By: WISCONSIN LAW JOURNAL STAFF//April 19, 2011//
By: WISCONSIN LAW JOURNAL STAFF//April 19, 2011//
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.