I'm having mixed reactions to Torres v. Texas Department of Public Safety (US Supreme Ct 06/29/2022) [PDF] — the US Supreme Court case holding that a military servicemember can bring a suit against a State in State court to enforce his rights under the Uniformed Services Employment and Reemployment Rights Act (USERRA), in spite of the State's claim of sovereign immunity.

While serving in Iraq, Torres was exposed to toxic burn pits, a method of garbage disposal that sets open fire to all manner of trash, human waste, and military equipment. Torres received an honorable discharge. But he returned home with constrictive bronchitis, a respiratory condition that narrowed his airways and made breathing difficult. These ailments, Torres says, left him unable to work his old job as a State trooper, so he asked the State to accommodate his condition by reemploying him in a different role. The State refused, asserting sovereign immunity.

The US Supreme Court held (5-4) that by ratifying the Constitution, the States agreed their sovereignty would yield to the national power to raise and support the Armed Forces, so Congress may exercise this power to authorize private damages suits against nonconsenting States, as in USERRA.

Two reactions:

1. I'm delighted that Torres can bring his suit. Those who have served in the armed forces deserve to have service-related injuries accommodated by their employers (whether private employers or State employers), and State court seems the logical place to bring a suit.

2. I'm amazed at the slender reed upon which the majority rests its opinion. I won't go into great detail here, yet the majority was able to brush aside a number precedents by latching on to three words — "complete in itself" — contained in one of those cases. The four dissenting Justices do a good job of making the point: "[T]he Court brushes aside a 23-year-old, pathbreaking precedent, while elevating a single phrase, made in passing in a one-year-old, highly circumscribed precedent. It then uses that phrase to fashion a test for plan-of-the-Convention waiver that mimics earlier attempts by this Court to deny States the dignity owed to them in our system of dual federalism."