Edelman v. Jordan, 415 U.S. 651 (1974), was a United States Supreme Court case that held that the sovereign immunity recognized in the Eleventh Amendment prevented a federal court from ordering a state from paying back funds that had been unconstitutionally withheld from parties to whom they had been due. Background The plaintiff, John Jordan, in a class action suit, sued Illinois officials who administered federal-state of Aid to the Aged, Blind, or Disabled (AABD). He alleged that the program's money had been administered in a way that violated both federal laws and the Fourteenth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution. Specifically, Jordan claimed that the Illinois administrators were applying their own guidelines, which ignored federally-mandated time limits and so did not get aid to applicants fast enough. The federal law required that applicants who qualify receive aid within 30 or 45 days, depending on their condition, but the Illinois agency was taking up to four months to disburse aid, and when such aid was distributed, it was not paid retroactively to the time when the state should have started paying it, according to the federal guidelines. Jordan sought relief including a positive injunction to require the state to award him and others in his position the aid that they had missed because of the lateness in processing the applications. The United States District Court found the Illinois guidelines to be inconsistent with the federal statute and ordered Illinois both to follow the federal guidelines and to release to the aid applicants all funds "wrongfully withheld." The United States Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit affirmed, and the case was taken to the Supreme Court, with Agency Director Joel Edelmen named as the party representing the State of Illinois. Issue Since the 1890 case Hans v. Louisiana, the Eleventh Amendment had been held to recognize the sovereign immunity of states from suits by their citizens. However, the 1908 case Ex parte Young had allowed an exception: citizens could seek injunctive relief against state officials to stop them from carrying out unconstitutional state policies. In this case, the Supreme Court examined whether a federal court can require a state to restore funds that had wrongfully been withheld from citizens by the state if the order to restore the funds is an injunction, requiring the state to stop its wrongful possession of the funds. Decision The Court, in an opinion by Justice