X-Nico

3 unusual facts about Abrogation doctrine


Abrogation doctrine

The Abrogation doctrine is a constitutional law doctrine expounding when and how the Congress may waive a state's sovereign immunity and subject it to lawsuits to which the state has not consented (i.e., to "abrogate" their immunity to such suits).

However, the Congress can authorize lawsuits seeking monetary damages against individual U.S. states when it acts pursuant to powers delegated to it by amendments subsequent to the Eleventh Amendment.

This is most frequently done pursuant to Section 5 of the Fourteenth Amendment, which explicitly allows the Congress to enforce its guarantees on the states and thus overrides states' Eleventh Amendment immunity.



see also