on a voluntary act by the state. The clear statement rule of Pennhurst State School and Hospital v. Halderman, 451 U.S. 1, 17, 101 S.Ct. 1531, 67 L.Ed.2d 694 (1981) — which requires a clear statement when Congress imposes conditions on grants of federal money — s.eems flatly inconsistent with such an argument. 22 . The government would have us instead limit the Court’s clear statement rules because of the significant reliance interests created by Congress’ and the federal agencies' assumption that states, to whom they entrusted large sums of money, are covered by the Act. For the proposition that reliance interests can trump clear statement rules, the government relies on Hilton v. South Carolina Public Railways Comm'n, 502 U.S. 197, 205-07, 112 S.Ct. 560, 116 L.Ed.2d 560 (1991) (<HOLDING>). That the Court feels obliged to disregard the
holding that the validity of releases under the federal employers liability act was a question to be determined by federal rather than state law holding that decision by panel of this court is established precedent under rules of stare decisis holding that will is a rule of statutory construction not of constitutional law and that the reliance interests created by the courts prior decision interpreting the federal employers liability act to include stateowned railroads warranted adherence to stare decisis rather than to the clear statement rule holding that stare decisis is not applicable unless the issue was squarely addressed in a prior decision holding that stare decisis required the court to adhere to a prior statutory interpretation despite the agencys subsequent interpretation of the statute contrary to the settled law