Page:FOMBPR v. CPI.pdf/11

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FINANCIAL OVERSIGHT AND MANAGEMENT BD. FOR P. R. v. CENTRO DE PERIODISMO INVESTIGATIVO, INC.

Opinion of the Court

implies the opposite as a general rule. The immunity provision that PROMESA borrows from the Bankruptcy Code for Title III cases states: “[S]overeign immunity is abrogated as to a governmental unit,” including a “Territory.” 11 U. S. C. §106(a), incorporated by 48 U. S. C. §2161(a); 11 U. S. C. §101(27). Congress chose not to adopt similar language to govern other kinds of litigation involving the Board. See, e.g., Badgerow v. Walters, 596 U. S. ___, ___ (2022) (slip op., at 8) (“When Congress includes particular language in one section of a statute but omits it in another section of the same Act, we generally take the choice to be deliberate”). Too, PROMESA does not create any cause of action (or otherwise approve any claim) for use against the Board or Puerto Rico. So recognizing immunity under PROMESA would not—as in the ADEA, FMLA, and IGRA cases—authorize a suit against a sovereign with one hand, only to bar it with the other. Instead, immunity would operate in the ordinary way—to protect a sovereign from a host of claims Congress has not otherwise said may proceed. The upshot is evident: Congress has not, through a means we have recognized, “ma[de] its intention” to abrogate immunity “unmistakably clear.” Kimel, 528 U. S., at 73 (internal quotation marks omitted).

CPI contends we can still find a clear statement in PROMESA, based on the statute’s establishment of a judicial review scheme. The primary provision in CPI’s argument (as in the First Circuit’s, see supra, at 4) is Section 2126(a): “[A]ny action against the Oversight Board, and any action otherwise arising out of” PROMESA, “shall be brought” in the Federal District Court for Puerto Rico. In CPI’s view, that provision—especially when combined with Section 2126(c)’s allusion to “declaratory or injunctive relief against the Oversight Board”—expresses Congress’s “clear intent to subject the Board to suit in federal court.” Brief for CPI 16. CPI backs up that argument by pointing to pro-