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HILTON v. SOUTH CAROLINA PUBLIC RAILWAYS COMM’N Syllabus

Jones Act, which incorporates FELA’s remedial scheme, does not abrogate the States’ Eleventh Amendment immunity from suit in federal court, ibid., but which explicitly reserved the question whether in that Act (or in FELA) Congress intended to create a cause of action against the States, id., at 476, n. 6 (plurality opinion); see also id., at 495 (White, J., concurring)—cannot be characterized as having considered and rejected the aforementioned arguments for following stare decisis, since Welch neither addressed nor discussed the most vital consideration of today’s decision: that to confer immunity from state-court suit would strip all FELA and Jones Act protection from state-employed workers. Further, the Welch holding cannot be treated as determinative of the issue here presented, since Welch’s statement that Congress may abrogate the States’ constitutionally secured immunity “only” by making its intention unmistakably clear in the statutory language, id., at 471, was made in the context of establishing a rule of constitutional law based on the Eleventh Amendment, which does not apply in state courts. Nor was Parden effectively overruled by Will v. Michigan Dept. of State Police, 491 U. S. 58, 65, which, in holding that a State is not a “person” suable under 42 U. S. C. § 1983, relied in part on the lack of any “clear statement” in the statute of a congressional intent to impose such liability. Will’s “clear statement” rule is not a per se rule of constitutional law, but only an “ordinary rule of statutory construction,” ibid. The issue in this case, as in Will, is a pure question of statutory construction, where the stare decisis doctrine is most compelling. Thus the clear statement inquiry need not be made here and the Court need not decide whether FELA satisfies that standard, for the rule in any event does not prevail over the stare decisis doctrine as applied to a longstanding statutory construction implicating important reliance interests. And when the clear statement rule is either overcome or inapplicable so that a federal statute does impose liability upon the States, the Supremacy Clause makes that statute the law in every State, fully enforceable in state courts. Pp. 203–207. Reversed and remanded. Kennedy, J., delivered the opinion of the Court, in which Rehnquist, C. J., and White, Stevens, and Souter, JJ., joined. Blackmun, J., concurred in the judgment. O’Connor, J., filed a dissenting opinion, in which Scalia, J., joined, post, p. 207. Thomas, J., took no part in the consideration or decision of the case.

Robert J. Beckham argued the cause and filed briefs for petitioner.