# Fitzpatrick v. Bitzer > Supreme Court of the United States · June 28, 1976 · 427 U.S. 445 URL: https://www.frixlaw.com/law-library/cases/9426529 ## Case - **Full name:** FITZPATRICK Et Al. v. BITZER, CHAIRMAN, STATE EMPLOYEES’ RETIREMENT COMMISSION Et Al. - **Court:** Supreme Court of the United States - **Decided:** June 28, 1976 - **Citations:** 427 U.S. 445; 1 Employee Benefits Cas. (BNA) 1040; 12 Empl. Prac. Dec. (CCH) 10,999; 12 Fair Empl. Prac. Cas. (BNA) 1586; 96 S. Ct. 2666; 49 L. Ed. 2d 614; 1976 U.S. LEXIS 160 - **Precedential status:** Published - **Opinion:** Concurrence by Stevens - **Judges:** Rehnquist, Rbhnquist, Burger, Stewart, White, Marshall, Blackmün, Powell, Brennan, Stevens - **Cited by:** 1,538 later opinions in the Frix Law Library ## Citator (automated) - No negative treatment found by the automated citator. That is not the same as a confirmation that the case is good law; read the citing cases. - Full citator and citing cases: https://www.frixlaw.com/law-library/cases/9426529 ## How later opinions describe it (automated extraction) - holding that Congress made its intent to abrogate state sovereign immunity explicit when it amended Title VII’s definition of “person engaged in an industry affecting interstate commerce” to include "governments, governmental agencies [and] political subdivisions,” and simulta… - explaining that the Eleventh Amendment and the principle of state sovereignty which it embodies are necessarily limited by the enforcement provisions of § 5 of the Fourteenth Amendment; therefore, for purposes of enforcing the Fourteenth Amendment, Congress may provide for pri… - holding that Congress may abrogate the States' Eleventh Amendment sovereign immunity under § 5 of the Fourteenth Amendment because the Fourteenth Amendment, adopted well after the Eleventh Amendment and ratification of the Constitution, operated to alter the pre-existing balan… - finding that, because the Fourteenth Amendment expanded federal power at the expense of state power, the Fourteenth Amendment extended federal power into the province of the Eleventh Amendment and, therefore, § 5 of the Fourteenth Amendment allows Congress to abrogate the immu… - holding that the Connecticut retirement system was the alter ego of the state primarily because under the state statutory scheme “a judgment against the fund would automatically increase the obligations of the general state treasury and amount to a judgment against the state” ## Opinion text Mr. Justice Stevens, concurring in the judgment. In my opinion the commerce power is broad enough to support federal legislation regulating the terms and conditions of state employment and, therefore, provides the necessary support for the 1972 Amendments to Title VII, even though Congress expressly relied on § 5 of the Fourteenth Amendment. But I do not believe plaintiffs proved a violation of the Fourteenth Amendment, and because I am not sure that the 1972 Amendments were “needed to secure the guarantees of the Fourteenth Amendment,” see Katzenbach v. Morgan, 384 U. S. 641, 651 , I question whether § 5 of that Amendment is an adequate reply to Connecticut’s Eleventh Amendment defense. I believe the defense should be rejected for a different reason. Even if the Eleventh Amendment does cover a citizen’s *459 suit against his own State, 1 it does not bar an action against state officers enforcing an invalid statute, Ex parte Young, 209 U. S. 123, 159-160 . Since the Connecticut pension law has been held to be invalid, at least in part, Ex parte Young makes it clear that the federal court properly acquired jurisdiction of the proceeding. The Eleventh Amendment issue presented is whether the court has power to enter a judgment payable immediately out of trust assets which subsequently would be reimbursed from the general revenues of the State. Although I have great difficulty with a construction of the Eleventh Amendment which acknowledges the federal court’s jurisdiction of a case and merely restricts the kind of relief the federal court may grant, 2 I must recognize that it has been so construed in Edelman v. Jordan, 415 TJ. S. 651, and that the language of that opinion would seem to cover this case. However, its actual holding appears to be limited to the situation in which the award is payable directly from state funds and “not as a necessary consequence of compliance in the future” with a substantive determination. Id., at 668. The holding in Edelman does not necessarily require the same result in this case; this award will not be paid directly from the state treasury, but rather from two *460 separate and independent pension funds. The fact that the State will have to increase its future payments into the funds as a consequence of this award does not, in my opinion, sufficiently distinguish this case from other cases in which a State may be required to conform its practices to the Federal Constitution and thereby to incur additional expense in the future. Since the rationale of Ex parte Young remains applicable to such cases, and since this case is not squarely covered by the holding in Edelman, I am persuaded that it is proper to reject the Eleventh Amendment defense. With respect to the fee issue, even if the Eleventh Amendment were applicable, I would place fees in the same category as other litigation costs. Cf. Fairmont Co. v. Minnesota, 275 U. S. 70 . As Mr. Chief Justice Marshall has pointed out, the Eleventh Amendment is not literally applicable to this situation. See Cohens v. Virginia, 6 Wheat. 264, 412 ; see also Employees v. Missouri Public Health Dept., 411 U. S. 279, 298-324 (Brennan, J., dissenting). Neither the language of the Eleventh Amendment nor the rationale of Ex parte Young draws any distinction between proceedings in law or in equity. The 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.’-' U. S. Const., Arndt. 11. --- Source: Frix Law Library, https://www.frixlaw.com/law-library/cases/9426529. Public record. Not legal advice.