52
Opinion of the Court
transit authorities, indicate the narrow compass of the current Circuit split. In Bolden v. Southeastern Pa. Transp. Authority, 953 F. 2d 807 (1991) (in banc), cert. denied, 504 U. S. 943 (1992), the Third Circuit held a regional transit authority not entitled to Eleventh Amendment immunity from suit, under 42 U. S. C. § 1983, in federal court. The "most important question," according to Circuit precedent, the Court of Appeals confirmed, was "whether any judgment would be paid from the state treasury." 953 F. 2d, at 816 (internal quotation marks omitted). Earlier, in Fitchik v. New Jersey Transit Rail Operations, Inc., 873 F. 2d 655 (in banc), cert. denied, 493 U. S. 850 (1989), an FELA suit, the Third Circuit concluded that the New Jersey Transit Corporation did not share the State's Eleventh Amendment immunity. As in Bolden, the court in Fitchik called "most important" the question "whether any judgment would be paid from the state treasury." 873 F. 2d, at 659.
Accounting for Port Authority PBA in its later Bolden decision, the Third Circuit acknowledged that it had relied primarily on the interstate compact provision calling for state contributions unless Port Authority revenues were " 'adequate to meet all expenditures.' " See Bolden, 953 F. 2d, at 815 (quoting compact article XV, set out supra, at 37, n. 7). As earlier indicated, however, see supra, at 37-38 and 46, the Third Circuit drew from the compact expense coverage provision far more than the text of that provision warrants.
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A discrete entity created by constitutional compact among three sovereigns, the Port Authority is financially self-sufficient; it generates its own revenues, and it pays its own debts. Requiring the Port Authority to answer in federal court to injured railroad workers who assert a federal statutory right, under the FELA, to recover damages does not touch the concerns—the States' solvency and dignity—that underpin the Eleventh Amendment. The judgment of the
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