the United States, as defined by Art. III and the Eleventh Amendment, simply does not extend to suits against one of the States by a citizen of that State: [13] That a State may not be sued without its consent is a fundamental rule of jurisprudence having so important a bearing upon the construction of the Constitution of the United States that it has become established by repeated decisions of this court that the entire judicial power granted by the Constitution does not embrace authority to entertain a suit brought by private parties against a State without consent given: not one brought by citizens of another State, or by citizens or subjects of a foreign State, because of the Eleventh Amendment; and not even one brought by its own citizens, because of the fundamental rule of which the Amendment is but an exemplification. Ex parte New York, supra, at 497 (emphasis added). The Court does not distinguish these unquestioned precedents. They are wholly and inexplicably ignored. Quite simply the Court today disregards controlling decisions and the explicit limitation on federal-court jurisdiction in Art. III and the Eleventh Amendment. The Court does recognize that the Eleventh Amendment is jurisdictional in the sense that the State may raise the bar of the Amendment for the first time on appeal. Yet the Court misses the point of this statement. The reason that the bar of the Amendment may be raised at any time  as the Court previously has explained  is precisely because it is jurisdictional: The objection to petitioner's suit as a violation of the Eleventh Amendment was first made and argued . . . in this Court. This was in time, however. The Eleventh Amendment declares a policy and sets forth an explicit limitation on federal judicial power of such compelling force that this Court will consider the issue arising under this Amendment . . . even though urged for the first time in this Court. Ford Motor Co. v. Department of Treasury of Indiana, 323 U. S. 459, 467 (1945). [14] Despite these precedents, and apparently because of an unexplained anxiety to reach the exhaustion issue decided by the Court of Appeals, this Court remands the issue of its own jurisdiction to the courts below.
I believe that the Eleventh Amendment question must be addressed and that the answer could hardly be clearer. This is an action under § 1983. [15] Petitioner seeks relief from the Board of Regents of the State of Florida, a major instrumentality or agency of the State. Petitioner's argument that the statute incorporating the Board should be understood to waive the Eleventh Amendment is foreclosed by numerous decisions of this Court and is unsupported by State law. See, e. g., Florida Dept. of Health v. Florida Nursing Home Assn., 450 U. S. 147 (1981); n. 5, supra. Similarly, petitioner's suggestion that the Eleventh Amendment does not bar her equitable claims against the Board must be rejected. The Amendment applies to suits in law or equity. All suits against an unconsenting State  whether for damages or injunctive relief  are barred. See Cory v. White, ante, p. 85. [16] Finally, the rule in Ex parte Young, 209 U. S. 123 (1908), permitting a federal court to order state officials to obey federal law in the future, is simply irrelevant to this case. [17] Petitioner did not sue the members of the Board of Regents. She sued the Board itself, an arm of the State of Florida. In my view, the Eleventh Amendment  and the principle of sovereign immunity exemplified by the Amendment and embodied in Art. III  clearly bar the suit in this case. The Court's refusal to address the question of its own jurisdiction violates well-established precedents of this Court as well as the basic premise that federal courts are courts of limited jurisdiction. Even had the parties neglected to address the Eleventh Amendment question, it would have been our responsibility to consider it on our own motion. In fact, the question has been fully briefed to the Court of Appeals and raised in this Court. See n. 8, supra. Cf. Sosna v. Iowa, 419 U. S. 393, 396, n. 2 (1975). I would dismiss this suit and vacate the decision of the Court of Appeals for lack of jurisdiction.