Seminole Tribe of Florida v. Florida

Seminole Tribe of Florida v. Florida
Supreme Court of the United States
Argued October 11, 1995 Decided March 27, 1996
Full case name	Seminole Tribe of Florida, Petitioner v. State of Florida, et al.
Citations	517 U.S. 44 (more) 116 S. Ct. 1114; 134 L. Ed. 2d 252; 1996 U.S. LEXIS 2165; 64 U.S.L.W. 4167; 67 Empl. Prac. Dec. (CCH) ¶ 43,952; 42 ERC (BNA) 1289; 34 Collier Bankr. Cas. 2d (MB) 1199; 96 Cal. Daily Op. Service 2125; 96 Daily Journal DAR 3499; 9 Fla. L. Weekly Fed. S 484
Case history
Prior	Motion to dismiss denied, 801 F. Supp. 655 (S.D. Fla. 1992); reversed, 11 F.3d 1016 (11th Cir. 1994); cert. granted, 513 U.S. 1125 (1995).
Holding
Congress does not have the power under the Commerce Clause to abrogate the sovereign immunity afforded to states under the 11th Amendment; the doctrine of Ex parte Young, which allows parties to seek relief against state officials for violations of the Constitution or laws of the United States, does not apply where Congress has already created what it deems a sufficient remedy.
Court membership
Chief Justice William Rehnquist Associate Justices John P. Stevens · Sandra Day O'Connor Antonin Scalia · Anthony Kennedy David Souter · Clarence Thomas Ruth Bader Ginsburg · Stephen Breyer
Case opinions
Majority	Rehnquist, joined by O'Connor, Scalia, Kennedy, Thomas
Dissent	Stevens
Dissent	Souter, joined by Ginsburg, Breyer
Laws applied
U.S. Const. amend. XI
This case overturned a previous ruling or rulings
Pennsylvania v. Union Gas Co., 491 U.S. 1 (1989)

Seminole Tribe of Florida v. Florida, 517 U.S. 44 (1996), was a United States Supreme Court case which held that Article One of the U.S. Constitution did not give the United States Congress the power to abrogate the sovereign immunity of the states that is further protected under the Eleventh Amendment.^[1] Such abrogation is permitted where it is necessary to enforce the rights of citizens guaranteed under the Fourteenth Amendment as per Fitzpatrick v. Bitzer.^[2] The case also held that the doctrine of Ex parte Young,^[3] which allows state officials to be sued in their official capacity for prospective injunctive relief, was inapplicable under these circumstances, because any remedy was limited to the one that Congress had provided.