state sovereign immunity

In the early 1990s, Gilbert Hyatt earned substantial royalties from a technology patent. Although he had been a long-time resident of California, in 1991 Hyatt sold his house there and took steps to establish residency in Nevada, including renting an apartment, registering to vote, obtaining insurance, opening a bank account, and acquiring a driver's license. When filing his 1991 and 1992 tax returns, Hyatt claimed Nevada as his primary residence, a state that collects no personal income tax. The Franchise Tax Board of California suspected the move was a sham and in 1993 launched an audit. Board employees traveled to Nevada to interview Hyatt's estranged family members and shared his personal information with business contacts, sending more than 100 letters and demands for information to third parties. The Board concluded that Hyatt had not moved to Nevada until April 1992 and owed California more than $10 million in back taxes, interest, and penalties. After an 11-year administrative proceeding, the Board upheld the audit, with the appeal still pending. In 1998, Hyatt sued the Board in Nevada state court alleging torts committed during the audit. The Board sought dismissal on immunity grounds, arguing Nevada courts must apply California law under the Full Faith and Credit Clause. The Nevada Supreme Court held that comity entitled the Board only to the immunity Nevada afforded its own agencies. The Supreme Court granted certiorari and in 2003 affirmed that the Full Faith and Credit Clause did not prohibit Nevada from applying its own law. After remand, a four-month jury trial resulted in a verdict exceeding $490 million including interest and costs. On appeal, the Nevada Supreme Court upheld a $1 million judgment on one claim but declined to apply Nevada's $50,000 cap on tort liability for state agencies. The Supreme Court in 2016 reversed, requiring the cap, but was equally divided on overruling Nevada v. Hall. On further remand, the trial court was instructed to apply the cap. The Board petitioned for certiorari a third time, and the Supreme Court granted review in 2018 solely on the question whether Nevada v. Hall should be overruled.

In 1971 respondent John Jordan filed a class action complaint in the United States District Court for the Northern District of Illinois against petitioner Joel Edelman, the Director of the Illinois Department of Public Aid, and other state officials. The suit was brought under 42 U.S.C. § 1983 and challenged the administration of the federal-state Aid to the Aged, Blind, or Disabled program. It alleged that applications were not processed within federal time limits and that benefits were authorized only from the month of approval rather than including prior eligibility months. Federal regulations required eligibility determinations within 30 days for aged and blind applicants and 45 or 60 days for disabled applicants, with assistance checks required to be received within those periods. Illinois officials operated under state regulations in the Categorical Assistance Manual that set a 30-day standard for aged and blind applicants but authorized grants only from the month of approval. Jordan alleged that his own application for disability benefits was not acted on for almost four months. The District Court later found that Illinois averaged 90 days for AABD applications and 60 days for AFDC applications. In its March 15, 1972 judgment the District Court declared the inconsistent Illinois provisions invalid. It issued a permanent injunction requiring compliance with federal time limits. The court also ordered the state officials to release and remit AABD benefits wrongfully withheld to all applicants who applied between July 1, 1968 and April 16, 1971 and were determined eligible, with specific provisions for mailing checks or certified letters to current and former recipients. On appeal the Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit affirmed the finding of violation and the injunction but modified the retroactive award to cover only benefits wrongfully withheld after the filing of the complaint. The Supreme Court granted certiorari in 1973. The plaintiff class consisted of Illinois residents who applied for AABD benefits and whose applications were not processed within the federal time standards. The complaint specifically requested a permanent injunction enjoining the defendants to award to the entire class all AABD benefits wrongfully withheld.

The Voting Rights Act of 1965 included Section 2, which banned any standard, practice, or procedure resulting in denial or abridgement of the right to vote on account of race and applied nationwide on a permanent basis. Section 4(b) provided the coverage formula. It defined covered jurisdictions as States or political subdivisions that maintained tests or devices as prerequisites to voting and had less than 50 percent voter registration or turnout in the 1964 presidential election. Section 5 required that no change in voting procedures in covered jurisdictions could take effect until approved by federal authorities in Washington, D.C. The initial covered jurisdictions included Alabama, Georgia, Louisiana, Mississippi, South Carolina, Virginia, and 39 counties in North Carolina and one in Arizona. Congress reauthorized the Act in 1970 for five years and extended the coverage formula to jurisdictions with a voting test and less than 50 percent registration or turnout as of 1968, adding counties in California, New Hampshire, and New York. In 1975, Congress reauthorized the Act for seven years, extended coverage to 1972 data, amended the definition of test or device to include English-only materials in certain language-minority areas, and brought in Alaska, Arizona, Texas, and additional counties in other states. The 1982 reauthorization lasted 25 years without changing the coverage formula but allowed political subdivisions to bail out if they met specified conditions over the prior ten years. In 2006, Congress reauthorized the Act for another 25 years without altering the coverage formula based on 1960s and 1970s data, though it expanded the prohibitions in Section 5 to forbid voting changes with any discriminatory purpose or that diminished the ability of minority citizens to elect their preferred candidates. Shortly after that reauthorization, a Texas utility district challenged the Act's constitutionality, and in Northwest Austin Municipal Utility District No. One v. Holder decided in 2009, the Court resolved the case on statutory grounds while expressing serious doubts about the Act's continued constitutionality. In 2010, Shelby County, located in the covered jurisdiction of Alabama and which had not sought bailout, sued the Attorney General in Federal District Court in Washington, D.C., seeking a declaratory judgment that Sections 4(b) and 5 are facially unconstitutional along with a permanent injunction against their enforcement. The District Court upheld the Act in 2011, finding the evidence before Congress in 2006 sufficient to justify reauthorizing Section 5 and continuing the Section 4(b) coverage formula. The D.C. Circuit affirmed in 2012 after surveying evidence including Attorney General objections to voting changes, successful Section 2 suits, federal observers, and the deterrent effect of Section 5. Census Bureau data showed that in 1965 the gap between white and black voter registration in the six originally covered States ranged from 22.8 percent in Virginia to 63.2 percent in Mississippi. By 2004 those gaps had narrowed to between negative 3.8 percent and 10.8 percent. By the most recent election African-American voter turnout exceeded white turnout in five of the six States. The Attorney General objected to 14.2 percent of proposed voting changes in the first decade after enactment but only 0.16 percent in the last decade before the 2006 reauthorization. The Supreme Court granted certiorari in 2012.