535 U.S. 743, 751 (2002)
South Carolina Maritime Services, Inc. made five separate requests to the South Carolina State Ports Authority for permission to berth the cruise ship M/V Tropic Sea at the Authority's facilities in Charleston.1 The company planned to operate cruises originating from Charleston, some stopping in the Bahamas and others traveling only in international waters, with gambling permitted on board all voyages.2
Maritime Services filed a complaint with the Federal Maritime Commission alleging that the Ports Authority had applied its antigambling policy in a discriminatory manner by granting berthing space to two Carnival Cruise Lines vessels that offered gambling.3 The complaint charged violations of 46 U.S.C. App. § 1709(d)(4) through undue preference and of § 1709(b)(10) through unreasonable refusal to deal or negotiate, and it sought reparations for lost profits and business opportunities along with injunctive relief, a cease-and-desist order, and attorneys' fees.4
The complaint was referred to an administrative law judge.5 The Ports Authority filed an answer and a motion to dismiss asserting that, as an arm of the State of South Carolina, it was entitled to Eleventh Amendment immunity from the proceeding.6 The ALJ dismissed the complaint.7 The Commission reviewed the dismissal on its own motion and reversed, holding that sovereign immunity does not bar its adjudication of private complaints against state entities.8
The Ports Authority petitioned the United States Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit for review.9 That court reversed the Commission's decision after examining the procedures used in the adjudicative proceeding.10 The Supreme Court granted the Commission's petition for certiorari.11
Whether state sovereign immunity precludes the Federal Maritime Commission from adjudicating a private party's complaint that a state-run port has violated the Shipping Act of 1984?12
Dual sovereignty defines the constitutional blueprint.13 States entered the Union with their sovereignty intact.14 They retain an integral immunity from private suits as an attribute of that sovereignty.15 The Eleventh Amendment exemplifies but does not exhaust this immunity.16 It extends beyond the literal text to bar private suits in any forum that would subject a nonconsenting State to the indignity of defending itself before a federal officer in an adversarial proceeding.17 When an administrative adjudication employs pleadings, discovery, hearings before an impartial decisionmaker, and enforceable orders that mirror civil litigation, it triggers the same structural concerns that shield States from private judicial actions under precedents such as Alden v. Maine and Seminole Tribe of Florida.18
Yes. The established facts demonstrate that the FMC proceeding begins with a private complaint, proceeds through an answer and motion to dismiss, employs discovery rules that conform to the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure, assigns the matter to an ALJ empowered to subpoena witnesses, rule on evidence, and issue decisions containing findings of fact and conclusions of law, and culminates in orders that may be enforced in federal district court.19 These procedures, applied to the complaint filed by Maritime Services against the South Carolina State Ports Authority, render the adjudication functionally equivalent to a civil lawsuit.20 Because the Framers would have regarded such a proceeding as an affront to state dignity when the Constitution was adopted, the Hans presumption applies and sovereign immunity bars the adjudication.21
State sovereign immunity therefore precludes the Federal Maritime Commission from adjudicating Maritime Services' complaint against the South Carolina State Ports Authority.22
Related opinions on this issue
Justice Stevens joins Justice Breyer's dissent without reservation.23 He adds that the dignity rationale is embarrassingly insufficient.24 Chief Justice Marshall long ago laid to rest the view that the Eleventh Amendment protects a State's dignity.25
The legislative history of the Amendment shows it was drafted to overrule Chisholm's subject-matter jurisdiction holding rather than to grant immunity from process.26 Extending the untethered dignity rationale to routine federal administrative proceedings makes the decision even more anachronistic than Alden.27
Joined by Justices Stevens, Souter, And Ginsburg
Justice Breyer dissents because the Constitution's text supplies no principle forbidding an Executive Branch agency from determining through ordinary adjudicative processes whether a private complaint against a State is justified.28 Agency adjudication is an Article II activity, not an exercise of judicial power.29 The historical and structural analogies to lawsuits fail.30
The decision will produce less agency flexibility, a larger federal bureaucracy, less fair procedure, and potentially less effective enforcement of laws protecting worker health and safety without advancing any constitutional value.31