Case Citator › Pennhurst State School and Hospital v. Halderman

Pennhurst State School and Hospital v. Halderman

Is it still good law? What later courts have actually done to this case.

Criticized by some courts
Court
Supreme Court of the United States
Citation
465 U.S. 89
Decided
Confirmed treatments
1
Flagged citations read
2,565 of 2,574
Citing cases (total)
8,937
Treatment dates
1987
Criticized by some courts
At least one reviewed court has criticized this case’s reasoning. No reviewed court has overruled it. Pennhurst State School and Hospital v. Halderman has been criticized: 2,565 of the 2,574 flagged citations were read; the text of the other 9 could not be retrieved, and the single confirmed treatment is listed below. McVey Trucking, Inc. v. Secretary of State of Illinois criticized Pennhurst's constitutional rationale; although Seminole Tribe later displaced McVey's separate conclusion that Congress could abrogate state immunity through its Article I powers, McVey's criticism was issued in a published precedential opinion that was not withdrawn or vacated.
More on how this was screened

The other reviewed opinions applied Pennhurst's state-law and sovereign-immunity rules, invoked its express exceptions, reported another authority's history, rejected arguments that a later case had overruled Pennhurst, or used nearby adverse language for immunity abrogation and unrelated precedent. David D. v. Dartmouth School Committee applied Pennhurst's own state-law-as-state-law boundary and therefore produces no entry.

The treatments below are confirmed; unread citations could still change the overall status.
Every treatment on this page is written from the citing opinion itself, with a verbatim quote, never copied from a commercial citator. A citation flagged by our screen but not shown here was read and found not to weaken this case, except the ones whose text could not be retrieved.

8,937 later cases cite Pennhurst State School and Hospital v. Halderman; 2,574 of those citations sat close to treatment language and were flagged for reading; 2,565 of them have been read, and the text of 9 citing opinions could not be retrieved, so those remain unread. Citations that did not sit near treatment language were not flagged and were not read one by one, so a court that weakened this case without using any of that language would not appear here.

Relying on Pennhurst State School and Hospital v. Halderman?

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Treatments

Criticized

  • The Seventh Circuit criticized Pennhurst's description of state sovereign immunity as a constitutional limit on Article III, reasoning that the Court's decisions instead rested on comity and that Pennhurst's distinction between unauthorized conduct and conduct violating state law was arbitrary.

    McVey Trucking, Inc. v. Secretary of State of Illinois · Seventh Circuit · filed

    The Supreme Court has often employed language that suggests that state sovereignty imposes a limit on the Article III power of the federal courts. See, e.g., Pennhurst, 465 U.S. at 98, 104 S.Ct. at 907. Despite such broad language, however, the Supreme Court's decisions not to assert federal judicial authority over the states appear to be based on principles of comity. Although such abstention is often highly desirable in a federal system, it does not appear to be constitutionally mandated. Therefore, when Congress acts under its plenary powers, it may authorize the federal courts to enter money judgments against the states.
    Read the full opinion on CourtListener →

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