holding that a state may not be sued in a federal court absent a clear congressional intent and stating: "Although our later decisions do not expressly overrule Parden, they leave no doubt that Parden's discussion of congressional intent to negateEleventh Amendment immunity is no longer good law."
How later courts described this case
- holding that a state may not be sued in a federal court absent a clear congressional intent and stating: "Although our later decisions do not expressly overrule Parden, they leave no doubt that Parden's discussion of congressional intent to negateEleventh Amendment immunity is no longer good law."
- reasoning that “the Court will find a waiver by the State only where stated by the most express language or by such overwhelming implications from the text as [will] leave no room for any other reasonable construction” (alteration in original) (internal quotation marks and citation omitted)
- explaining that a state will be found to have waived her immunity “only where stated by the most express language or by such overwhelming implications from the text as will leave no room for any other reasonable construction”
- overruling Parden and declaring that "Only when Congress has clearly considered the problem and expressly declared that any State which undertakes given regulable conduct will be deemed thereby to have waived its immunity should courts disallow the invocation of this defense.”
Written by the judges who cited it.
Later courts went against this
Questioned by Native Village Of Noatak v. Hoffman, 872 F.2d 1384 (1989)
The continued vitality of Hans is in question, both by reason of the arguments directed against it and by the actual vote in Welch v. Texas Dept. of Highways, 483 U.S. 468, 107 S.Ct. 2941, 97 L.Ed.2d 389 (1987).
Limited by Laughinghouse v. North Carolina Ports Railway Commission, 679 F. Supp. 537 (1988)
Plaintiff, in a creative attempt to keep his claim alive, seizes upon footnote eight of Welch to argue that Welch is limited to its facts (Jones Act claims) and, therefore, does not expressly extend to the FELA.
Distinguished
Distinguished by Midgett v. North Carolina Department of Transportation, 152 N.C. App. 666 (2002)
483 U.S. 468, 97 L. Ed. 2d 389 (1987) is inapposite.
Distinguished by College Savings Bank v. Florida Prepaid Postsecondary Education Expense Board, 527 U.S. 666 (1999)
They maintain, however, that Employees and Welch are distinguishable, and that a core principle of Parden remains good law.
The opinion
Justice Scalia,
concurring in part and concurring in the judgment.
Petitioner in this case did not assert as a basis for reversing the judgment that Hans v. Louisiana, 134 U. S. 1 (1890), *496 had been wrongly decided. That argument was introduced by an amicus, addressed only briefly in respondents’ brief, and touched upon only lightly at oral argument. I find both the correctness of Hans as an original matter, and the feasibility, if it was wrong, of correcting it without distorting what we have done in tacit reliance upon it, complex enough questions that I am unwilling to address them in a case whose presentation focused on other matters.
I find it unnecessary to do so in any event. Regardless of what one may think of Hans , it has been assumed to be the law for nearly a century. During that time, Congress has enacted many statutes — including the Jones Act and the provisions of the Federal Employers’ Liability Act (FELA) which it incorporates — on the assumption that States were immune from suits by individuals. Even if we were now to find that assumption to have been wrong, we could not, in reason, interpret the statutes as though the assumption never existed. Thus, although the terms of the Jones Act (through its incorporation of the FELA) apply to all common carriers by water, I do not read them to apply to States. For the same reason, I do not read the FELA to apply to States, and therefore agree with the Court that Parden v. Terminal Railway of Alabama Docks Dept., 377 U. S. 184 (1964), should be overruled. Whether or not, as Hans appears to have held, Article III of the Constitution contains an implicit limitation on suits brought by individuals against States by virtue of a nearly universal “understanding” that the federal judicial power could not extend to such suits, such an understanding clearly underlay the Jones Act and the FELA.