Hans v. Louisiana
| Hans v. Louisiana | |
|---|---|
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| Argued January 22, 1890 Decided March 3, 1890 |
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| Full case name | Bernard Hans v. State of Louisiana |
| Citations | 134 U.S. 1 (more)
10 S. Ct. 504; 33 L. Ed. 842; 1890 U.S. LEXIS 1943
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| Prior history | 24 F. 55 (C.C.E.D. La. 1885) |
| Subsequent history | None |
| Holding | |
| Due to state sovereign immunity, the federal courts do not have jurisdiction over legal actions against a state to recover money damages. | |
| Court membership | |
| Case opinions | |
| Majority | Bradley, joined by Fuller, Miller, Field, Gray, Blatchford, Lamar, Brewer |
| Concurrence | Harlan |
| Laws applied | |
| U.S. Const. art. III, § 2; U.S. Const. amend. XI | |
Hans v. Louisiana, 134 U.S. 1 (1890), was a decision of the United States Supreme Court determining that the Eleventh Amendment prohibits the citizen of a U.S. state to sue that state in a federal court. The court left open the question of whether a citizen may sue his or her state in state courts. That ambiguity was resolved in Alden v. Maine, 527 U.S. 706, in which the Court held that a state's sovereign immunity forecloses suits against a state government in state court.
The plaintiff, Hans, was a citizen of the state of Louisiana. Hans owned bonds issued by the state, and was concerned that a recent change to the state constitution would render the bonds invalid. Hans filed a suit against the state in the United States District Court, asserting that Louisiana was impairing the obligations of a contract, which was forbidden by Article I, Section 10 of the United States Constitution.
The question facing the Court was "whether a state can be sued in a Circuit Court of the United States by one of its own citizens upon a suggestion that the case is one that arises under the Constitution or laws of the United States." The Court noted that the Constitution does not specifically provide for federal jurisdiction in suits between a citizen and a state, but Article III does give the federal courts jurisdiction over "all cases" arising under the Constitution and laws of the United States. Here, Hans was asserting a violation of the federal Constitution as his cause of action.
Furthermore, the Court was well aware that nearly a century before the Supreme Court decision in Chisholm v. Georgia, 2 U.S. 419 (1793), holding that states could be sued in federal courts by citizens of other states, had sparked negative reaction and two years later Congress and the states expressed their will in the Eleventh Amendment. That Amendment expressly forbade citizens of one state from suing another state, but said nothing about citizens suing their own state. Thus the Court was left to resolve the issue of whether such a suit was therefore allowed.
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