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Florida Prepaid Postsecondary Education Expense Board v. College Savings Bank
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| Florida Prepaid Postsecondary Education Expense Board v. College Savings Bank |
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Supreme Court of the United States |
Argued April 20, 1999
Decided June 23, 1999
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| Full case name: |
Florida Prepaid Postsecondary Education Expense Board v. College Savings Bank and United States |
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| Citations: |
527 U.S. 627; 119 S.Ct. 2199; 144 L.Ed.2d 575; 67 USLW 3683; 67 USLW 4580; 135 Ed. Law Rep. 342; 51 U.S.P.Q.2d 1081; 99 Cal. Daily Op. Serv. 4945; 1999 Daily Journal D.A.R. 6371; 1999 CJ C.A.R. 3688; 12 Fla. L. Weekly Fed. S 458 |
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| Prior history: |
148 F.3d 1343 (Fed. Cir. 1998) |
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| Holding |
| The Patent and Plant Variety Protection Remedy Clarification Act did not constitutionally abrogate the states' sovereign immunity. |
| Court membership |
Chief Justice: William Rehnquist
Associate Justices: John Paul Stevens, Sandra Day O'Connor, Antonin Scalia, Anthony Kennedy, David Souter, Clarence Thomas, Ruth Bader Ginsburg, Stephen Breyer |
| Case opinions |
Majority by: Rehnquist
Joined by: O'Connor, Scalia, Kennedy, Thomas
Dissent by: Stevens
Joined by: Souter, Ginsburg, Breyer
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| Laws applied |
| Patent Clause, Commerce Clause, U.S. Const. amend. XI, U.S. Const. amend. XIV |
Florida Prepaid Postsecondary Education Expense Board v. College Savings Bank, 527 U.S. 627 (1999), was a decision by the Supreme Court of the United States relating to the doctrine of sovereign immunity.
Florida Prepaid was a companion case to the similarly named (but not to be confused) College Savings Bank v. Florida Prepaid Postsecondary Education Expense Board, 527 U.S. 666 (1999). Where College Savings Bank was an action brought under the Lanham Act, Florida Prepaid was a concurrent action brought the Patent and Plant Variety Protection Remedy Clarification Act. Also, while it was unnecessary in College Savings Bank to reach the question of whether Congress had validly abrogated Florida's sovereign immunity, in Florida Prepaid, that question was unavoidable, and the court held – in a decision authored by Chief Justice William Rehnquist – that the Act's abrogation of States' sovereign immunity was invalid. Congress could only abrogate sovereign immunity pursuant to its § 5 powers, not its Article I powers (see Fitzpatrick v. Bitzer; Seminole Tribe v. Florida), and the Act could not be sustained as legislation validly enacted pursuant to § 5 under the test set forth in City of Boerne v. Flores.
See also
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