Florida Prepaid Postsecondary Education Expense Board v. College Savings Bank

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Florida Prepaid Postsecondary Education Expense Board v. College Savings Bank
Image:Seal of the United States Supreme Court.png Supreme Court of the United States
Argued April 20, 1999 Decided June 23, 1999
Full case name: Florida Prepaid Postsecondary Education Expense Board v. College Savings Bank and United States 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 Prior history: 148 F.3d 1343 (Fed. Cir. 1998)
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
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. And 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 may 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.

[edit] See also

• List of United States Supreme Court cases, volume 527