On Dec. 15, 2021, the Supreme Court agreed to review Torres v. Texas Department of Public Safety. The case is a rare instance in which the court will confront the scope of Congress’s constitutional war powers. The central question in Torres is whether Congress may authorize private citizens to sue nonconsenting state governments under its constitutional war powers. This is controversial because of state sovereign immunity, a long-standing doctrine that, subject to certain exceptions, generally prohibits private citizens from suing state governments. Specifically, Torres involves provisions of the Uniformed Services Employment and Reemployment Rights Act (USERRA) that authorize service members to sue their employers (including state government employers) for damages relating to employment discrimination. Notably, the Torres decision will not only determine if protections are available to hundreds of thousands of veterans against employment discrimination but also could have broader ramifications for the war powers doctrine and/or the state sovereign immunity doctrine.
Texas State Trooper Le Roy Torres’s path to the Supreme Court began with the Texas Department of Public Safety’s alleged employment discrimination against him. During his Army tour in Iraq, Torres suffered serious lung damage from exposure to “burn pits.” Following his service, Torres sought reemployment at the department. Because his lung damage (later diagnosed as constructive bronchitis) prevented him from...
The US Justice Department properly intervened and sought dismissal in a whistleblower’s False Claims Act suit alleging fraud under a child detainee services contract for US Customs and Border Prot...