# Puerto Rico Aqueduct and Sewer Authority v. Metcalf & Eddy, Inc. > Supreme Court of the United States · January 12, 1993 · 506 U.S. 139 URL: https://www.frixlaw.com/law-library/cases/9432710 ## Case - **Full name:** Puerto Rico Aqueduct and Sewer Authority v. Metcalf & Eddy, Inc. - **Court:** Supreme Court of the United States - **Decided:** January 12, 1993 - **Citations:** 506 U.S. 139; 6 Fla. L. Weekly Fed. S 803; 93 Daily Journal DAR 516; 61 U.S.L.W. 4045; 93 Cal. Daily Op. Serv. 224; 113 S. Ct. 684; 121 L. Ed. 2d 605; 1993 U.S. LEXIS 830 - **Precedential status:** Published - **Opinion:** Concurrence by Blackmun - **Judges:** Blackmun, O'Connor, Rehnquist, Stevens, White - **Cited by:** 2,075 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/9432710 ## How later opinions describe it (automated extraction) - explaining that the Ex parte Young doctrine carves out only a “narrow” exception to Eleventh Amendment immunity: “It applies only to prospective relief, does not permit judgments against state officers declaring that they violated federal law in the past, and has no applicatio… - finding that a denial of Eleventh Amendment immunity: [1] purports to be a conclusive determination that the State is subject to suit; [2] involves a claim to a fundamental constitutional protection that generally has no bearing on the merits of the underlying action; [3] decr… - recognizing that under Ex parte Young, 209 U.S. 123 (1908), the Eleventh Amendment does not bar official-capacity claims against a state official for prospective declaratory or injunctive relief, and explaining that Ex parte Young “has no application in suits against the State… - recognizing that Ex Parte Young “applies only to prospective relief, does not permit judgments against state [or tribal] officers declaring that they violated federal law in the past, and has no application in suits against the States [or here, Tribes] and their agencies, whic… - holding that denial of motion to dismiss on Eleventh Amendment grounds is immediately ap-pealable under collateral order rule, and explaining that “the value to the States of them Eleventh Amendment immunity ... is for the most part lost as litigation proceeds past motion prac… ## Opinion text Justice Blackmun, concurring. I join the Court’s opinion but write separately to make plain once again my position on one feature. I continue to *148 believe that the Court’s interpretation of the Eleventh Amendment as embodying a broad principle of state immunity from suit in federal court “simply cannot be reconciled with the federal system envisioned by our Basic Document and its Amendments.” Atascadero State Hospital v. Scanlon, 473 U. S. 234, 303 (1985) (Blackmun, J., dissenting). Nevertheless, because I believe that the Eleventh Amendment does preserve a State’s immunity from suit in the limited context of an action by a citizen of another State or of a foreign country on a state-law cause of action brought in federal court, id., at 301 (Brennan, J., dissenting), a claim of immunity under the Eleventh Amendment ought to be appealable immediately. Whether the assertion of an Eleventh Amendment claim is well founded — a matter not before us in this case, see ante, at 141-142, n. 1-is a question separate from the question whether the Eleventh Amendment interests are “too important to be denied review and too independent of the cause itself to require that appellate consideration be deferred until the whole case is adjudicated.” Cohen v. Beneficial Industrial Loan Corp., 337 U. S. 541, 546 (1949). Because I believe that the Eleventh Amendment does guarantee immunity from suit in a narrow class of cases, I concur in the Court’s opinion and judgment that, regardless of the merits, a district court’s denial of a claim of immunity under the Eleventh Amendment should be appealable immediately. See Sullivan v. Finkelstein, 496 U. S. 617, 632 (1990) (opinion concurring in judgment). --- Source: Frix Law Library, https://www.frixlaw.com/law-library/cases/9432710. Public record. Not legal advice.