Edelman v. Jordan

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Edelman v. Jordan
Supreme Court of the United States
Argued December 12, 1973 Decided March 25, 1974
Full case name	Joel Edelman, Director, Department of Public Aid of Illinois v. John Jordan
Citations	415 U.S. 651 (more) 94 S. Ct. 1347; 39 L. Ed. 2d 662; 1974 U.S. LEXIS 115
Case history
Prior	Jordan v. Weaver, 472 F.2d 985 (7th Cir. 1973); cert. granted, 412 U.S. 937 (1973).
Subsequent	Rehearing denied, 416 U.S. 1000 (1974); on remand, Jordan v. Trainor, 405 F. Supp. 802 (N.D. Ill. 1975), reversed, 551 F.2d 152 (7th Cir. 1977), on rehearing en banc, 563 F.2d 873 (7th Cir. 1977), affirmed sub nom., Quern v. Jordan, 440 U.S. 332 (1979).
Holding
Because of the sovereign immunity recognized in the Eleventh Amendment, a federal court could not order a state to pay back funds that had unconstitutionally withheld from parties to whom they had been due.
Court membership
Chief Justice Warren E. Burger Associate Justices William O. Douglas · William J. Brennan Jr. Potter Stewart · Byron White Thurgood Marshall · Harry Blackmun Lewis F. Powell Jr. · William Rehnquist
Case opinions
Majority	Rehnquist, joined by Burger, Stewart, White, Powell
Dissent	Douglas
Dissent	Brennan
Dissent	Marshall, joined by Blackmun
Laws applied
U.S. Const. amend. XI; 42 U.S.C. § 1983

Edelman v. Jordan, 415 U.S. 651 (1974), was a United States Supreme Court case that held that the sovereign immunity recognized in the Eleventh Amendment prevented a federal court from ordering a state from paying back funds that had been unconstitutionally withheld from parties to whom they had been due.^[1]