Ex parte Young
E115612
Ex parte Young is a landmark 1908 U.S. Supreme Court decision that created a legal fiction allowing suits in federal court against state officials to stop ongoing violations of federal law, despite state sovereign immunity under the Eleventh Amendment.
All labels observed (3)
| Label | Occurrences |
|---|---|
| Ex parte Young canonical | 3 |
| Ex parte Young doctrine | 3 |
| Ex parte Young, 209 U.S. 123 (1908) | 1 |
How this entity was disambiguated
This entity first appeared as the object of triple T969471 — resolving that mention is where its identity was fixed. The disambiguator weighed these candidate entities and picked the highlighted one (or “None”, minting a new entity). This is how homonymy is resolved: the same surface form can point to different entities.
NED1
Entity disambiguation (via context triple)
gpt-5-mini-2025-08-07
Target entity: Ex parte Young Context triple: [Eleventh Amendment to the United States Constitution, keyCase, Ex parte Young]
-
A.
Alden v. Maine
Alden v. Maine is a 1999 U.S. Supreme Court decision that expanded state sovereign immunity by holding that states are generally immune from private suits for damages in their own courts under federal law.
-
B.
Bolling v. Sharpe
Bolling v. Sharpe is a 1954 U.S. Supreme Court case that held racial segregation in Washington, D.C. public schools unconstitutional under the Fifth Amendment’s Due Process Clause.
-
C.
Briggs v. Elliott
Briggs v. Elliott was a landmark federal court case from South Carolina challenging racial segregation in public schools, and it became one of the key cases consolidated into Brown v. Board of Education.
-
D.
Washington v. Davis
Washington v. Davis is a 1976 U.S. Supreme Court case that held laws or policies with a racially disproportionate impact do not violate the Equal Protection Clause absent proof of discriminatory intent.
-
E.
Katzenbach v. Morgan
Katzenbach v. Morgan is a 1966 U.S. Supreme Court case that upheld Congress’s power under the Fourteenth Amendment to prohibit certain state voting restrictions, reinforcing federal authority to protect voting rights.
- F. None of above. chosen
- G. Unsure - the case is ambiguous/there is not enough information to decide.
NED2
Entity disambiguation (via description)
gpt-5-mini-2025-08-07
Target entity: Ex parte Young Target entity description: Ex parte Young is a landmark 1908 U.S. Supreme Court decision that created a legal fiction allowing suits in federal court against state officials to stop ongoing violations of federal law, despite state sovereign immunity under the Eleventh Amendment.
-
A.
Alden v. Maine
Alden v. Maine is a 1999 U.S. Supreme Court decision that expanded state sovereign immunity by holding that states are generally immune from private suits for damages in their own courts under federal law.
-
B.
Bolling v. Sharpe
Bolling v. Sharpe is a 1954 U.S. Supreme Court case that held racial segregation in Washington, D.C. public schools unconstitutional under the Fifth Amendment’s Due Process Clause.
-
C.
Briggs v. Elliott
Briggs v. Elliott was a landmark federal court case from South Carolina challenging racial segregation in public schools, and it became one of the key cases consolidated into Brown v. Board of Education.
-
D.
Washington v. Davis
Washington v. Davis is a 1976 U.S. Supreme Court case that held laws or policies with a racially disproportionate impact do not violate the Equal Protection Clause absent proof of discriminatory intent.
-
E.
Katzenbach v. Morgan
Katzenbach v. Morgan is a 1966 U.S. Supreme Court case that upheld Congress’s power under the Fourteenth Amendment to prohibit certain state voting restrictions, reinforcing federal authority to protect voting rights.
- F. None of above. chosen
Statements (46)
| Predicate | Object |
|---|---|
| instanceOf |
United States Supreme Court case
ⓘ
federal courts doctrine ⓘ landmark decision ⓘ |
| appliesTo | state officials sued in their official capacity ⓘ |
| citation | 209 U.S. 123 ⓘ |
| citationStyle |
Ex parte Young
self-linksurface differs
ⓘ
surface form:
Ex parte Young, 209 U.S. 123 (1908)
|
| constitutionalBasis | Supremacy of federal law over conflicting state law ⓘ |
| court | Supreme Court of the United States ⓘ |
| decisionDate | 1908 ⓘ |
| doctrineCreated |
Ex parte Young
self-linksurface differs
ⓘ
surface form:
Ex parte Young doctrine
|
| doesNotApplyTo |
suits directly against the state
ⓘ
suits seeking retroactive monetary relief from the state treasury ⓘ |
| effectOnLaw |
limited scope of state sovereign immunity in federal court
ⓘ
provides primary mechanism for suing state officials for ongoing violations of federal law ⓘ |
| enforcementContext |
enforcement of federal constitutional rights
ⓘ
enforcement of federal statutes against state officials ⓘ |
| excludesRemedyType | retroactive monetary damages from the state treasury ⓘ |
| holding |
federal courts may grant prospective injunctive relief against state officials to stop ongoing violations of federal law
ⓘ
the Eleventh Amendment does not bar suits in federal court against state officials in their official capacity for prospective relief ⓘ |
| impact | enables federal courts to enjoin unconstitutional state action despite sovereign immunity ⓘ |
| jurisdiction |
United States of America
ⓘ
surface form:
United States
|
| legalFiction | state officer enforcing unconstitutional law is treated as an individual, not as the state ⓘ |
| legalIssue |
Eleventh Amendment to the United States Constitution
ⓘ
surface form:
Eleventh Amendment
federal question jurisdiction ⓘ injunctive relief against state officials ⓘ state sovereign immunity ⓘ |
| originatingState | Minnesota ⓘ |
| party | Edward T. Young ⓘ |
| partyRole | Attorney General of Minnesota ⓘ |
| principle |
a suit to enjoin a state official from enforcing an unconstitutional statute is not a suit against the state
ⓘ
state officials acting unconstitutionally are stripped of their official or representative character ⓘ |
| relatedAreaOfLaw |
civil rights litigation
ⓘ
constitutional law ⓘ federal courts ⓘ |
| relatedCase |
Edelman v. Jordan
ⓘ
Pennhurst State School & Hospital v. Halderman ⓘ Seminole Tribe of Florida v. Florida ⓘ Verizon Maryland Inc. v. Public Service Commission of Maryland ⓘ |
| relatedConstitutionalProvision |
Eleventh Amendment to the United States Constitution
ⓘ
Supremacy Clause ⓘ |
| remedyType |
declaratory relief
ⓘ
prospective injunctive relief ⓘ |
| status | good law as of 2024 ⓘ |
| subjectMatter | challenge to Minnesota railroad rate regulations ⓘ |
| usedIn |
Section 1983 litigation
ⓘ
federal court challenges to state statutes ⓘ |
How these facts were elicited
The pipeline generated the facts above by prompting gpt-5.1 with this entity's name + description and the instruction below.
Instruction
You are a knowledge base construction expert. Given a subject entity and a description of it, return factual statements that you know for the subject as a JSON list of dictionaries(triples), where keys must be "subject", "predicate" and "object". The number of facts may be very high, between 25 to 50 or more, for very popular subjects. For less popular subjects, the number of facts can be very low, like 5 or 10. # Requirements - If you don't know the subject at all, return an empty list. - If the subject is not a named entity, return an empty list. - Include at least one triple where predicate is "instanceOf". - Do not get too wordy. - Separate several objects into multiple triples with one object.
Input
Subject: Ex parte Young Description of subject: Ex parte Young is a landmark 1908 U.S. Supreme Court decision that created a legal fiction allowing suits in federal court against state officials to stop ongoing violations of federal law, despite state sovereign immunity under the Eleventh Amendment.
Referenced by (7)
Full triples — surface form annotated when it differs from this entity's canonical label.
this entity surface form:
Ex parte Young doctrine
this entity surface form:
Ex parte Young doctrine
this entity surface form:
Ex parte Young doctrine
this entity surface form:
Ex parte Young, 209 U.S. 123 (1908)