Coleman v. Court of Appeals of Maryland
The Supreme Court ruled that state employees cannot sue their state employers for money damages under the Family and Medical Leave Act's self-care provision, which lets workers take unpaid leave to deal with their own serious health conditions.
The decision draws a sharp line between this provision and the law's family-care leave provisions, which the Court had earlier said states could be sued over, because Congress had not shown a pattern of sex discrimination behind the self-care rule.
“As a consequence of our constitutional design, money damages are the exception when sovereigns are defendants.”
Explaining why Congress must clear a high bar before subjecting states to damages suits.
How it got here: A federal district court dismissed Coleman's suit on sovereign immunity grounds, the Fourth Circuit affirmed, and the Supreme Court agreed to review the case.
The Case in Depth
What happened
Daniel Coleman worked for the Maryland Court of Appeals. When he requested sick leave for his own medical condition, he says he was told he would be fired unless he resigned. He sued, claiming his employer violated the Family and Medical Leave Act's guarantee of unpaid self-care leave, and sought money damages from the state court system.
The question before the Court
Can a state employee sue his state employer for money damages under the part of the Family and Medical Leave Act that lets workers take unpaid leave for their own serious illness?
The Court's answer
No — the Court ruled that state employees cannot sue their state employers for money damages under the FMLA's self-care leave provision, because states retain their normal immunity from such suits. Congress can only strip states of that immunity when it identifies a real pattern of unconstitutional state conduct and writes a remedy closely matched to that pattern.
Unlike the family-care leave provision upheld in an earlier case, which responded to documented evidence that states administered family leave in discriminatory ways, the self-care provision lacked comparable evidence. Congress's own records showed men and women took medical leave at about the same rate, and nearly all state employees already had paid sick leave, so subjecting states to damages suits for this provision went further than the Constitution allows.
Curious how the Court got there? See the step-by-step legal reasoning →
Why it matters
State employees denied unpaid sick leave for their own illness can no longer collect money damages directly from the state agency in court, though they can still seek a court order requiring compliance or ask the U.S. Department of Labor to sue on their behalf. The underlying leave requirement itself still binds states as valid commerce-power legislation.
What changes now
The ruling is final on the merits and leaves in place the dismissal of Coleman's damages claim. States remain bound by the self-care leave requirement itself, since it survives as valid regulation of interstate commerce, but employees cannot sue the state for money damages over violations — they may instead seek a court order against the responsible official or ask the U.S. Department of Labor to pursue the claim on their behalf.
What this does not decide
The decision does not excuse states from following the FMLA's self-care leave rule itself — only from being sued for money damages over violations. Employees can still seek injunctions against state officials, and the Labor Department can still sue states for damages on employees' behalf under the statute.
Concurrences and dissents
Concurrence — Justice Thomas
Justice Thomas joined the plurality but wrote separately to reiterate his view that the Court's earlier decision upholding suits under the family-care provision was wrongly decided, because he does not believe that provision was sufficiently linked to a demonstrated pattern of unconstitutional state discrimination either. He viewed the self-care provision here as even further removed from any such pattern.
Concurrence — Justice Scalia
Justice Scalia agreed the self-care provision could not strip states of immunity but criticized the 'congruence and proportionality' test itself as unworkable and inviting arbitrary, policy-driven judging. He would instead limit Congress's enforcement power (outside the context of race) to regulating conduct that itself violates the Fourteenth Amendment, which a state's failure to grant self-care leave does not do.
Dissent — Justice Ginsburg
“The plurality pays scant attention to the overarching aim of the FMLA: to make it feasible for women to work while sustaining family life.”Ginsburg's core objection that the majority ignored the statute's anti-discrimination purpose.
Justice Ginsburg argued the self-care provision was closely tied to documented, pervasive pregnancy-based discrimination against women and worked together with the family-care provisions to prevent employers from favoring men. She would have held the provision a valid, congruent response to a real pattern of unconstitutional state conduct and would have reversed the Fourth Circuit.
How the Court got there
The legal reasoning, step by step
- The Court applied the 'congruence and proportionality' test, the standard for deciding whether Congress may strip states of their normal immunity from damages suits when legislating under Section 5 of the Fourteenth Amendment, which lets Congress pass laws to enforce equal-protection rights. Under this test, Congress must point to a real pattern of unconstitutional state conduct and design a remedy closely tailored to that specific problem.
- The Court recalled that in an earlier case it had upheld a related family-care leave provision because Congress had documented widespread evidence that states gave women more family leave than men and administered even neutral leave policies in ways reinforcing the stereotype that caregiving is women's work.
- Turning to the self-care provision, the Court found no comparable evidence: nearly all state employees already had paid sick leave and short-term disability coverage, and Congress's own records showed men and women took medical leave at roughly equal rates, undercutting any claim that self-care leave was needed to combat sex-based stereotypes.
- The Court rejected the argument that self-care leave was a necessary companion to family-care leave, reasoning that the claimed link — that letting men take self-care leave would offset employers' assumption that women take more family leave — was speculative and unsupported by congressional findings.
- The Court also rejected the argument that the provision was justified because it helps single parents, mostly women, keep their jobs, holding that a policy's disproportionate effect on women alone is not enough to prove the kind of intentional discrimination needed to strip states of immunity.
- Because the self-care provision was not tied to any documented pattern of unconstitutional state conduct, the Court concluded it failed the congruence-and-proportionality test and could not validly strip states of their immunity from damages suits.
Doctrinal impact
Cases affected by this decision
Distinguishes Hibbs (538 U. S. 721)
The self-care provision lacked the evidence of state sex discrimination that justified damages suits under the family-care provision.
Reaffirms City of Boerne v. Flores (521 U. S. 507)
The Court relies on this case's congruence-and-proportionality framework to evaluate the self-care provision.
Reaffirms Florida Prepaid Postsecondary Ed. Expense Bd. v. College Savings Bank (527 U. S. 627)
The Court applies this case's requirement that Congress document the evil it seeks to remedy.