Supreme Court of the United States

“ While reaffirming Hall might harm States seeking sovereign immunity, overruling Hall would harm States seeking to control their own courts.
Perhaps the majority believes that there has been insufficient reliance on Hall to justify preserving it. But any such belief would ignore an important feature of reliance. The people of this Nation rely upon stability in the law. Legal stability allows lawyers to give clients sound advice and allows ordinary citizens to plan their lives. Each time the Court overrules a case, the Court produces increased uncertainty. ”

“ Hyatt argues that we should find no right to sovereign immunity in another State’s courts because no constitutional provision explicitly grants that immunity. But this is precisely the type of “ahistorical literalism” that we have rejected when “interpreting the scope of the States’ sovereign immunity since the discredited decision in Chisholm.” ”

“ McFaddon, 7 Cranch 116 (1812) , when considering whether an American citizen could impose a lien upon a French warship, Chief Justice John Marshall wrote for the Court that international law did not require the United States to grant France sovereign immunity. Any such requirement, he reasoned, “would imply a diminution” of American “sovereignty.” Id., at 136. Instead, Chief Justice Marshall observed that any “exceptions” to “the full and complete power of a nation within its own territories, must be traced up to the consent of the nation itself” and “can flow from no other legitimate source.” ”

“ And although the Constitution assumes that the States retain their sovereign immunity except as otherwise provided, it also fundamentally adjusts the States’ relationship with each other and curtails their ability, as sovereigns, to decline to recognize each other’s immunity. ”

“ One such limitation is the inability of one State to hale another into its courts without the latter’s consent. The Constitution does not merely allow States to afford each other immunity as a matter of comity; it embeds interstate sovereign immunity within the constitutional design. Numerous provisions reflect this reality.
To begin, Article I divests the States of the traditional diplomatic and military tools that foreign sovereigns possess. ”

“ The most obvious problem with this argument is that no provision of the Constitution gives States absolute immunity in each other’s courts. The majority does not attempt to situate its newfound constitutional immunity in any provision of the Constitution itself. ”

“ It is far more dangerous to overrule a decision only because five Members of a later Court come to agree with earlier dissenters on a difficult legal question. The majority has surrendered to the temptation to overrule Hall even though it is a well-reasoned decision that has caused no serious practical problems in the four decades since we decided it. Today’s decision can only cause one to wonder which cases the Court will overrule next. ”

“ In 1998, Hyatt sued the Board in Nevada state court for torts he alleged the agency committed during the audit. After the trial court denied in part the Board’s motion for summary judgment, the Board petitioned the Nevada Supreme Court for a writ of mandamus ordering dismissal on the ground that the State of California was immune from suit. The Board argued that, under the Full Faith and Credit Clause, Nevada courts must apply California’s statute immunizing the Board from liability for all injuries caused by its tax collection. ”

“ Alden, 527 U. S., at 730; see id., at 736 (“ [T] he bare text of the Amendment is not an exhaustive description of the States’ constitutional immunity from suit”) . In light of our constitutional structure, the historical understanding of state immunity, and the swift enactment of the Eleventh Amendment after the Court departed from this understanding in Chisholm, “ [i] t is not rational to suppose that the sovereign power should be dragged before a court.” ”

“ The Hall issue so rarely arises because most States, like most sovereign nations, are reluctant to deny a sister State the immunity that they would prefer to enjoy reciprocally. Thus, even in the absence of constitutionally mandated immunity, States normally grant sovereign immunity voluntarily. States that fear that this practice will be insufficiently protective are free to enter into an interstate compact to guarantee that the normal practice of granting immunity will continue. ”

“ Hall is irreconcilable with our constitutional structure and with the historical evidence showing a widespread preratification understanding that States retained immunity from private suits, both in their own courts and in other courts. We therefore overrule that decision. Because the Board is thus immune from Hyatt’s suit in Nevada’s courts, the judgment of the Nevada Supreme Court is reversed, and the case is remanded for proceedings not inconsistent with this opinion. ”

“ They suggested that this provision implicitly waived the States’ sovereign immunity against private suits in federal courts. But “ [t] he leading advocates of the Constitution assured the people in no uncertain terms” that this reading was incorrect. Alden, 527 U. S., at 716; see id., at 716–718 (citing arguments by Hamilton, Madison, and John Marshall) . According to Madison:
“ [A federal court’s] jurisdiction in controversies between a state and citizens of another state is much objected to, and perhaps without reason. It is not in the power of individuals to call any state into court. ”

“ L. Rev. 555, 581–588 (1994) ; see also Nelson, Sovereign Immunity as a Doctrine of Personal Jurisdiction, 115 Harv. L. Rev. 1559, 1574–1579 (2002) . The common-law rule was that “no suit or action can be brought against the king, even in civil matters, because no court can have jurisdiction over him.” 1 W. Blackstone, Commentaries on the Laws of England 235 (1765) (Blackstone) . The law-of-nations rule followed from the “perfect equality and absolute independence of sovereigns” under that body of international law. ”

“ See id., at ___ (slip op., at 4) (holding that the Full Faith and Credit Clause prohibits Nevada from subjecting the Board to greater liability than Nevada would impose upon its own agency in similar circumstances) . ”

“ Because of our decision to overrule Hall, Hyatt unfortunately will suffer the loss of two decades of litigation expenses and a final judgment against the Board for its egregious conduct. But in virtually every case that overrules a controlling precedent, the party relying on that precedent will incur the loss of litigation expenses and a favorable decision below. Those case-specific costs are not among the reliance interests that would persuade us to adhere to an incorrect resolution of an important constitutional question. *⁠*⁠* Nevada v. ”

“ Specifically, the States can no longer prevent or remedy departures from customary international law because the Constitution deprives them of the independent power to lay imposts or duties on imports and exports, to enter into treaties or compacts, and to wage war. Compare Art. ”

“ Georgia, 2 Dall. 419 (1793) , the Court held that Article III allowed the very suits that the “Madison–Marshall–Hamilton triumvirate” insisted it did not. Hall, 440 U. S., at 437 (Rehnquist, J., dissenting) . That decision precipitated an immediate “furor” and “uproar” across the country. 1 J. Goebel, Antecedents and Beginnings to 1801, History of the Supreme Court of the United States 734, 737 (1971) ; see id., at 734–741. Congress and the States accordingly acted swiftly to remedy the Court’s blunder by drafting and ratifying the Eleventh Amendment. [2] See Edelman v. ”

“ Texas Industries, supra, at 641. Some subjects that were decided by pure “political power” before ratification now turn on federal “rules of law.” Rhode Island v. Massachusetts, 12 Pet. 657, 737 (1838) . ”

“ One constitutional provision that abrogated certain aspects of this traditional immunity was Article III, which provided a neutral federal forum in which the States agreed to be amenable to suits brought by other States. Art. ”