Geo Group, Inc. v. Menocal · ¶31

And another, pre-Yearsley decision proves the point, by relegating a state agent that had asserted sovereign immunity to a merits defense, whose contours anticipated what Yearsley would offer. See Hopkins v. Clemson, 221 U. S. 636 (1911). Oddly enough, the suit challenged the same kind of conduct involved in Yearsley: The government agent had fooded a person's land. The State itself, the Court noted, would have had “immunity from [a] suit” based on such conduct. 221 U. S., at 642. But an agent working on the State's behalf could not “avail itself” of that special “exemption” from “judicial process.” Id., at 642, 645. “[I]mmunity from suit,” the Court explained, “is a high attribute of sovereignty—a prerogative of the State itself”—which cannot be invoked by the State's agents. Id., at 642–643. Yet all was not lost: The agent got something. Although the agent was “not exempt from suit,”…

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