676
Opinion of the Court
tion, Gunter v. Atlantic Coast Line R. Co., 200 U. S. 273, 284 (1906), or else if the State makes a "clear declaration" that it intends to submit itself to our jurisdiction, Great Northern Life Ins. Co. v. Read, 322 U. S. 47, 54 (1944). See also Penn-hurst State School and Hospital v. Halderman, 465 U. S., at 99 (State's consent to suit must be "unequivocally expressed"). Thus, a State does not consent to suit in federal court merely by consenting to suit in the courts of its own creation. Smith v. Reeves, 178 U. S. 436, 441-445 (1900). Nor does it consent to suit in federal court merely by stating its intention to "sue and be sued," Florida Dept. of Health and Rehabilitative Servs. v. Florida Nursing Home Assn., 450 U. S. 147, 149-150 (1981) (per curiam), or even by authorizing suits against it " 'in any court of competent jurisdiction,' " Kennecott Copper Corp. v. State Tax Comm'n, 327 U. S. 573, 577-579 (1946). We have even held that a State may, absent any contractual commitment to the contrary, alter the conditions of its waiver and apply those changes to a pending suit. Beers v. Arkansas, supra.
There is no suggestion here that respondent Florida Pre-paid expressly consented to being sued in federal court. Nor is this a case in which the State has affirmatively invoked our jurisdiction. Rather, petitioner College Savings and the United States both maintain that Florida Prepaid has "impliedly" or "constructively" waived its immunity from Lanham Act suit. They do so on the authority of Parden v. Terminal R. Co. of Ala. Docks Dept., 377 U. S. 184 (1964)— an elliptical opinion that stands at the nadir of our waiver (and, for that matter, sovereign-immunity) jurisprudence. In Parden, we permitted employees of a railroad owned and operated by Alabama to bring an action under the Federal Employers' Liability Act (FELA) against their employer. Despite the absence of any provision in the statute specifically referring to the States, we held that the Act authorized suits against the States by virtue of its general provision subjecting to suit "[e]very common carrier by railroad . . .
Page: Index Previous 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 NextLast modified: October 4, 2007