Page:United States Reports 502 OCT. TERM 1991.pdf/365

 502us1$16L 08-21-96 15:27:13 PAGES OPINPGT

Cite as: 502 U. S. 197 (1991)

207

O’Connor, J., dissenting

statutory construction implicating important reliance interests. And when the 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 court. Howlett v. Rose, 496 U. S. 356, 367–368 (1990). IV For the reasons we have stated, the judgment of the South Carolina Supreme Court is reversed, and the case is remanded for further proceedings not inconsistent with this opinion. It is so ordered. Justice Thomas took no part in the consideration or decision of this case. Justice Blackmun concurs in the judgment. Justice O’Connor, with whom Justice Scalia joins, dissenting. The Court’s decision in this case is an example of the truism that hard cases make bad law. The Court’s understandable reluctance to leave petitioner without a remedy leads it to contort and confuse the clear statement doctrine we have articulated in recent opinions. For this reason, I respectfully dissent. I The Court invokes stare decisis while at the same time running headlong away from it. In my view, this case is cleanly resolved by applying two recent precedents, Will v. Michigan Dept. of State Police, 491 U. S. 58 (1989), and Welch v. Texas Dept. of Highways and Public Transportation, 483 U. S. 468 (1987), not by rehabilitating a decision we have largely repudiated, Parden v. Terminal Railway of Alabama Docks Dept., 377 U. S. 184 (1964).