''Fitzpatrick v. Bitzer'', 427 U.S. 445 (1976), was a
United States Supreme Court
The Supreme Court of the United States (SCOTUS) is the highest court in the federal judiciary of the United States. It has ultimate appellate jurisdiction over all U.S. federal court cases, and over state court cases that involve a point o ...
decision that determined that the
U.S. Congress has the power to
abrogate the
Eleventh Amendment sovereign immunity
Sovereign immunity, or crown immunity, is a legal doctrine whereby a sovereign or state cannot commit a legal wrong and is immune from civil suit or criminal prosecution, strictly speaking in modern texts in its own courts. A similar, stronger ...
of the
states, if this is done pursuant to its
Fourteenth Amendment power to enforce upon the states the guarantees of the Fourteenth Amendment.
Background
In 1972, Congress amended
Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964
The Civil Rights Act of 1964 () is a landmark civil rights and labor law in the United States that outlaws discrimination based on race, color, religion, sex, and national origin. It prohibits unequal application of voter registration requi ...
(42 U.S.C. § 2000e, Chapter 21, Subchapter VI) to allow individuals to sue state governments for
money damages
At common law, damages are a remedy in the form of a monetary award to be paid to a claimant as compensation for loss or injury. To warrant the award, the claimant must show that a breach of duty has caused foreseeable loss. To be recognised at ...
for
discrimination
Discrimination is the act of making unjustified distinctions between people based on the groups, classes, or other categories to which they belong or are perceived to belong. People may be discriminated on the basis of Racial discrimination, r ...
based on race, color, religion, sex, or national origin. The
plaintiff
A plaintiff ( Π in legal shorthand) is the party who initiates a lawsuit (also known as an ''action'') before a court. By doing so, the plaintiff seeks a legal remedy. If this search is successful, the court will issue judgment in favor of t ...
s, a group of male
retiree
A pensioner is a person who receives a pension, most commonly because of retirement from the workforce. This is a term typically used in the United Kingdom (along with OAP, initialism of old-age pensioner), Ireland and Australia where someone of p ...
s, sued the State of
Connecticut
Connecticut () is the southernmost state in the New England region of the Northeastern United States. It is bordered by Rhode Island to the east, Massachusetts to the north, New York (state), New York to the west, and Long Island Sound to the ...
for sex discrimination against them in its retirement policies. Connecticut invoked its Eleventh Amendment sovereign immunity, and both the District Court and the Court of Appeals allowed only
injunctive relief; they denied monetary recovery, although the Court of Appeals permitted
attorney's fees
Attorney's fee is a chiefly United States term for compensation for legal services performed by an attorney ( lawyer or law firm) for a client, in or out of court. It may be an hourly, flat-rate or contingent fee. Recent studies suggest that whe ...
. Both of those courts pointed to ''
Edelman v. Jordan'', , a US Supreme Court case holding that the Eleventh Amendment prohibits a
federal court from ordering a state to pay money to an individual who is wronged by the state. The plaintiffs appealed to the Supreme Court.
Issue
Can Congress abrogate state sovereign immunity under Section 5 of the Fourteenth Amendment?
Decision
The Court, in an opinion by
Justice
Justice, in its broadest sense, is the principle that people receive that which they deserve, with the interpretation of what then constitutes "deserving" being impacted upon by numerous fields, with many differing viewpoints and perspective ...
William Rehnquist
William Hubbs Rehnquist ( ; October 1, 1924 – September 3, 2005) was an American attorney and jurist who served on the U.S. Supreme Court for 33 years, first as an associate justice from 1972 to 1986 and then as the 16th chief justice from ...
, distinguished previous cases in which attempts by individuals to sue the states for money damages (or the equivalent), including ''Edelman v. Jordan'', had failed because the plaintiffs had not identified an ''express provision'' by Congress that permitted such lawsuits. The Court ruled that Congress has the power, under the Fourteenth Amendment, to abrogate sovereign immunity of states, as it was enacted specifically to limit the power of the states with the purpose of enforcing civil rights guarantees against them.
See also
*
External links
*
{{US11thAmendment
United States Supreme Court cases
United States Eleventh Amendment case law
United States Fourteenth Amendment, section five case law
1976 in United States case law
United States Supreme Court cases of the Burger Court
States' rights