Court Opinion

ID: 9425247
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-02 23:14:11.26525+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:22:54.256322
License: Public Domain

Mr. Justice Marshall,
with whom Mr. Justice Stewart joins,
concurring in the result.
I believe that proper analysis of whether these employees may sue their state employer in federal court for overtime compensation owed to them under the Fair Labor Standards Act1 requires consideration of what I view as two distinct questions: (1) did Congress, in extending the protection of the FLSA to state employees such as these petitioners, effectively lift the State’s protective veil of sovereign immunity; and (2) even if Congress did lift the State’s general immunity, is the exercise of federal judicial power barred in the context of this *288case in light of Art. III and the Eleventh Amendment? Portions of the Court’s opinion convey the impression that these questions are but a single issue.2 I do not agree.
Sovereign immunity is a common-law doctrine that long predates our Constitution and the Eleventh Amendment, although it has, of course, been carried forward in our jurisprudence.3 While the present-day immunity of a State from suit by its own citizens or by citizens of another State in the absence of consent obviously cannot be justified on the common-law rationale that “the King can do no wrong,” the principle has been said to be applicable to the States because of “[t]he inherent nature of sovereignty,” Great Northern Life Insurance Co. v. Read, 322 U. S. 47, 51 (1944). See also Kawananakoa v. Polyblank, 205 U. S. 349, 353 (1907).
The common-law doctrine of sovereign immunity in its original form stood as an absolute bar to suit against a State by one of its citizens, absent consent. But that doctrine was modified pro tanto in 1788 to the extent that the States relinquished their sovereignty to the Federal Government. At the time our Union was formed, the States, for the good of the whole, gave certain powers to Congress, including power to regulate commerce, and by so doing, they simultaneously subjected to congressional control that portion of their pre-existing common-law sovereignty which conflicted with those supreme powers given over to Congress. This is one of the essential lessons of the decision in Parden v. Terminal R. Co., 377 U. S. 184, 192 (1964), where the Court recognized that “[b]y empowering Congress to regulate com*289merce . . . the States necessarily surrendered any portion of their sovereignty that would stand in the way of such regulation.” Congress having validly exercised its power under the Commerce Clause to extend the protection of tin . juSA to state employees such as petitioners, see Maryland v. Wirtz, 392 U. S. 183 (1968), the State may not defeat this suit by retreating behind its common-law shield of sovereign immunity.
Insofar as the Court may now be suggesting that the Congress has not effectively lifted the State’s immunity from private suit in the context of the FLSA, I cannot agree. In the 1966 amendments, § 3 (d), 29 U. S. C. § 203 (d), which defines “employer” for the purposes of the FLSA was altered to cover expressly “employees of a State, or a political subdivision thereof, employed . . . in a hospital, institution,, or school . ...”4 In the face of such clear language, I find it impossible to believe that Congress did not intend to extend the full benefit of the provisions of the FLSA to these state employees.5 It is true — as the Court points out — that in 1966 Congress did not amend § 16 (b) of the Act, 29 U. S. C. § 216 (b), which provides for private suit by the “employee” against the “employer” to recover unpaid compensation. But this is readily explained by the fact that no amendment to the language of § 16 (b) was necessary to make the desired extension to state employees; the *290alteration of the definition of “employer” in § 3 (d) clearly sufficed to achieve Congress’ purpose6 and to express its will. Indeed, to suggest that § 16 (b) may not provide for suit by state employees, despite the alteration of § 3 (d) to include state employers, ignores the basic canon of statutory construction that different provisions of the same statute normally should be construed consistently with one another. See, e. g., Clark v. Uebersee Finanz-Korporation, A. G., 332 U. S. 480, 488 (1947); Markham v. Cabell, 326 U. S. 404, 410-411 (1945); Ex parte Public National Bank, 278 U. S. 101, 104 (1928).
There remains, though, the question, where may these petitioners enforce against the State their congressionally created rights under the FLSA? Section 16 (b) authorizes employee suits “in any court of competent jurisdiction.” Has Congress thus successfully compelled the State in this case to submit to employee suits in federal court?
The Eleventh Amendment provides:
“The Judicial power of the United States shall not be construed to extend to any suit in law or equity, commenced or prosecuted against one of the United States by Citizens of another State, or by Citizens or Subjects of any Foreign State.”
On its face the Amendment, of course, makes no mention of a citizen’s attempt to sue his own State in federal court, the situation with which we deal here. Nevertheless, I believe it clear that the judicial power of the *291United States does not extend to suits such as this, absent consent by the State to the exercise of such power. This question was first considered in Hans v. Louisiana, 134 U. S. 1 (1890), where a federal court action was brought against a State by one of its citizens who claimed that it had unconstitutionally repudiated certain debt obligations in violation of the Contract Clause of Art. I, § 10. Mr. Justice Bradley, speaking for the Court, observed that the suit was “an attempt to strain the Constitution and the law to a construction never imagined or dreamed of,” and he then asked:
“Can we suppose that, when the Eleventh Amendment was adopted, it was understood to be left open for citizens of a State to sue their own state in the federal courts, whilst the idea of suits by citizens of other states, or of foreign states, was indignantly repelled?” Id., at 15.
The Court rejected such a suggestion in Hans, and it has continued to do so ever since. See Duhne v. New Jersey, 251 U. S. 311 (1920); Fitts v. McGhee, 172 U. S. 516, 524-525 (1899); North Carolina v. Temple, 134 U. S. 22 (1890).
The root of the constitutional impediment to the exercise of the federal judicial power in a case such as this is not the Eleventh Amendment but Art. Ill of our Constitution. Following the decision in Chisholm v. Georgia, 2 Dall. 419 (1793), in which this Court held that federal jurisdiction encompassed a suit brought against a nonconsenting State by citizens of another State, the Eleventh Amendment was introduced to clarify the intent of the Framers concerning the reach of the federal judicial power. See, e. g., Hans v. Louisiana, 134 U. S., at 11-14. It had been widely understood prior to ratification of the Constitution that the provision in Art. III, § 2, concerning “Controversies .... between a State and Citizens *292of another State” would not provide a mechanism for making States unwilling defendants in federal court.7 The Court in Chisholm, however, considered the plain meaning of the constitutional provision to be controlling. The Eleventh Amendment served effectively to reverse the particular holding in Chisholm, and, more generally, to restore the original understanding, see, e. g., Hans v. Louisiana, supra, at 11-15. Thus, despite the narrowness of the language of the Amendment, its spirit has consistently guided this Court in interpreting the reach of the federal judicial power generally, and “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, No. 1, 256 U. S. 490, 497 (1921); see Smith v. Reeves, 178 U. S. 436, 447-449 (1900).8 *293This limitation upon the judicial power is, without question, a reflection of concern for the sovereignty of the States, but in a particularly limited context. The *294issue is not the general immunity of the States from private suit — a question of the common law — but merely the susceptibility of the States to suit before federal tribunals. Because of the problems of federalism inherent in making one sovereign appear against its will in the courts of the other, a restriction upon the exercise of the federal judicial power has long been considered to be appropriate in a case such as this.9
At the same time, it is well established that a State may consent to federal suit and submit to the exercise of federal jurisdiction over it.10 See, e. g., Petty v. Tennes*295see-Missouri Bridge Comm’n, 359 U. S. 275, 276 (1959) ; Gunter v. Atlantic Coast Line R. Co., 200 U. S. 273, 284 (1906); Clark v. Barnard, 108 U. S. 436, 447 (1883). The issue, then, is whether the State has consented to this suit by its employees under the FLSA.
In Parden v. Terminal R. Co., supra, this Court found that Alabama which had undertaken the operation of an *296interstate railroad had consented to suits brought in federal court by its railroad employees under the Federal Employers’ Liability Act, 45 U. S. C. §§ 51-60. As to the State’s suability in federal court, the Court reasoned that “Alabama, when it began operation of an interstate railroad approximately 20 years after enactment of the FELA, necessarily consented to such suit as was authorized by that Act.” 377 U. S., at 192. For me at least, the concept of implied consent or waiver relied upon in Parden approaches, on the facts of that case, the outer limit of the sort of voluntary choice which we generally associate with the concept of constitutional waiver. Cf. D. H. Overmyer Co. v. Frick Co., 405 U. S. 174, 185-186 (1972); Fay v. Noia, 372 U. S. 391, 439 (1963); Johnson v. Zerbst, 304 U. S. 458, 464 (1938). Certainly, the concept cannot be stretched sufficiently further to encompass this case. Here the State was fully engaged in the operation of the affected hospitals and schools at the time of the 1966 amendments. To suggest that the State had the choice of either ceasing operation of these vital public services or “consenting” to federal suit suffices, I believe, to demonstrate that the State had no true choice at all and thereby that the State did not voluntarily consent to the exercise of federal jurisdiction in this case. Cf. Marchetti v. United States, 390 U. S. 39, 51-52 (1968). In Parden, Alabama entered the interstate railroad business with at least legal notice of an operator’s responsibilities and liability under the FELA to suit in federal court, and it could have chosen not to enter at all if it considered that liability too onerous or offensive. It obviously is a far different thing to say that a State must give up established facilities, services, and programs or else consent to federal suit. Thus, I conclude that the State has not voluntarily consented to *297the exercise of federal judicial power over it in the context of this case11
This is not to say, however, that petitioners are without a forum in which personally to seek redress against the State.12 Section 16 (b)’s authorization for employee suits to be brought “in any court of competent jurisdiction” includes state as well as federal courts. See Iowa Beef Packers, Inc. v. Thompson, 405 U. S. 228 (1972). As I have already noted, Congress has the power to lift the State’s common-law immunity from suit insofar as that immunity conflicts with the regulatory authority conferred upon it by the Commerce Clause. Congress has done so with respect to these state employees in its *2981966 amendments to the FLSA; by those amendments, Congress created in these employees a federal right to recover from the State compensation owing under the Act. While constitutional limitations upon the federal judicial power bar a federal court action by these employees to enforce their rights, the courts of the State nevertheless have an independent constitutional obligation to entertain employee actions to enforce those rights. See Testa v. Katt, 330 U. S. 386 (1947). See also General Oil Co. v. Crain, 209 U. S. 211 (1908). For Missouri has courts of general jurisdiction competent to hear suits of this character,13 and the judges of those courts are co-equal partners with the members of the federal judiciary in the enforcement of federal law and the Federal Constitution, see Martin v. Hunter’s Lessee, 1 Wheat. 304, 339-340 (1816). Thus, since federal law stands as the supreme law of the land, the State’s courts are obliged to enforce it, even if it conflicts with state policy, see Testa v. Katt, supra, at 392-394; Second Employers’ Liability Cases, 223 U. S. 1, 57-58 (1912).
I see our decision today, then, as nothing more than a regulation of the forum in which these petitioners may seek a remedy for asserted denial of their rights under the FLSA. At first blush, it may seem hypertechnical to say that these petitioners are entitled personally to enforce their federal rights against the State in a state forum rather than in a federal forum. If that be so, I think it is a hypertechnicality that has long been understood to be a part of the tension inherent in our system of federalism.

 29 U. S. C. §§ 201-219.

 See ante, at 285.

 See Jaffe, Suits Against Governments and Officers: Sovereign Immunity, 77 Harv. L. Rev. 1, 2-21 (1963).

 See also § 3 (r), 29 U. S. C. § 203 (r).

 See also S. Rep. No. 1487, 89th Cong., 2d Sess., 8 (1966), which described one of the purposes of the 1966 amendments as being “to make plain the intent to bring under the coverage of the act employees of hospitals and related institutions, schools for physically or mentally handicapped or gifted children, or institutions of higher education, whether or not any of these hospitals, schools, or institutions are public or private or operated for profit or not for profit.” (Emphasis added.)

 Section 16 (b), 29 U. S. C. §216 (b), provides in relevant part: “Any employer who violates the provisions of . . . this Act slia.il be liable to the employee or employees affected in the amount of their unpaid minimum wages, or their unpaid overtime compensation, as the case may be, and in an additional equal amount as liquidated damages.”

 See The Federalist No. 81 (Hamilton); Hans v. Louisiana, 134 U. S. 1, 12-14 (1890); 1 C. Warren, The Supreme Court in United States History 91 (Rev. Ed. 1937); Cullison, Interpretation of the Eleventh Amendment, 5 Houston L. Rev. 1, 6-9 (1967).

 My Brother Brennan, in dissent, suggests that this case involves only a question of sovereign immunity and does not involve any question as to the limits of the federal judicial power under Art. Ill and the Eleventh Amendment. He considers this theory to be entirely consistent with the Court’s seminal decision in Hans v. Louisiana, supra. As already indicated, there the private party attempted to sue his own State in federal court on the basis of the Contract Clause, not on the basis of a congressionally created cause of action. The Court concluded that the State was immune from such a suit in federal court, absent consent. Apparently, my Brother Brennan’s view is that the result in Hans was due to the *293fact that, unlike the present case, nothing had occurred to lift the State’s common-law immunity. But such a reading seems to me at odds with his theory that at the time the Union was formed the States surrendered that portion of their sovereignty which conflicted with the supreme federal powers. For if the only relevant issue in Ham was the State’s common-law immunity, such a view would seem to compel the conclusion that the States had also pro tanto surrendered their common-law immunity with respect to any claim under the Contract Clause. After all, the only difference between the Contract Clause and congressionally created causes of action is that the Contract Clause is self-enforcing, see, e. g., Sturges v. Crowninshield, 4 Wheat. 122, 197-200 (1819); it requires no congressional act to make its guarantee enforceable in a judicial suit. It seems to me a strange hierarchy that would provide a greater opportunity to enforce congressionally created rights than constitutionally guaranteed rights in federal court. Yet my Brother Brennan, given his theory of waiver of common-law immunity plus his theory that no constitutional limitation upon the exercise of the federal judicial power exists in the context of a suit brought against a State by one of its citizens, is forced either to this anomalous position or else to the admission that Hans was incorrectly decided. He apparently chooses the former.
However, if the issue of the limits of the judicial power, as well as of common-law immunity, is considered to be relevant in cases such as Hans and this case, the decision in Ham is sensibly understood as resting on the former basis alone. For, although the State’s common-law immunity may have been no defense to a Contract Clause claim, the State had not consented to suit in federal court and therefore it was not susceptible to the exercise of the federal judicial power — regardless of the source of the federal claim. Thus, there seems to me little basis for doubting that Hans.rested upon considerations as to constitutional limitations on the reach of the federal judicial power, a view confirmed by the decision’s lengthy analysis of the constitutional debates surrounding Art. III, see 134 U. S., at 12-14, and by subsequent decisions of this Court, see, e. g., Ex parte New York, No. 1, 256 U. S. 490, 497 (1921); Duhne v. New Jersey, 251 U. S. 311, 313 (1920); Georgia Railroad & Banking Co. v. Redwine, 342 U. S. 299, 304 n. 13 (1952).

 Of course, suits brought in federal court against state officers allegedly acting unconstitutionally present a different question, see Ex parte Young, 209 U. S. 123 (1908). Likewise, suits brought in federal court by the United States against States are within the cognizance of the federal judicial power, for “[t]he submission to judicial solution of controversies arising between these two governments, 'each sovereign, with respect to the objects committed to it, and neither sovereign with respect to the objects committed to the other,’ . . . but both subject to the supreme law of the land, does no violence to the inherent nature of sovereignty,” United States v. Texas, 143 U. S. 621, 646 (1892). See also United States v. North Carolina, 136 U. S. 211 (1890). Moreover, it is unavoidable that in a suit between a State and the United States one sovereign will have to appear in the courts of the other.

 My Brother Brennan argues in his dissent that recognition of a State’s power to consent to suit in federal court is inconsistent with any view that the impediment to private federal court suits against a State has constitutional roots in the limited nature of the federal judicial power. He is, of course, correct when he points out that, as a rule, power to hear an action cannot be conferred on a federal court by consent. And, it may be that the recognized power of States to consent to the exercise of federal judicial power over them is anomalous in light of present-day concepts of federal jurisdiction. Yet, if this is the case, it is an anomaly that is well established as a part of our constitutional jurisprudence. For there are decisions by this Court — including at least one joined by my Brother Brennan — clearly holding that constitutional limitations *295upon the exercise of the federal judicial power over private suits brought against a State may be waived by the State.
Thus, in Clark v. Barnard, 108 U. S. 436, 447 (1883), the Court rejected Rhode Island’s argument that a claim made against it in federal court by a Connecticut corporation was specifically barred by the Eleventh Amendment in light of the fact that initially the State voluntarily intervened in the action to assert a claim of its own and thereby consented. Similarly, in Petty v. Tennessee-Missouri Bridge Comm’n, 359 U. S. 275 (1959), which involved a tort suit brought in federal court by a resident of Tennessee (see 254 F. 2d 857, 862 (CA8 1958)) against a bi-state corporation formed by Missouri and Tennessee, the Court treated the suit as one against the States, but rejected their argument that the suit was prohibited by the Eleventh Amendment. The Court found that the States had waived their immunity from federal court suit in the compact by which the bi-state corporation was formed. Given the citizenship of the plaintiff in Petty, my Brother Brennan, with his literalist view of the Eleventh Amendment, might say that as to Tennessee there was no issue of constitutional magnitude and that the State had simply waived its common-law immunity. But insofar as Missouri was also held to have consented to federal court suit, the Court necessarily dealt with the limits of the federal judicial power since, as to Missouri, the suit was within the literal language of the Eleventh Amendment. See also Missouri v. Fiske, 290 U. S. 18 (1933). In short, I cannot accept my Brother Brennan’s literalist approach to the Eleventh Amendment in light of prior decisions, and certainly his position is not aided by the clearly erroneous suggestion that any constitutional limitation on the exercise of the federal judicial power over private suits against States would constitute an absolute bar to the prosecution of such suits in federal court.

 Whether I would reach a different conclusion with respect to a case of this character if the State had commenced operation of the relevant facilities after passage of the 1966 amendments is a question that I need not now decide. Certainly, I do not accept the Court’s efforts to distinguish this case from Parden on the basis that there we dealt with a “proprietary” function, whereas here we deal with a “governmental” function. See ante, at 284-285. I had thought we had escaped such unenlightening characterizations of States’ activities. Cf. Maryland v. Wirtz, 392 U. S. 183, 195 (1968); United States v. California, 297 U. S. 175, 183-184 (1936).

 Unlike the Court, I would not pretend to suggest that the power given the Secretary of Labor in § 17 of the FLSA, 29 U. S. C. § 217, to seek restitution on behalf of employees provides an adequate mechanism for safeguarding the interests of state employees such as petitioners. The United States, as amicus curiae, points out: “In 1971, . . . the [FLSA] covered 45.4 million employees and nearly 2 million establishments; 2.7 million of these employees and 118,000 of these establishments were in the sector of state and local government employment, including state schools and hospitals. Yet, less than 4 percent of these establishments can be investigated by the Secretary each year.” Brief for United States as Amicus Curiae 22-23 (footnotes omitted).
It is obviously unrealistic to expect Government enforcement alone to be sufficient.

 See Mo. Rev. Stat. §478.070 (2) (1959).