Allen v. Cooper
206 L. Ed. 2d 291, 140 S.Ct. 994 (2020)
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Rule of Law:
Congress cannot abrogate a state's sovereign immunity from copyright infringement suits pursuant to its Article I powers. A purported abrogation under Section 5 of the Fourteenth Amendment is only valid if it is a congruent and proportional response to a documented pattern of unconstitutional conduct by states, which the Copyright Remedy Clarification Act of 1990 is not.
Facts:
- In 1996, a marine salvage company, Intersal, Inc., discovered the shipwreck of Blackbeard's ship, the Queen Anne's Revenge, which belongs to the State of North Carolina.
- The State of North Carolina contracted with Intersal to manage the ship's recovery.
- Intersal hired videographer Frederick Allen to document the salvage operation.
- Over a decade, Allen created numerous videos and photographs of the recovery efforts and registered copyrights for these works.
- In 2013, Allen alleged that North Carolina was infringing his copyrights by using his work on its website without permission.
- The parties entered a settlement agreement for $15,000, but a new dispute arose when Allen claimed North Carolina again used his videos and a photo without authorization.
- North Carolina declined to admit wrongdoing in the second dispute.
Procedural Posture:
- Frederick Allen sued the State of North Carolina for copyright infringement in the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of North Carolina (a federal trial court).
- North Carolina filed a motion to dismiss the case based on sovereign immunity.
- The District Court denied the motion, holding that the Copyright Remedy Clarification Act (CRCA) validly abrogated the state's immunity.
- North Carolina filed an interlocutory appeal to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit (an intermediate appellate court).
- The Fourth Circuit reversed the District Court's decision, holding that the CRCA was an unconstitutional abrogation of sovereign immunity under the precedent set by Florida Prepaid.
- The U.S. Supreme Court granted Allen's petition for a writ of certiorari.
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Issue:
Does the Copyright Remedy Clarification Act of 1990 validly abrogate the states' sovereign immunity from copyright infringement suits?
Opinions:
Majority - Justice Kagan
No. The Copyright Remedy Clarification Act of 1990 (CRCA) does not validly abrogate state sovereign immunity. First, precedent from Seminole Tribe and Florida Prepaid establishes that Congress cannot use its Article I powers, including the Intellectual Property Clause, to abrogate state sovereign immunity. The Court's decision in Katz, which allowed abrogation under the Bankruptcy Clause, was a 'good-for-one-clause-only holding' based on bankruptcy's unique history and does not create a clause-by-clause exception to the general rule. Second, the CRCA is not a valid exercise of Congress's enforcement power under Section 5 of the Fourteenth Amendment because it is not a 'congruent and proportional' remedy to a demonstrated pattern of unconstitutional state action. A state's copyright infringement rises to the level of a due process violation only if it is intentional and the state provides no adequate remedy. The legislative record for the CRCA, much like the record for the patent law struck down in Florida Prepaid, contained scant evidence of widespread, intentional, and un-remedied infringement by states. Therefore, the CRCA’s indiscriminate abrogation of immunity for all copyright suits is an overbroad response to a problem Congress failed to identify.
Concurring - Justice Thomas
Yes, the CRCA is invalid, but I disagree with parts of the majority's reasoning. The Court should not require a 'special justification' to overrule a demonstrably erroneous precedent, though Florida Prepaid is not such a case. Furthermore, the Court should not provide advisory opinions to Congress on how it might pass a valid abrogation statute in the future. Finally, the question of whether copyrights constitute 'property' within the original meaning of the Fourteenth Amendment's Due Process Clause remains an open question for a future case.
Concurring - Justice Breyer
No, the CRCA is not a valid abrogation of sovereign immunity, but only because binding precedent compels this result. The Court's sovereign immunity jurisprudence, beginning with Seminole Tribe, was wrongly decided and creates an unfair system where states can infringe on intellectual property rights without providing a federal remedy. However, given that Florida Prepaid is the controlling precedent and is indistinguishable from this case, I concur in the judgment based on the principle of stare decisis.
Analysis:
This decision solidifies the Court's robust protection of state sovereign immunity and confirms that the stringent test for abrogation established in the patent context in Florida Prepaid applies equally to copyright. It makes clear that Congress cannot use its Article I powers to hold states liable for intellectual property infringement. The ruling places a heavy evidentiary burden on Congress to create a detailed legislative record demonstrating a widespread pattern of unconstitutional conduct by states before it can validly abrogate immunity under Section 5 of the Fourteenth Amendment. This significantly limits the remedies available to copyright holders against infringement by state entities, such as state universities and agencies.
