College Savings Bank v. Florida Prepaid Postsecondary Education Expense Board et al. (527 U.S. 666)
U.S. Supreme Court · decided June 23, 1999 · Supreme Court Database (Spaeth)
- Citation
- 527 U.S. 666 · 119 S. Ct. 2219
- Decided
- June 23, 1999
- Term
- October Term 1998
- Vote
- 5–4
- Majority author
- Justice Scalia
- Issue area
- Federalism
- Disposition
- Affirmed
- Outcome
- Petitioning party lost
- Ideological direction
- Conservative
- Constitutional ruling
- Federal law held unconstitutional
Opinion excerpt
Justice Scalia delivered the opinion of the Court. The Trademark Remedy Clarification Act (TRCA), 106 Stat. 3567, subjects the States to suits brought under § 43(a) of the Trademark Act of 1946 (Lanham Act) for false and misleading advertising, 60 Stat. 441, 15 U. S. C. § 1125(a). The question presented in this case is whether that provision is effective to permit suit against a State for its alleged misrepresentation of its own product — either because the TRCA effects a constitutionally permissible abrogation of state sovereign immunity, or because the TRCA operates as an invitation to waiver of such immunity which is automatically accepted by a State’s engaging in the activities regulated by the Lanham Act. I In Chisholm v. Georgia, 2 Dall. 419 (1793), we asserted jurisdiction over an action in assumpsit brought by a South Carolina citizen against the State of Georgia. In so doing, we reasoned that Georgia’s sovereign immunity was qualified by the general jurisdictional provisions of Article III, and, most specifically, by the provision extending the federal judicial power to controversies “between a State and Citizens of another State.” U. S. Const., Art. III, §2, cl. 1. The “shock of surprise” created by this decision, Principality of Monaco v. Mississippi, 292 U. S. 313, 325 (1934), prompted the immediate adoption of the Eleventh Amendment, which provides: “The Judicial…
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