OCTOBER TERM, 2001
Syllabus
certiorari to the united states court of appeals for the fourth circuit
No. 01-46. Argued February 25, 2002—Decided May 28, 2002
South Carolina Maritime Services, Inc. (Maritime Services), filed a complaint with petitioner Federal Maritime Commission (FMC), contending that respondent South Carolina State Ports Authority (SCSPA) violated the Shipping Act of 1984 when it denied Maritime Services permission to berth a cruise ship at the SCSPA's port facilities in Charleston, South Carolina; and praying that the FMC, inter alia, direct the SCSPA to pay reparations to Maritime Services, order the SCSPA to cease and desist from violating the Shipping Act, and ask the United States District Court for the District of South Carolina to enjoin the SCSPA from refusing berthing space and passenger services to Maritime Services. The complaint was referred to an Administrative Law Judge (ALJ), who found that the SCSPA, as an arm of the State of South Carolina, was entitled to sovereign immunity and thus dismissed the complaint. Reversing on its own motion, the FMC concluded that state sovereign immunity covers proceedings before judicial tribunals, not Executive Branch agencies. The Fourth Circuit reversed.
Held: State sovereign immunity bars the FMC from adjudicating a private party's complaint against a nonconsenting State. Pp. 751-769.
(a) Dual sovereignty is a defining feature of the Nation's constitutional blueprint, and an integral component of the sovereignty retained by the States when they entered the Union is their immunity from private suits. While States, in ratifying the Constitution, consented to suits brought by sister States or the Federal Government, they maintained their traditional immunity from suits brought by private parties. Although the Eleventh Amendment provides that the "judicial Power of the United States" does not "extend to any suit, in law or equity," brought by citizens of one State against another State, U. S. Const., Amdt. 11, that provision does not define the scope of the States' sovereign immunity; it is instead only one particular exemplification of that immunity. As a result, this Court's assumption that the FMC does not exercise the judicial power of the United States in adjudicating Shipping Act complaints filed by private parties does not end the inquiry whether sovereign immunity applies to such adjudications. Pp. 751-754.
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