Lane v. Peña
E494925
Lane v. Peña is a 1996 U.S. Supreme Court decision that clarified the strict standards for waiving federal sovereign immunity, holding that monetary damages against the United States must be expressly authorized by Congress.
All labels observed (1)
| Label | Occurrences |
|---|---|
| Lane v. Peña canonical | 1 |
How this entity was disambiguated
This entity first appeared as the object of triple T5099971 — 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: Lane v. Peña Context triple: [United States sovereign immunity law, keyCase, Lane v. Peña]
-
A.
Lau v. Nichols
Lau v. Nichols is a landmark 1974 U.S. Supreme Court case that held public schools must take affirmative steps to help non-English-speaking students overcome language barriers to ensure equal educational opportunity under federal civil rights law.
-
B.
Ray v. Blair
Ray v. Blair is a 1952 U.S. Supreme Court case that upheld a state's authority to require presidential electors to pledge support for their party's nominees as a condition of appointment.
-
C.
Alexander v. Sandoval
Alexander v. Sandoval is a 2001 U.S. Supreme Court decision that held there is no private right of action to enforce disparate-impact regulations under Title VI of the Civil Rights Act of 1964.
-
D.
Saenz v. Roe
Saenz v. Roe is a 1999 U.S. Supreme Court decision that struck down California’s welfare residency requirements and reaffirmed the constitutional right to travel under the Fourteenth Amendment.
-
E.
Branch v. Texas
Branch v. Texas is a U.S. Supreme Court case addressing the constitutionality and application of the death penalty in the wake of the landmark Furman v. Georgia decision.
- 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: Lane v. Peña Target entity description: Lane v. Peña is a 1996 U.S. Supreme Court decision that clarified the strict standards for waiving federal sovereign immunity, holding that monetary damages against the United States must be expressly authorized by Congress.
-
A.
Lau v. Nichols
Lau v. Nichols is a landmark 1974 U.S. Supreme Court case that held public schools must take affirmative steps to help non-English-speaking students overcome language barriers to ensure equal educational opportunity under federal civil rights law.
-
B.
Ray v. Blair
Ray v. Blair is a 1952 U.S. Supreme Court case that upheld a state's authority to require presidential electors to pledge support for their party's nominees as a condition of appointment.
-
C.
Alexander v. Sandoval
Alexander v. Sandoval is a 2001 U.S. Supreme Court decision that held there is no private right of action to enforce disparate-impact regulations under Title VI of the Civil Rights Act of 1964.
-
D.
Saenz v. Roe
Saenz v. Roe is a 1999 U.S. Supreme Court decision that struck down California’s welfare residency requirements and reaffirmed the constitutional right to travel under the Fourteenth Amendment.
-
E.
Branch v. Texas
Branch v. Texas is a U.S. Supreme Court case addressing the constitutionality and application of the death penalty in the wake of the landmark Furman v. Georgia decision.
- F. None of above. chosen
Statements (47)
| Predicate | Object |
|---|---|
| instanceOf |
United States Supreme Court case
ⓘ
legal case ⓘ |
| areaOfLaw |
United States federal courts
ⓘ
linked to:
U.S. federal courts
administrative law ⓘ disability discrimination law ⓘ |
| citation |
116 S. Ct. 2092
ⓘ
135 L. Ed. 2d 486 ⓘ 518 U.S. 187 ⓘ |
| country |
United States
ⓘ
linked to:
United States of America
|
| court | Supreme Court of the United States ⓘ |
| decisionDate | 1996-06-20 ⓘ |
| dissentingJustices |
David H. Souter
ⓘ
John Paul Stevens ⓘ |
| docketNumber | 95-365 ⓘ |
| effect |
Limited the availability of monetary damages against the United States under the Rehabilitation Act.
ⓘ
Reaffirmed the requirement of an unequivocal textual waiver for federal sovereign immunity. ⓘ |
| holding |
Section 504(a) of the Rehabilitation Act does not contain an unequivocal waiver of the Federal Government’s immunity from monetary damages.
ⓘ
The limited waiver of sovereign immunity in Section 505(a)(2) of the Rehabilitation Act applies only to federal funding recipients, not to the Federal Government as a funding provider. ⓘ Waivers of the Federal Government’s sovereign immunity to monetary damages must be unequivocally expressed by Congress. ⓘ |
| issue | Whether the Rehabilitation Act authorizes monetary damages against the Federal Government for violations of Section 504. ⓘ |
| jurisdiction | federal question jurisdiction ⓘ |
| languageOfDecision | English ⓘ |
| legalSubject |
Rehabilitation Act of 1973
ⓘ
federal government liability ⓘ sovereign immunity ⓘ statutory interpretation ⓘ |
| locationOfCourt | Washington, D.C. ⓘ |
| majorityJustices |
Anthony M. Kennedy
ⓘ
Antonin Scalia ⓘ Clarence Thomas ⓘ Ruth Bader Ginsburg ⓘ Sandra Day O’Connor ⓘ Stephen G. Breyer ⓘ William H. Rehnquist ⓘ |
| majorityOpinionBy |
Justice Sandra Day O’Connor
ⓘ
linked to:
Sandra Day O’Connor
|
| petitioner | Lane ⓘ |
| precedentStatus | binding on all lower federal courts in the United States ⓘ |
| principle |
Any ambiguity in the scope of a waiver of sovereign immunity must be construed in favor of the sovereign.
ⓘ
Congress must speak with a clear voice when it intends to subject the United States to monetary liability. ⓘ |
| relatedConcept |
sovereign immunity of the United States
ⓘ
waiver of sovereign immunity ⓘ |
| respondent |
Federico F. Peña, Secretary of Transportation
ⓘ
Peña ⓘ |
| statuteInterpreted |
Rehabilitation Act of 1973 §504
ⓘ
linked to:
Rehabilitation Act of 1973
Rehabilitation Act of 1973 §505(a)(2) ⓘ
linked to:
Rehabilitation Act of 1973
|
| term | October Term 1995 ⓘ |
| vote | 7-2 ⓘ |
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: Lane v. Peña Description of subject: Lane v. Peña is a 1996 U.S. Supreme Court decision that clarified the strict standards for waiving federal sovereign immunity, holding that monetary damages against the United States must be expressly authorized by Congress.
Referenced by (1)
Full triples — surface form annotated when it differs from this entity's canonical label.