Cite as: 534 U. S. 533 (2002)
Opinion of the Court
suit in federal court. Reply Brief for Petitioners 2-4. We have stated that "[a] sovereign's immunity may be waived" and have "held that a State may consent to suit against it in federal court." Pennhurst, 465 U. S., at 99 (citing Clark v. Barnard, 108 U. S. 436, 447 (1883)). Petitioners claim that respondent consented to suit by not moving to dismiss petitioners' state law claims on Eleventh Amendment grounds until July 1997, some 10 months after the federal lawsuits were filed in August 1996. Yet respondent raised its Eleventh Amendment defense at the earliest possible opportunity by including that defense in its answers that were filed in September 1996. Given that, we cannot say that respondent "unequivocally expressed" a consent to be sued in federal court. Pennhurst, supra, at 99 (citing Edelman v. Jordan, 415 U. S. 651, 673 (1974)). The fact that respondent filed its motion in July 1997 is as consistent with adherence to the pretrial schedule as it is with anything else.
Indeed, such circumstances are readily distinguishable from the limited situations where this Court has found a State consented to suit, such as when a State voluntarily invoked federal court jurisdiction or otherwise "ma[de] a 'clear declaration' that it intends to submit itself to our jurisdiction." College Savings Bank v. Florida Prepaid Post-secondary Ed. Expense Bd., 527 U. S. 666, 676 (1999). And even if we were to assume for the sake of argument that consent could be inferred "from the failure to raise the objection at the outset of the proceedings," Wisconsin Dept. of Corrections v. Schacht, 524 U. S., at 395 (Kennedy, J., concurring)—a standard this Court has not adopted—consent would still not be found here since respondent raised the issue in its answer. Thus, we find no merit to petitioners' argument that respondent was a consenting state defendant during the federal court proceedings. We express no view on the application or constitutionality of § 1367(d) when a State consents to suit or when a defendant is not a State.
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