Episode description

Leroy Torres enlisted in the U.S. Army Reserve in 1989. In 1998, he was employed by the Texas Department of Public Safety (DPS) as a trooper, where he served until his deployment to Iraq in 2007. In 2008, he was honorably discharged and sought reemployment by DPS. However, due to a lung condition he acquired in Iraq, Torres requested employment with DPS in a position different from the one he held before. Instead, DPS offered Torres only a “temporary duty offer,” which he declined.

Torres sued DPS in 2017, alleging that the agency’s failure to offer him a job that would accommodate his disability violated the federal Uniformed Services Employment and Reemployment Rights Act of 1994 (USERRA), which prohibits adverse employment actions against an employee based on the employee’s military service. The trial court ruled in favor of Torres, finding that USERRA properly abrogated DPS’s sovereign immunity under Congress’s constitutional war powers. The appellate court reversed.

The case was decided on June 29, 2022. The Court held that By ratifying the Constitution, the States agreed their sovereignty would yield to the national power to raise and support the Armed Forces. Congress may exercise this power to authorize private damages suits against nonconsenting States, as in U-S-E-R-R-A. Justice BREYER delivered the opinion of the Court, in which Chief Justice ROBERTS and Justices SOTOMAYOR, KAGAN, and KAVANAUGH joined. Justice KAGAN filed a concurring opinion. Justice THOMAS filed a dissenting opinion, in which Justices ALITO, GORSUCH, and BARRETT joined.

Credit: Oyez, LII Supreme Court Resources, Justia Supreme Court Center, available at: https://www.oyez.org/cases/2021/20-603