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91-1010.ZS
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NOTE: Where it is feasible, a syllabus (headnote) will be released, as is
being done in connection with this case, at the time the opinion is issued.
The syllabus constitutes no part of the opinion of the Court but has been
prepared by the Reporter of Decisions for the convenience of the reader.
See United States v. Detroit Lumber Co., 200 U. S. 321, 337.
SUPREME COURT OF THE UNITED STATES
Syllabus
PUERTO RICO AQUEDUCT AND SEWER
AUTHORITY v. METCALF & EDDY, INC.
certiorari to the united states court of appeals for
the first circuit
No. 91-1010. Argued November 9, 1992-Decided January 12, 1993
Petitioner, an autonomous Puerto Rico government instrumentality,
moved to dismiss the diversity action brought against it by respon-
dent, a private firm, on the grounds that it was an ``arm of the
State,'' and that the Eleventh Amendment therefore prohibited the
suit. After the District Court denied the motion, the Court of Ap-
peals dismissed petitioner's appeal for want of jurisdiction, concluding
that Circuit precedent barred both States and their agencies from
taking an immediate appeal on a claim of Eleventh Amendment
immunity.
Held:States and state entities that claim to be ``arms of the State''
may take advantage of the collateral order doctrine of Cohen v.
Beneficial Industrial Loan Corp., 337 U.S. 541, to appeal a district
court order denying a claim of Eleventh Amendment immunity from
suit in federal court. Although 28 U.S.C. 1291 requires that
appeals be taken from ``final decisions of the district courts,'' Cohen,
supra, at 546, provides that a ``small class'' of judgments that are not
complete and final will be immediately appealable. Once it is ac-
knowledged that a State and its ``arms'' are, in effect, immune from
federal-court suit under the Amendment, see, e. g., Welch v. Texas
Dept. of Highways and Public Transportation, 483 U.S. 468, 480, it
follows that the elements of the collateral order doctrine necessary to
bring an order within Cohen's ``small class,'' see Coopers & Lybrand
v. Livesay, 437 U.S. 463, 468, are satisfied. First, denials of Elev-
enth Amendment immunity claims purport to be conclusive determi-
nations that States and their entities have no right not to be sued in
federal court. Second, a motion to dismiss on Eleventh Amendment
grounds involves a claim to a fundamental constitutional protection
whose resolution generally will have no bearing on the merits of the
underlying action. Third, the value to the States of their constitu-
tional immunity-like the benefits conferred by qualified immunity
to individual officials, see Mitchell v. Forsyth, 472 U.S. 511, 526-is
for the most part lost as litigation proceeds past motion practice, such
that the denial order will be effectively unreviewable on appeal from
a final judgment. Respondent's claim that the Amendment does not
confer immunity from suit, but merely a defense to liability, misun-
derstands the role of the Amendment in our system of federalism and
is rejected. Moreover, there is little basis for respondent's alternative
argument that a distinction should be drawn between cases in which
the determination of an Eleventh Amendment claim is bound up with
factual complexities whose resolution requires trial and cases in
which it is not. In any event, the determination of petitioner's
Eleventh Amendment status does not appear to implicate any ex-
traordinary factual difficulty and can be fully explored on remand.
Pp.3-7.
945 F.2d 10, reversed and remanded.
White, J., delivered the opinion of the Court, in which Rehnquist,
C. J., and Blackmun, O'Connor, Scalia, Kennedy, Souter, and
Thomas, JJ., joined. Blackmun, J., filed a concurring opinion.
Stevens, J., filed a dissenting opinion.