I assume the US intervened, as it typically does in these cases, just to defend the constitutionality of the statute, and that it did not assert any claim of its own against the state. Anyway, even if the US could get damages from the state based on a claim that the US brought, that wouldn't give the private plaintiff the power to pursue his/her own damages claim.
At 05:58 PM 6/30/2003 -0700, Volokh, Eugene wrote:
State sovereign immunity bars damages for violation of Title VII duty of religious accommodation. Endres v. Indiana State Police, 2003 WL 21480361 (7th Cir. June 27) (Easterbrook, J., joined by Posner & Bauer, JJ.). The Court distinguishes Hibbs on the grounds that there's no evidence that the religious accommodation provision was an attempt to enforce the constitutional mandate of nondiscrimination.
Here's a question that might reveal my lack of knowledge about state sovereign immunity: The U.S. intervened as plaintiff; why wouldn't this eliminate the sovereign immunity problem, given that the U.S. is now a party? The opinion seems to have no discussion of the matter.
(Note: I'm posting this to CONLAWPROF rather than RELIGIONLAW because it seems to be more closely tied to state sovereign immunity, which has often been discussed on this list, rather than to substantive Free Exercise / Establishment Clause / Title VII religious accommodation law. I therefore thought that CONLAWPROF subscribers would be more interested in it than RELIGIONLAW subscribers.)
Eugene
