09-529 Virginia Office for Protection & Advocacy v. Stewart

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Constitutional Law
Sovereign immunity

The Eleventh Amendment does not preclude a state agency from suing the state.

Respondents claim that a State’s dignity is diminished when a federal court adjudicates a dispute between its components. But a State’s stature is not diminished to any greater degree when its own agency sues to enforce its officers’ compliance with federal law than when a private person does so. Moreover, VOPA’s power to sue state officials is a consequence of Virginia’s own decision to establish a public P&A system. Not every offense to a State’s dignity constitutes a denial of sovereign immunity. The specific indignity against which sovereign immunity protects is the insult to a State of being haled into court without its consent; that does not occur just because a suit happens to be brought by another state agency.

568 F. 3d 110, reversed and remanded.

Local effect: The opinion is consistent with governing Seventh Circuit precedent. Indiana Protection & Advocacy Servs. V. Indiana Family & Soc. Servs. Admin., 603 F.3d 365 (7th Cir. 2010)(en banc).
09-529 Virginia Office for Protection & Advocacy v. Stewart

Scalia, J., Kennedy, J., concurring; Roberts, C.J., dissenting.

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