Torres v. Texas Department of Public Safety

Wikipedia · Justia (with opinion) · Docket · oyez.org

Argued on Mar 29, 2022.
Decided on Jun 29, 2022.

Petitioner: Le Roy Torres.
Respondent: Texas Department of Public Safety.

Advocates:

• Andrew T. Tutt (for the Petitioner)

Facts of the case (from oyez.org)

Leroy Torres enlisted in the U.S. Army Reserve in 1989. In 1998, he was employed by the Texas Department of Public Safety (DPS) as a trooper, where he served until his deployment to Iraq in 2007. In 2008, he was honorably discharged and sought reemployment by DPS. However, due to a lung condition he acquired in Iraq, Torres requested employment with DPS in a position different from the one he held before. Instead, DPS offered Torres only a “temporary duty offer,” which he declined.

Torres sued DPS in 2017, alleging that the agency’s failure to offer him a job that would accommodate his disability violated the federal Uniformed Services Employment and Reemployment Rights Act of 1994 (USERRA), which prohibits adverse employment actions against an employee based on the employee’s military service. The trial court ruled in favor of Torres, finding that USERRA properly abrogated DPS’s sovereign immunity under Congress’s constitutional war powers. The appellate court reversed.

Question

Did Congress properly abrogate state sovereign immunity for claims arising under the federal Uniformed Services Employment and Reemployment Rights Act of 1994 (USERRA)?

Conclusion

Congress properly exercised its power to raise and support the Armed Forces when it authorized private damages suits against nonconsenting States, as in the Uniformed Services Employment and Reemployment Rights Act of 1994. Justice Stephen Breyer authored the majority opinion of the Court.

In PennEast, the Court held that Congress could, pursuant to its eminent domain power, authorize lawsuits against nonconsenting States because, upon entering the federal system, the States implicitly agreed that their “eminent domain power would yield to that of the Federal Government.” Under PennEast, the test for structural waiver is whether the federal power is “complete in itself, and the States consented to the exercise of that power—in its entirety—in the plan of the Convention.” Congress’s power to build and maintain the Armed Forces fits PennEast’s test. Thus, in joining together to form a Union, the States agreed to sacrifice their sovereign immunity for the good of the common defense.

Justice Elena Kagan authored a concurring opinion.

Justice Clarence Thomas authored a dissenting opinion, in which Justices Samuel Alito, Neil Gorsuch, and Amy Coney Barrett joined.