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Claims Against Municipalities and Municipal Entities
As the next section's cases illustrate, municipalities do not enjoy sovereign immunity in the way that the federal government and states do. In Northern Ins. Co. of New York v. Chatham Cty., Ga., the Court explained:
This Court's cases have recognized that the immunity of States from suit is a fundamental asepct of the sovereignty which the States enjoyed before the ratification of the Constitution, and which they retain today except as altered by the plan of the Convention or certain constitutional amendments. Consistent with this recognition, which no party asks us to reexaming today, we have observed the phrase 'Eleventh amendment immunity is convenient shorthand but something of a misnomer, for the sovereign immunity of the States neither derives from, nor is limited by, the terms of the Eleventh Amendment.'
A consequence of this Court's recognition of preratification sovereignty as the source of immunity from suit is that only States and the arms of the State possess immunity from suits authorized by federal law. Accordingly, this Court has repeatedly refused to extend sovereign immunity to counties.
547 U.S. 189, 193 (2006) (emphasis added, internal quotations, alterations, citations omitted).
Consider the impact of this principle on § 1983 litigation.
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