Albert Hess and Charles F. Walsh v. Port Authority Trans-hudson Corporation (513 U.S. 30)
U.S. Supreme Court · decided November 14, 1994 · Supreme Court Database (Spaeth)
- Citation
- 513 U.S. 30 · 115 S. Ct. 394
- Decided
- November 14, 1994
- Term
- October Term 1994
- Vote
- 5–4
- Majority author
- Justice Ginsburg
- Issue area
- Economic Activity
- Disposition
- Reversed and remanded
- Outcome
- Petitioning party won
- Ideological direction
- Conservative
Opinion excerpt
Justice Ginsburg delivered the opinion of the Court. These paired cases arise out of work-related accidents in which a locomotive engineer and a train conductor, employees of a bistate railway authorized by interstate compact, sustained.personal injuries. The courts below — the United States District Court for the District of New Jersey, and the United States Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit— rejected both complaints on the ground that the Eleventh Amendment sheltered respondent railway from suit in federal court. We granted certiorari to resolve an intercircuit conflict on this issue. 510 U. S. 1190 (1994). Concluding that respondent bistate railway, the Port Authority Trans-Hudson Corporation (PATH), is not cloaked with the Eleventh Amendment immunity that a State enjoys, we reverse the judgment of the Third Circuit. I A Petitioners Albert Hess and Charles F. Walsh, both railroad workers, were injured in unrelated incidents in the course of their employment by PATH. PATH, a wholly owned subsidiary of the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey (Port Authority or Authority), operates a commuter railroad connecting New York City to northern New Jersey. In separate personal injury actions commenced in the United States District Court for the District of New Jersey, petitioners sought to recover damages for PATH’S alleged negligence; both claimed a right to compensation…
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