In cases where states, arms of the state, and state officials are not subject to suit under - 1983 there is also no liability for attorney's fees under - 1988.
Ex Parte Young
Your email also mentions Ex Parte Young (1908) which provided an exception to 11th Amendment sovereign immunity in certain types of cases where a private suit names state officials in their individual capacities as defendants .
Supreme Court decisions during the past 25 years have sharply narrowed application of what the US Supreme Court has labeled "the Young fiction," a doctrine created by the Supreme Court at the height of the judicial activism that typified the "Lochner era." These more recent cases indicate that both Montana's Corrupt Practices Act, which was challenged in the ATP v. Bullock case, and Vermont's election finance law would not be denied sovereign immunity from private suit by the Young fiction. Thus, if Montana's AG had not waived the state's sovereign immunity by inaction, contemporary Ex Parte Young jurisprudence discussed below shows that the suit by the private corporate entities that challenged Montana's law would likely have been barred. Unlike Article III constraints on jurisdiction, 11th Amendment sovereign immunity must be affirmatively asserted by the state or may be deemed waived. See Calderon v. Ashmus, 523 U.S. 740, 745 n.2 (1998). "Unless the State raises the matter, a court can ignore it."Wisconsin Dep't of Corrections v. Schacht, 524 U.S. 381, 388 (1998). Accordingly, Attorney General Sorrell's public statement that the Supreme Court already knows about the 11th Amendment--as if the Court can be expected to itself raise and argue this defense on behalf of a state--is inconsistent with an important feature of 11th Amendment jurisprudence.
When the Supreme Court first overturned a state's campaign finance law in First National Bank v. Bellotti, 435 U.S. 765 (1978), the Supreme Court had only just begun its retreat from Young. Any view that "the Ex Parte Young fiction" still allows suits against state officials as a means to legitimize challenges to the core sovereignty interests of states is now antiquated in view of later 11th Amendment jurisprudence. These developments are addressed in detail in two complementary amicus briefs filed in the Montana case: Amicus brief of The Eleventh Amendment Movement (TEAM) and Amicus brief of Essential Information.
As these amicus briefs note, Justice Kennedy in Idaho v. Coeur d'Alene Tribe of Idaho announced the rule that where "special sovereignty interests" of the state are at risk:
We must examine the effect of the ... suit and its impact on these special sovereignty interests in order to decide whether the Ex parte Young fiction is applicable.
The Young fiction was held inapplicable to the Idaho case. Justice Kennedy explained that where special sovereignty interests are at stake, "the dignity and status of its statehood allow [a state] to rely on its Eleventh Amendment immunity." Justice Kennedy further reasoned:
To interpret Young to permit a federal-court action to proceed in every case where prospective declaratory and injunctive relief is sought against an officer, named in his individual capacity, would be to adhere to an empty formalism and to undermine the principle, reaffirmed just last Term in Seminole Tribe, that Eleventh Amendment immunity represents a real limitation on a federal court's federal-question jurisdiction. The real interests served by the Eleventh Amendment are not to be sacrificed to elementary mechanics of captions and pleading. Application of the Young exception must reflect a proper understanding of its role in our federal system and respect for state courts instead of a reflexive reliance on an obvious fiction. (emphasis added)
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