![]() ![]() § 1983, but this remedy may also be quite limited as state officers are entitled to qualified immunity. Litigants may seek money damages from state officers personally under 42 U.S.C. But if the violation has run its course and she seeks only legal damages to compensate for her losses, she is often out of luck. ![]() If the violation is ongoing, she can bring suit in federal court against a state officer for injunctive or declaratory relief. ![]() Today, an individual whose federal rights have been violated by a state has relatively limited options. Over the last two hundred years, the seemingly unattainable balance between these federal and state interests has played out in the pages of the U.S. Such limits are justified in part on the basis that, were the states subjected to suit without limit, state autonomy would be substantially undermined and state treasuries might quickly bleed out. The doctrine thus has a profound impact on the enforcement of federal rights. Where it applies, sovereign immunity is a powerful defensive mechanism, empowering states to bar consideration of a plaintiff’s claims, however meritorious. In light of the Court’s recent jurisprudence in this area, this Note will use “state sovereign immunity” to refer to both concepts. See, e.g., Wolcher, supra note 6, at 195–96. Some scholars have posited a clear distinction between state sovereign immunity (which applies in the states’ own courts) and Eleventh Amendment immunity (which applies only in federal court). and it extends to the federal courts as well through the Eleventh Amendment. Sovereign Immunity, Black’s Law Dictionary (9th ed. That doctrine refers to the traditional common law immunity of a state from suit in its own courts without its consent, 7 × 7. ![]() 189, 192 (1981).Īll this means that the balance between state autonomy and federal rights turns in large part on a concept not designed with dual federalism in mind: state sovereign immunity. Wolcher, Sovereign Immunity and the Supremacy Clause: Damages Against States in Their Own Courts for Constitutional Violations, 69 Calif. And given the whole host of barriers to access to federal court, the reality is that many claimants “depend, as a practical matter, entirely on state judges for the vindication of their federal rights.” 6 × 6. 2011) (describing “a fairly impressive collection of cases in which the Court appeared to assume that state courts were open for the enforcement of federal rights”). Pfander, Principles of Federal Jurisdiction § 7.4.4, at 208 (2d ed. In particular, as courts of general jurisdiction, state courts are presumed to be available to hear claims for relief under federal law, including claims against the states themselves. Press 1911) (statement of James Madison and James Wilson). at 469–70 (Scalia, J., concurring) see also James Madison, Notes of the Committee of the Whole (June 5, 1787), in 1 The Records of the Federal Convention of 1787, at 125 (Max Farrand ed., Yale Univ. Yet due to the Madisonian Compromise, state courts often serve as frontline arbiters of federal rights - not as mere conscripts in the federal court system, but as semi-autonomous actors that apply their own procedural and jurisdictional rules. Of course, federal law is “supreme” and binding on state courts, “any Thing in the Constitution or Laws of any state to the Contrary notwithstanding.” 3 × 3. One particular challenge revolves around balancing the autonomy of the several states with the enforcement of federal law. Exactly how much sovereignty the states ceded, and precisely how powerful the national government should be, have remained subjects of great controversy since. The states remained autonomous, but - after the hard lessons of the disastrous Articles of Confederation - also ceded some of their independence to a powerful national government. When ratified in 1788, the Constitution “split the atom of sovereignty” and established an “unprecedented” federal system. 20, at 129–30 (James Madison with Alexander Hamilton) (Clinton Rossiter ed., 2003). Though federal-style republics existed prior to 1788, the American polity was and remains unique for the degree to which it combined state autonomy with federal power. The United States was and is an experiment with a previously unknown form of government: not a single sovereign, not a loose coalition of independent states, but both together. ![]()
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