THOMAS, J., DISSENTING
HAYWOOD V. DROWN
556 U. S. ____ (2009)
SUPREME COURT OF THE UNITED STATES
NO. 07-10374
KEITH HAYWOOD, PETITIONER
v. CURTIS DROWN
et al.
on writ of certiorari to the court of appeals of
new york
[May 26, 2009]
Justice Thomas, with whom The
Chief Justice, Justice Scalia, and Justice Alito join as to Part
III, dissenting.
The Court holds that New York
Correction Law Annotated §24, which divests New York’s state courts
of subject-matter jurisdiction over suits seeking money damages
from correction officers, violates the Supremacy Clause of the
Constitution, Art. VI, cl. 2, because it requires the
dismissal of federal actions brought in state court under 42 U.
S. C. §1983. I disagree. Because neither the Constitution nor
our precedent requires New York to open its courts to §1983 federal
actions, I respectfully dissent.
I
Although the majority decides
this case on the basis of the Supremacy Clause, see
ante,
at 5–13, the proper starting point is Article III of the
Constitution. Article III, §1, provides that “[t]he judicial Power
of the United States, shall be vested in one supreme Court, and in
such inferior Courts as the Congress may from time to time ordain
and establish.” The history of the drafting and ratification of
this Article establishes that it leaves untouched the States’
plenary authority to decide whether their local courts will have
subject-matter jurisdiction over federal causes of action.
The text of Article III reflects
the Framers’ agreement that the National Government needed a
Supreme Court. There was sharp disagreement at the Philadelphia
Convention, however, over the need for lower federal courts.
Several of the Framers, most notably James Madison, favored a
strong central government that included lower federal tribunals.
Under the Virginia Plan, the Constitution would have established a
“National Judiciary … to consist of one or more supreme tribunals,
and of inferior tribunals to be chosen by the National
Legislature.” 1 Records of the Federal Convention of 1787, p. 21
(M. Farrand ed. 1911) (hereinafter Farrand). A revised version of
the proposal, which stated that the National Judiciary would
“ ‘consist of One supreme tribunal, and of one or more
inferior tribunals,’ ” was approved on June 4, 1787.
Id., at 95.
The following day, however, John Rutledge
raised an objection to “establishing any national tribunal except a
single supreme one.”
Id., at 119. He proposed striking the
language providing for the creation of lower federal courts because
state courts were “most proper” for deciding “all cases in the
first instance.”
Ibid. According to Rutledge, “the right
of appeal to the supreme national tribunal [was] sufficient to
secure the national rights [and] uniformity of Judgm[en]ts,” and
the lower federal courts were thus an “unnecessary encroachment” on
the sovereign prerogative of the States to adjudicate federal
claims.
Id., at 124. Madison nonetheless defended the
Virginia Plan. He countered that “inferior [federal] tribunals …
dispersed throughout the Republic” were necessary to meet the needs
of the newly formed government: “An effective Judiciary
establishment commensurate to the legislative authority [is]
essential. A Government without a proper Executive [and] Judiciary
would be the mere trunk of a body without arms or legs to act or
move.”
Ibid. But despite Madison’s objections, Rutledge’s
motion prevailed. See
id., at 125.
Madison and James Wilson soon thereafter
proposed alternative language that “ ‘empowered [Congress] to
institute inferior tribunals.’ ”
Ibid. This version
moderated the original Virginia Plan because of the “distinction
between establishing such tribunals absolutely, and giving a
discretion to the Legislature to establish or not establish
[inferior federal courts].”
Ibid. Over continued
objections that such courts were an unnecessary expense and an
affront to the States, the scaled-back version of the Virginia Plan
passed.
Ibid.
On June 15, 1787, however, the New Jersey Plan
was introduced. Although it did not directly challenge the decision
to permit Congress to “institute” inferior federal courts, the
plan, among other things, required state courts to adjudicate
federal claims.
Id., at 125, 243. In particular, the plan
provided that, except for cases of impeachment (over which the
Supreme Court would have original jurisdiction), “all punishments,
fines, forfeitures [and] penalties … shall be adjudged by the
Common law Judiciar[ies] of the State in which any offence contrary
to the true intent [and] meaning of [federal law] shall have been
committed or perpetrated, with liberty of commencing in the first
instance all suits [and] prosecutions for that purpose in the
superior Common law Judiciary in such State, subject nevertheless,
for the correction of all errors, both in law [and] fact in
rendering judgment, to an appeal to the Judiciary of the U[nited]
States.”
Id., at 243, 244.
The introduction of the New Jersey Plan
reignited the debate over the need for lower federal courts. In
light of the plan’s provision for mandatory state-court
jurisdiction over federal claims, Pierce Butler “could see no
necessity for such tribunals.” 2
id., at 45. Luther Martin
added that lower federal courts would “create jealousies [and]
oppositions in the State tribunals, with the jurisdiction of which
they will interfere.”
Id., at 45–46. But Nathaniel Ghorum
responded that inferior federal tribunals were “essential to render
the authority of the Nat[ional] Legislature effectual.”
Id., at 46. Edmund Randolph bluntly argued that “the
Courts of the States can not be trusted with the administration of
the National laws.”
Ibid. George Mason suggested that, at
the very least, “many circumstances might arise not now to be
foreseen, which might render such a power absolutely necessary.”
Ibid. Roger Sherman also “was willing to give the power to
the Legislature,” even though he “wished them to make use of the
State Tribunals whenever it could be done … with safety to the
general interest.”
Ibid.
At the conclusion of this debate, the New
Jersey Plan, including its component requiring state-court
consideration of federal claims, was defeated and the
Madison-Wilson proposal was delivered to the Committee of Detail,
see
id., at 133. The Committee amended the proposal’s
language to its current form in Article III, which gives Congress
the power to “ordain and establish” inferior federal courts. See
id., at 168. The delegates to the Constitutional
Convention unanimously adopted this revised version, see
id., at 315, and it was ultimately ratified by the
States.
This so-called Madisonian Compromise bridged
the divide “between those who thought that the establishment of
lower federal courts should be constitutionally mandatory and those
who thought there should be no federal courts at all except for a
Supreme Court with,
inter alia, appellate jurisdiction to
review state court judgments.” R. Fallon, D. Meltzer, & D.
Shapiro, Hart and Wechsler’s The Federal Courts and the Federal
System 348 (4th ed. 1996). In so doing, the compromise left to the
wisdom of Congress the creation of lower federal courts: “So far as
the inferior Federal Courts were concerned, it was entirely
discretionary with Congress to what extent it would vest Federal
judicial power in them. It could grant to them as much or as little
as it chose of those classes of jurisdiction, enumerated in Article
III as belonging to the judicial power of the United States. It
could, if it chose, leave to the State Courts all or any of these
classes.” Warren, Federal Criminal Laws and the State Courts, 38
Harv. L. Rev. 545, 547 (1925) (footnote omitted).
The assumption that state courts would
continue to exercise concurrent jurisdiction over federal claims
was essential to this compromise. See The Federalist No. 82, pp.
130, 132 (E. Bourne ed. 1947) (A. Hamilton) (“[T]he inference seems
to be conclusive, that the State courts would have a concurrent
jurisdiction in all cases arising under the laws of the Union,
where it was not expressly prohibited”).[
Footnote 1] In light of that historical understanding,
this Court has held that, absent an Act of Congress providing for
exclusive jurisdiction in the lower federal courts, the “state
courts have inherent authority, and are thus presumptively
competent, to adjudicate claims arising under the laws of the
United States.”
Tafflin v.
Levitt,
493 U. S. 455, 458–459
(1990); see also
Plaquemines Tropical Fruit Co. v.
Henderson,
170 U. S. 511, 517–518
(1898) (“ ‘[I]n judicial matters, the concurrent jurisdiction
of the state tribunals depends altogether upon the pleasure of
congress, and may be revoked and extinguished whenever they think
proper, in every case in which the subject matter can
constitutionally be made cognizable in the federal courts; and
that, without an express provision to the contrary, the state
courts will retain a concurrent jurisdiction in all cases where
they had jurisdiction originally over the subject matter” (quoting
1 J. Kent, Commentaries on American Law 374–375 (1826) (hereinafter
Kent))). As a result, “if exclusive jurisdiction [in the federal
courts] be neither express nor implied, the State courts have
concurrent jurisdiction whenever, by their own constitution, they
are competent to take it.”
Claflin v.
Houseman,
93 U. S. 130, 136
(1876).
The Constitution’s implicit preservation of
state authority to entertain federal claims, however, did not
impose a duty on state courts to do so. As discussed above, there
was at least one proposal to expressly require state courts to take
original jurisdiction over federal claims (subject to appeal in
federal court) that was introduced in an attempt to forestall the
creation of lower federal courts. See
supra, at 3–4. But
in light of the failure of this proposal—which was offered before
the adoption of the Madisonian Compromise—the assertions by its
supporters that state courts would ordinarily entertain federal
causes of action cannot reasonably be viewed as an assurance that
the States would never alter the subject-matter jurisdiction of
their courts. The Framers’ decision to empower Congress to create
federal courts that could either supplement or displace state-court
review of federal claims, as well as the exclusion of any
affirmative command requiring the States to consider federal claims
in the text of Article III, confirm this understanding. See
U.
S. Term Limits, Inc. v.
Thornton,
514 U. S. 779, 848
(1995) (Thomas, J., dissenting) (“Where the Constitution is silent
about the exercise of a particular power—that is, where the
Constitution does not speak either expressly or by necessary
implication—the Federal Government lacks that power and the States
enjoy it”).[
Footnote 2]
The earliest decisions addressing this
question, written by then-serving and future Supreme Court
Justices, confirm that state courts remain “tribunals over which
the government of the Union has no adequate control, and which may
be closed to any claim asserted under a law of the United States.”
Osborn v.
Bank of United States, 9 Wheat. 738,
821 (1824); see also
Stearns v.
United States, 22
F. Cas. 1188, 1192 (No. 13, 341) (DC Vt. 1835) (Thompson, J.)
(Article III does not give Congress authority to “compel a state
court to entertain jurisdiction in any case; they are not inferior
courts in the sense of the constitution; they are not ordained by
congress. State courts are left to consult their own duty from
their own state authority and organization”). “The states, in
providing their own judicial tribunals, have a right to limit,
control, and restrict their judicial functions, and jurisdiction,
according to their own mere pleasure.”
Mitchell v.
Great Works Milling & Mfg. Co., 17 F. Cas. 496,
499 (No. 9,662) (CCD Me. 1843) (Story, J.). In short, there was “a
very clear intimation given by the judges of the Supreme Court,
that the state courts were not bound in consequence of any act of
congress, to assume and exercise jurisdiction in such cases. It was
merely permitted to them to do so as far, as was compatible with
their state obligations.” Kent 375; see also
id., at 377
(explaining that the Constitution “permits state courts which are
competent for the purpose, and have an inherent jurisdiction
adequate to the case, to entertain suits in the given cases”).
Under our federal system, therefore, the
States have unfettered authority to determine whether their local
courts may entertain a federal cause of action. Once a State
exercises its sovereign prerogative to deprive its courts of
subject-matter jurisdiction over a federal cause of action, it is
the end of the matter as far as the Constitution is concerned.
The present case can be resolved under this
principle alone. New York Correction Law Annotated §24, ¶1 (West
1987) (NYCLA) provides that “[n]o civil action shall be brought in
any court of the state, except by the attorney general on behalf of
the state, against any officer or employee of the department, in
his personal capacity, for damages arising out of any act done or
the failure to perform any act within the scope of the employment
and in the discharge of the duties by such officer or employee.”
The majority and petitioner agree that this statute erects a
jurisdictional bar that prevents the state courts from entertaining
petitioner’s claim for damages under §1983. See
ante, at 4
(agreeing that “a prisoner seeking damages from a correction
officer will have his claim dismissed for want of jurisdiction”);
Brief for Petitioner 21 (“Every New York court must immediately
dismiss such suits for lack of jurisdiction, regardless of merit”).
Because New York’s decision to withdraw jurisdiction over §1983
damages actions—or indeed, over any claims—does not offend the
Constitution, the judgment below should be affirmed.
II
The Court has evaded Article
III’s limitations by finding that the Supremacy Clause constrains
the States’ authority to define the subject-matter jurisdiction of
their own courts. See
ante, at 5–8. In particular, the
Court has held that “the Federal Constitution prohibits state
courts of general jurisdiction from refusing” to entertain a
federal claim “solely because the suit is brought under a federal
law” as a “state may not discriminate against rights arising under
federal laws.”
McKnett v.
St. Louis & San
Francisco R. Co.,
292 U. S. 230, 233–234 (1934). There
is no textual or historical support for the Court’s incorporation
of this antidiscrimination principle into the Supremacy Clause.
A
1
The Supremacy Clause provides
that “[t]his Constitution, and the Laws of the United States which
shall be made in Pursuance thereof … shall be the supreme Law of
the Land; and the Judges in every State shall be bound thereby, any
Thing in the Constitution or Laws of any State to the Contrary
notwithstanding.” Art. VI, cl. 2. Under this provision, “[t]he laws
of the United States are laws in the several States, and just as
much binding on the citizens and courts thereof as the State laws
are… . The two together form one system of jurisprudence,
which constitutes the law of the land for the State.”
Claflin, 93 U. S., at 136–137; see also
Gregory
v.
Ashcroft,
501 U. S. 452, 460
(1991);
Robb v.
Connolly,
111 U. S. 624, 637
(1884). Thus, a valid federal law is substantively superior to a
state law; “if a state measure conflicts with a federal
requirement, the state provision must give way.”
Swift &
Co. v.
Wickham,
382 U. S. 111, 120
(1965). As a textual matter, however, the Supremacy Clause does not
address whether a state court must entertain a federal cause of
action; it provides only a rule of decision that the state court
must follow if it adjudicates the claim. See R. Berger, Congress v.
The Supreme Court 245 (1969) (The Supremacy Clause only
“ ‘enacts what the law shall be’… . [I]t defines the
governing ‘supreme law,’ and
if a State court
has
jurisdiction, it commands that that law shall govern”).
The Supremacy Clause’s path to
adoption at the Convention confirms this focus. Its precursor was
introduced as part of the New Jersey Plan. See 1 Farrand 245
(“[A]ll Acts of … Cong[ress] made by virtue [and] in pursuance of
the powers hereby … vested in them … shall be the supreme law of
the respective States so far forth as those Acts … shall relate to
the said States or their Citizens”);
ibid. (“[T]he
Judiciary of the several States shall be bound thereby in their
decisions, any thing in the respective laws of the Individual
States … notwithstanding”). But, as explained above, see
supra, at 3–4, the New Jersey Plan also included an
entirely separate provision that addressed state-court
jurisdiction, which would have required all federal questions to
“b[e] determined in the first instance in the courts of the
respective states.” 3 Farrand 287. These two provisions of the New
Jersey Plan worked in tandem to require state courts to entertain
federal claims and to decide the substantive dispute in favor of
federal law if a conflict between the two arose.
After the adoption of the Madisonian
Compromise and the defeat of the New Jersey Plan, the Framers
returned to the question of federal supremacy. A proposal was
introduced granting Congress the power to “ ‘negative all laws
passed by the several States (contravening in the opinion of
[Congress] the articles of Union, or any treaties subsisting under
the authority of [Congress]).’ ” 2
id., at 27. James
Madison believed the proposal “essential to the efficacy [and]
security of the [federal] Gov[ernmen]t.”
Ibid. But others
at the Convention, including Roger Sherman, “thought it
unnecessary, as the Courts of the States would not consider as
valid any law contravening the Authority of the Union, and which
the legislature would wish to be negatived.”
Ibid. In the
end, Madison’s proposal was defeated.
Id., at 28. But as a
substitute for that rejected proposal, Luther Martin resurrected
the Supremacy Clause provision from the New Jersey Plan and it was
unanimously approved. See
id., at 28–29.[
Footnote 3]
This historical record makes clear that the
Supremacy Clause’s exclusive function is to disable state laws that
are substantively inconsistent with federal law—not to require
state courts to hear federal claims over which the courts lack
jurisdiction. This was necessarily the case when the clause was
first introduced as part of the New Jersey Plan, as it included a
separate provision to confront the jurisdictional question. Had
that plan prevailed and been ratified by the States, construing the
Supremacy Clause to address state-court jurisdiction would have
rendered the separate jurisdictional component of the New Jersey
Plan mere surplusage. See
Marbury v.
Madison, 1
Cranch 137, 174 (1803) (“It cannot be presumed that any clause in
the constitution is intended to be without effect”); see also
Kelo v.
New London,
545 U. S. 469, 507
(2005) (Thomas, J., dissenting).
The Supremacy Clause’s exclusive focus on
substantive state law is also evident from the context in which it
was revived. First, the Clause was not adopted until after the New
Jersey Plan’s rejection, as part of the entirely separate debate
over Madison’s proposal to grant Congress the power to “negative”
the laws of the States. By then, the Framers had already adopted
Article III, thereby ending the fight over state-court
jurisdiction. The question before the Convention thus was not which
courts (state or federal) were best suited to adjudicate federal
claims, but which branch of government (Congress or the courts)
would be most effective in vindicating the substantive superiority
of federal law. The Supremacy Clause was directly responsive to
that question.
Second, the timing of the Clause’s adoption
suggests that the Framers viewed it as achieving the same end as
Madison’s congressional “negative” proposal. Although Madison
believed that Congress could most effectively countermand
inconsistent state laws,[
Footnote
4] the Framers decided that the Judiciary could adequately
perform that function. There is no evidence that the Framers
envisioned the Supremacy Clause as having a substantively broader
sweep than the proposal it replaced. And, there can be no question
that Madison’s congressional “negative” proposal was entirely
unconcerned with the dispute over whether state courts should be
required to exercise jurisdiction over federal claims. Indeed,
Madison’s proposal did not require the States to become enmeshed in
any federal business at all; it merely provided that state laws
could be directly nullified if Congress found them to be
inconsistent with the Constitution or laws of the United States.
The role of the Supremacy Clause is no different. It does not
require state courts to entertain federal causes of action. Rather,
it only requires that in reaching the merits of such claims, state
courts must decide the legal question in favor of the “law of the
Land.” Art. VI, cl. 2.
For this reason, Representative Fisher Ames
explained during the debate over the First Judiciary Act that
“[t]he law of the United States is a rule to [state-court judges],
but no authority for them. It controlled their decisions, but could
not enlarge their powers.” 1 Annals of Congress 808 (1789) (reprint
2003). And because the Constitution requires from state judges only
an oath of “Allegiance and not an Oath of Office,” the federal
government “[c]annot compel them to act—or to become our Officers.”
Notes of William Patterson from Speech on Judiciary Act (June 23,
1789), in 9 Documentary History of the First Federal Congress
1789–1791, p. 477 (K. Bowling & H. Veit eds. 1988); 1 Annals of
Congress 805 (remarks of Rep. Sedgwick, Debate of Aug. 29, 1789)
(arguing that inferior federal courts should be established because
state courts “might refuse or neglect to attend to the national
business”); 10
id., at 892 (remarks of Rep. Harper)
(explaining that Congress “cannot enforce on the State courts, as a
matter of duty, a performance of the acts we confide to them” but
arguing that there was “no cause to complain” “until they refuse to
exercise” the jurisdiction granted over federal claims).[
Footnote 5]
The supremacy of federal law, therefore, is
not impugned by a State’s decision to strip its local courts of
subject-matter jurisdiction to hear certain federal claims.
Subject-matter jurisdiction determines only whether a court has the
power to entertain a particular claim—a condition precedent to
reaching the merits of a legal dispute. See
Steel Co. v.
Citizens for Better Environment,
523 U. S. 83, 94 (1998)
(“Without jurisdiction the court cannot proceed at all in any
cause. Jurisdiction is power to declare the law, and when it ceases
to exist, the only function remaining to the court is that of
announcing the fact and dismissing the cause” (internal quotation
marks omitted)). Although the line between subject-matter
jurisdiction over a claim and the merits of that claim can at times
prove difficult to draw, see
Arbaugh v.
Y & H
Corp.,
546 U.
S. 500, 513–515 (2006), see also
Bell v.
Hood,
327
U. S. 678, 682 (1946), the distinction is crucial in the
Supremacy Clause context. If the state court does not reach the
merits of the dispute for lack of statutory or constitutional
jurisdiction, the preeminence of federal law remains
undiminished.
Accordingly, the superiority of federal law as
a substantive matter does not trigger an obligation on States to
keep their courts jurisdictionally neutral with respect to federal
and state-law claims. “The federal law in any field within which
Congress is empowered to legislate is the supreme law of the land
in the sense that it may supplant state legislation in that field,
but not in the sense that it may supplant the existing rules of
litigation in state courts. Congress has full power to provide its
own courts for litigating federal rights. The state courts belong
to the States.”
Brown v.
Gerdes,
321 U. S. 178, 193
(1944) (Frankfurter, J., concurring).
2
The Court was originally faithful
to this conception of federal supremacy. In
Claflin, the
Court concluded that because the federal statute under
consideration did not deprive the state court of jurisdiction, the
state court was competent to resolve the claim. See 93 U. S., at
136–137 (“[R]ights, whether legal or equitable, acquired under the
laws of the United States, may be prosecuted in the United States
courts, or in the State courts, competent to decide rights of the
like character and class; subject, however, to this qualification,
that where a right arises under a law of the United States,
Congress may, if it see[s] fit, give to the Federal courts
exclusive jurisdiction”). But the Court was careful to also explain
that the Constitution did not impose an obligation on the States to
accept jurisdiction over such claims. See
id., at 137
(explaining that there “is no reason why the State courts should
not be open for the prosecution of rights growing out of the laws
of the United States, to which their jurisdiction is competent, and
not denied”). The Constitution instead left the States with the
choice—but not the obligation—to entertain federal actions. See
id., at 139 (“[W]here no direction is given [from
Congress] on the subject, it was assumed, in our early judicial
history, that the State courts retained their usual jurisdiction
concurrently with the Federal Courts invested with jurisdiction in
like cases”).
Then in
Second Employers’
Liability Cases, 223 U. S. 1 (1912), the
Court applied the rule set forth in
Claflin and correctly
rejected a Connecticut court’s refusal to enforce the 1908 Federal
Employers’ Liability Act (FELA), 45 U. S. C. §51
et
seq. FELA neither provided for exclusive federal jurisdiction
nor attempted to require state courts to entertain claims brought
under it. See 223 U. S., at 54–55. Therefore, the statute was
enforceable “as of right, in the courts of the States
when
their jurisdiction, as prescribed by local laws, is adequate to the
occasion.”
Id., at 55 (emphasis added). Connecticut
had not deprived its courts of subject-matter jurisdiction over
FELA claims; thus, the state court’s refusal to hear the claim was
“not because the ordinary jurisdiction of the Superior Courts, as
defined by the constitution and laws of the State, was deemed
inadequate or not adapted to the adjudication of such a case.”
Ibid. Rather, the state court took the position that “it
would be inconvenient and confusing for the same court, in dealing
with cases of the same general class, to apply in some the
standards of right established by the congressional act and in
others the different standards recognized by the laws of the
State.”
Id., at 55–56.
The Court’s reversal of such a decision is
compatible with the original understanding of Article III and the
Supremacy Clause. Because there was no question that the state
court had subject-matter jurisdiction under state law to adjudicate
the federal claim,
id., at 57, the Court correctly
observed that the state court’s refusal to decide the case amounted
to a policy dispute with federal law: “When Congress, in the
exertion of the power confided to it by the Constitution, adopted
that [federal] act, it spoke for all the people and all the States,
and thereby established a policy for all. That policy is as much
the policy of Connecticut as if the act had emanated from its own
legislature, and should be respected accordingly in the courts of
the State.”
Ibid. It was for this specific reason, then,
that the Court rejected Connecticut’s refusal to adjudicate the
federal claim. As the Court correctly noted, the “existence of the
jurisdiction creates an implication of duty to exercise it, and
that its exercise may be onerous does not militate against that
implication.”
Id., at 58.
But nothing in
Second Employers’
suggested that the Supremacy Clause could pre-empt a state law that
deprived the local court of subject-matter jurisdiction over the
federal claim. Instead, the
Second Employers’ Court took
exactly the opposite position on this question: “[W]e deem it well
to observe that there is not here involved any attempt by Congress
to enlarge or regulate the jurisdiction of state courts … but only
a question of the duty of such a court, when its ordinary
jurisdiction as prescribed by local laws is appropriate to the
occasion.”
Id., at 56–57.
The Court again confronted this issue in
Douglas v.
New York, N. H. & H. R. Co.,
279 U. S. 377
(1929). There, the Court considered whether a New York court was
required to hear a claim brought under FELA. Unlike the Connecticut
court in
Second Employers’, however, the New York court
did not have jurisdiction under state law to entertain the federal
cause of action. 279 U. S., at 386–387. As a result, this Court
upheld the state-court ruling that dismissed the claim. The Court
explained that FELA did “not purport to require State Courts to
entertain suits arising under it, but only to empower them to do
so, so far as the authority of the United States is concerned. It
may very well be that if the Supreme Court of New York [was] given
no discretion, being otherwise competent, it would be subject to a
duty. But there is nothing in the Act of Congress that purports to
force a duty upon such Courts as against an otherwise valid
excuse.”
Id., at 387–388. In other words, because the New
York court lacked subject-matter jurisdiction under state law, it
was not “otherwise competent” to adjudicate the federal claim.
In sum,
Claflin,
Second
Employers’, and
Douglas together establish that a
state court’s inability to entertain a federal claim because of a
lack of state-law jurisdiction is an “otherwise valid excuse” that
in no way denies the superiority of federal substantive law. It
simply disables the state court from adjudicating a claim brought
under that federal law.
3
It was not until five years after
Douglas that the Court used the Supremacy Clause to strike
down a state jurisdictional statute for its failure to permit
state-court adjudication of federal claims. See
McKnett,
292 U. S. 230. The Court started by
correctly noting that it “was settled” in
Second
Employers’ “that a state court whose ordinary jurisdiction as
prescribed by local laws is appropriate to the occasion, may not
refuse to entertain suits under [FELA].” 292 U. S., at 233. Yet,
even though the Alabama court
lacked such jurisdiction
over the relevant federal claim pursuant to a state statute, the
McKnett Court held that the state court had improperly
dismissed the federal claim.
Id., at 231–234.
According to the Court, “[w]hile
Congress has not attempted to compel states to provide courts for
the enforcement of [FELA], the Federal Constitution prohibits state
courts of general jurisdiction from refusing to do so solely
because the suit is brought under a federal law. The denial of
jurisdiction by the Alabama court is based solely upon the source
of law sought to be enforced. The plaintiff is cast out because he
is suing to enforce a federal act. A state may not discriminate
against rights arising under federal laws.”
Id., at
233–234.
For all the reasons identified above,
McKnett cannot be reconciled with the decisions of this
Court that preceded it. Unlike the Connecticut court in
Second
Employers’, the Alabama Supreme Court did not indulge its own
bias against adjudication of federal claims in state court by
refusing to hear a federal claim over which it had subject-matter
jurisdiction. Rather, like the New York court decision affirmed in
Douglas, the Alabama court’s dismissal merely respected a
jurisdictional barrier to adjudication of the federal claim imposed
by state law. The fact that Alabama courts were competent to hear
similar state-law claims should have been immaterial. Alabama had
exercised its sovereign right to establish the subject-matter
jurisdiction of its courts. Under
Claflin and its progeny,
that legislative judgment should have been upheld.
Despite
McKnett’s infidelity
to the Constitution and more than a century of Supreme Court
jurisprudence, the Court’s later decisions have repeated
McKnett’s declaration that state jurisdictional statutes
must be policed for antifederal discrimination. See,
e.g.,
Testa v.
Katt,
330 U. S. 386, 394
(1947) (“It is conceded that this same type of claim arising under
Rhode Island law would be enforced by that State’s courts… .
Under these circumstances the State courts are not free to refuse
enforcement of petitioners’ claim”);
Howlett v.
Rose,
496
U. S. 356, 375 (1990) (“[W]hether the question is framed in
pre-emption terms, as petitioner would have it, or in the
obligation to assume jurisdiction over a ‘federal’ cause of action,
… the Florida court’s refusal to entertain one discrete category of
§1983 claims, when the court entertains similar state-law actions
against state defendants, violates the Supremacy Clause”). The
outcome in these cases, however, can be reconciled with first
principles notwithstanding the Court’s stated reliance on
McKnett’s flawed interpretation of the Supremacy
Clause.[
Footnote 6]
In
Testa, the Court struck down the
Rhode Island Supreme Court’s refusal to entertain a claim under the
federal Emergency Price Control Act. There was no dispute that “the
Rhode Island courts [had] jurisdiction adequate and appropriate
under established local law to adjudicate this action.” 330 U. S.,
at 394, and n. 13. The Rhode Island court nevertheless declined to
exercise that jurisdiction under its decision in
Robinson
v.
Norato, 71 R. I. 256, 258, 43 A. 2d 467, 468
(1945), which had relied on a “universally acknowledged” doctrine
“of private international law” as a basis for refusing to
adjudicate federal “penal” claims. Because the Rhode Island Supreme
Court had invoked this common-law doctrine despite the existence of
state-law statutory jurisdiction over the federal claims, this
Court correctly ruled that the state court’s “policy against
enforcement … of statutes of other states and the United States
which it deems penal, [could not] be accepted as a ‘valid
excuse.’ ” 330 U. S., at 392–393.
Testa thus represents a routine
application of the rule of law set forth in
Second
Employers’: As long as jurisdiction over a federal claim
exists as a matter of state law, state-court judges cannot
sU.
S.onte refuse to enforce federal law because they disagree
with Congress’ decision to allow for adjudication of certain
federal claims in state court. See 330 U. S., at 393 (“[A] state
court cannot ‘refuse to enforce the right arising from the law of
the United States because of conceptions of impolicy or want of
wisdom on the part of Congress in having called into play its
lawful powers’ ” (quoting
Minneapolis & St. Louis R.
Co. v.
Bombolis,
241 U. S. 211, 222 (1916)).[
Footnote 7]
In
Howlett, the Court likewise
correctly struck down a Florida Supreme Court decision affirming
the dismissal of a §1983 suit on state-law sovereign immunity
grounds. See 496 U. S., at 361, 375–381. The Florida court had
interpreted the State’s statutory “waiver of sovereign immunity”
not to extend to federal claims brought in state court.
Id., at 361 (citing Fla. Stat. §768.28 (1989)). According
to the state court, absent a statutory waiver, Florida’s
pre-existing common-law sovereign immunity rule provided a “blanket
immunity on [state] governmental entities from federal civil rights
actions under §1983” brought in Florida courts. 496 U. S., at 364.
Based on this rule, the Florida Supreme Court affirmed the
dismissal with prejudice of the §1983 suit against the state
officials. See
id., at 359; see also
Howlett v.
Rose, 537 So. 2d 706, 708 (Fla. App. 1989)
(concluding that Florida’s “common law immunity” rule barred “the
use of its courts for suits against the state in those state
courts”).
No antidiscrimination rule was required to
strike down the Florida Supreme Court’s decision. Even though
several Florida courts had concluded that the defense of sovereign
immunity was jurisdictional, see 496 U. S., at 361, n. 5,
“[t]he force of the Supremacy Clause is not so weak that it can be
evaded by mere mention of the word ‘jurisdiction,’ ”
id., at 382–383. That is, state courts cannot evade their
obligation to enforce federal law by simply characterizing a
statute or common-law rule as “jurisdictional”; the state law must
in fact operate in a jurisdictional manner. No matter where the
line between subject-matter jurisdiction and the merits is drawn,
see
supra, at 14, Florida’s “common law immunity” rule
crossed it.
First, because the Florida Supreme Court had
dismissed the §1983 lawsuit with prejudice, its decision was on the
merits. Cf.
Semtek Int’l Inc. v.
Lockheed Martin
Corp.,
531 U.
S. 497, 505 (2001) (“ ‘With prejudice’ is an acceptable
form of shorthand for ‘an adjudication upon the merits’ ”
(quoting 9 C. Wright, A. Miller, & E. Cooper, Federal Practice
and Procedure §2373, p. 396, n. 4 (1981))). Second, Florida’s
sovereign immunity rule violated the Supremacy Clause by operating
as a state-law defense to a federal law. See
Martinez v.
California,
444 U. S. 277, 284,
n. 8 (1980) (“ ‘[P]ermitt[ing] a state immunity defense
to have controlling effect’ ” over a federal claim violates
the Supremacy Clause). Resolving a federal claim with preclusive
effect based on a state-law defense is far different from simply
closing the door of the state courthouse to that federal claim. The
first changes federal law by denying relief on the merits; the
second merely dictates the forum in which the federal claim will be
heard.
In the end, of course, “the ultimate
touchstone of constitutionality is the Constitution itself and not
what we have said about it.”
Graves v.
New York ex
rel. O’Keefe,
306 U. S. 466, 491–492
(1939) (Frankfurter, J., concurring). And contrary to
McKnett, the Constitution does not require state courts to
give equal billing to state and federal claims. To read the
Supremacy Clause to include an anti-discrimination principle
undermines the compromise that shaped Article III and contradicts
the original understanding of Constitution. There is no
justification for preserving such a principle. But even if the
Court chooses to adhere to the antidiscrimination rule as part of
the Supremacy Clause inquiry, the rule’s infidelity to the text,
structure, and history of the Constitution counsels against
extending the principle any further than our precedent requires.
Cf.
United States v.
Lopez,
514 U. S. 549, 584–585
(1995) (Thomas, J., concurring); see
infra, at 27–33.
B
Although the Supremacy Clause
does not, on its own force, pre-empt state jurisdictional statutes
of any kind, it may still pre-empt state law once Congress has
acted. Federal law must prevail when Congress validly enacts a
statute that expressly supersedes state law, see
Sprietsma
v.
Mercury Marine,
537 U. S. 51, 62–63
(2002);
United States v.
Locke,
529 U. S. 89, 109 (2000),
or when the state law conflicts with a federal statute, see
American Telephone & Telegraph Co. v.
Central
Office Telephone, Inc.,
524 U. S. 214 (1998);
Florida Lime & Avocado Growers, Inc. v.
Paul,
373 U. S. 132
(1963). NYCLA §24 does not fall prey to either category of
pre-emption.[
Footnote 8]
First, federal law does not
expressly require New York courts to accept jurisdiction over §1983
suits. Under §1983, any state official who denies “any citizen of
the United States or other person within the jurisdiction thereof …
any rights, privileges, or immunities secured by the Constitution
and laws, shall be liable to the party injured in an action at law,
suit in equity, or other proper proceeding for redress.” The
statute addresses who may sue and be sued for violations of federal
law. But it includes no substantive command requiring New York to
provide a state judicial forum to a §1983 plaintiff. See
Felder v.
Casey,
487 U. S. 131, 158 (1988) (O’Connor,
J., dissenting) (“Section 1983 … creates no substantive law… .
Its purpose, as we have repeatedly said, ‘was to interpose the
federal courts between the States and the people, as
guardians of the people’s federal rights’ ” (quoting
Patsy v.
Board of Regents of Fla.,
457 U. S. 496, 503
(1982))). Like FELA, therefore, §1983 does not “enlarge or regulate
the jurisdiction of state courts.”
Second Employers’, 223
U. S., at 56.[
Footnote 9]
Second, NYCLA §24 does not conflict with
§1983. See
Wyeth v.
Levine, 555 U. S. ___, ___
(2009) (slip op., at 9) (Thomas, J., concurring in judgment)
(explaining that the Court has alternatively described the standard
for conflict pre-emption as “physical impossibility” and “direct
conflict” (citations omitted)). As explained above, Congress did
not grant §1983 plaintiffs a “right” to bring their claims in state
court or “guarantee” that the state forum would remain open to
their suits. See
id., at ___ (slip op., at 12). Moreover,
Congress has created inferior federal courts that have the power to
adjudicate all §1983 actions. And this Court has expressly
determined that §1983 plaintiffs do not have to exhaust state-court
remedies before proceeding in federal court. See
Patsy,
supra, at 516.
Therefore, even if every state court
closed its doors to §1983 plaintiffs, the plaintiffs could proceed
with their claims in the federal forum. See,
e.g.,
Felder,
supra, at 160 (O’Connor, J., dissenting)
(“Every plaintiff has the option of proceeding in federal court,
and the Wisconsin statute has not the slightest effect on that
right”). And because the dismissal of §1983 claims from state court
pursuant to NYCLA §24 is for lack of subject-matter jurisdiction,
see
supra, at 8–9, it has no preclusive effect on claims
refiled in federal court, see
Allen v.
McCurry,
449 U. S. 90, 94,
105 (1980) (requiring “a final judgment on the merits” before a
§1983 would be barred in federal court under the doctrine of claim
preclusion), and thus does not alter the substance of the federal
claim. Any contention that NYCLA §24 conflicts with §1983 therefore
would be misplaced.
The Court nevertheless has relied on an
expansive brand of “conflict” pre-emption to strike down
state-court procedural rules that are perceived to “burde[n] the
exercise of the federal right” in state court.
Felder, 487
U. S., at 141. In such cases, the Court has asked if the state-law
rule, when applied “to §1983 actions brought in state courts [is]
consistent with the goals of the federal civil rights laws, or does
the enforcement of such a requirement instead ‘stand as an obstacle
to the accomplishment and execution of the full purposes and
objectives of Congress’?” See
id., at 138 (quoting
Hines v.
Davidowitz,
312 U. S. 52, 67 (1941)).
There has been no suggestion in this case, however, that NYCLA §24
is a procedural rule that must be satisfied in order to bring the
§1983 action in state court. See
supra, at 8–9;
infra, at 27; see also
ante, at 13, n. 9. As
explained above, petitioner’s claim was not procedurally deficient;
the state court simply lacked the power to adjudicate the claim.
See
supra, at 8–9. Thus, the
Felder line of cases
is inapplicable to this case.
But even if there were such a claim
made in this case, the Supremacy Clause supplies this Court with no
authority to pre-empt a state procedural law merely because it
“burdens the exercise” of a federal right in state court. “Under
the Supremacy Clause, state law is pre-empted only by federal law
‘made in Pursuance’ of the Constitution, Art. VI,
cl. 2—not by extratextual considerations of the purposes
underlying congressional inaction,” such as a desire to ensure that
federal law is not burdened by state-law procedural obligations.
Wyeth, 555 U. S., at ___ (slip op., at 23) (Thomas, J.,
concurring in judgment). A sweeping approach to pre-emption based
on perceived congressional purposes “leads to the illegitimate—and
thus, unconstitutional—invalidation of state laws.”
Id.,
at __ (slip op., at 24). I cannot agree with the approach employed
in
Felder “that pre-empts state laws merely because they
‘stand as an obstacle to the accomplishment and execution of the
full purposes and objectives’ of federal law … as perceived by this
Court.” 555 U. S., at ___ (slip op., at 24).
III
Even accepting the entirety of
the Court’s precedent in this area of the law, however, I still
could not join the majority’s resolution of this case as it
mischaracterizes and broadens this Court’s decisions. The majority
concedes not only that NYCLA §24 is jurisdictional, but that the
statute is neutral with respect to federal and state claims.
Nevertheless, it concludes that the statute violates the Supremacy
Clause because it finds that “equality of treatment does not ensure
that a state law will be deemed a neutral rule of judicial
administration and therefore a valid excuse for refusing to
entertain a federal cause of action.”
Ante, at 8–9. This
conclusion is incorrect in light of Court precedent for several
reasons.
A
The majority mischaracterizes
this Court’s precedent when it asserts that jurisdictional
neutrality is “the beginning, not the end, of the Supremacy Clause
analysis.”
Ante, at 9–10. As explained above, see
supra, at 10–23, “subject to only one limitation, each
State of the Union may establish its own judicature, distribute
judicial power among the courts of its choice, [and] define the
conditions for the exercise of their jurisdiction and the modes of
their proceeding, to the same extent as Congress is empowered to
establish a system of inferior federal courts within the limits of
federal judicial power.”
Brown, 321 U. S., at 188
(Frankfurter, J., concurring). That “one limitation” is the
neutrality principle that the Court has found in the Supremacy
Clause. See
id., at 189 (“The only limitation upon the
freedom of a State to define the jurisdiction of its own courts is
that … [it] must treat litigants under the Federal act as other
litigants are treated” (internal quotation marks omitted));
Herb v.
Pitcairn,
324 U. S. 117, 123 (1945) (“The
freedom of the state courts so to decide is, of course, subject to
the qualification that the cause of action must not be
discriminated against because it is a federal one”). Here, it is
conceded that New York has deprived its courts of subject-matter
jurisdiction over a particular class of claims on terms that treat
federal and state actions equally. See
ante, at 1–2, 8–10.
That is all this Court’s precedent requires. See
supra, at
9, 18–19.
The majority’s assertion that
jurisdictional neutrality is not the touchstone because “[a]
jurisdictional rule cannot be used as a device to undermine federal
law, no matter how even-handed it may appear,”
ante, at 9,
reflects a misunderstanding of the law. A jurisdictional statute
simply deprives the relevant court of the power to decide the case
altogether. See 10A C. Wright, A. Miller, & M. Kane, Federal
Practice and Procedure §2713, p. 239 (3d ed. 1998) (“If the court
has no jurisdiction, it has no power to enter a judgment on the
merits and must dismiss the action”); Restatement (Second) of
Judgments §11, p. 108 (1980) (defining subject-matter jurisdiction
as a court’s “authority to adjudicate the type of controversy
involved in the action”). Such a statute necessarily operates
without prejudice to the adjudication of the matter in a competent
forum. See
supra, at 14–15. Jurisdictional statutes
therefore by definition are incapable of undermining federal law.
NYCLA §24 no more undermines §1983 than the amount-in-controversy
requirement for federal diversity jurisdiction undermines state
law. See 28 U. S. C. §1332. The relevant law (state or
federal) remains fully operative in both circumstances. The sole
consequence of the jurisdictional barrier is that the law cannot be
enforced in one particular judicial forum.[
Footnote 10]
As a result, the majority’s focus on New
York’s reasons for enacting this jurisdictional statute is entirely
misplaced. See
ante, at 7–8. The States “remain
independent and autonomous within their proper sphere of
authority.”
Printz v.
United States,
521 U. S. 898, 928 (1997). New York
has the organic authority, therefore, to tailor the jurisdiction of
state courts to meet its policy goals. See
Fay v.
Noia,
372
U. S. 391, 466–467 (1963) (Harlan, J., dissenting) (“The right
of the State to regulate its own procedures governing the conduct
of litigants in its courts, and its interest in supervision of
those procedures, stand on the same constitutional plane as its
right and interest in framing ‘substantive’ laws governing other
aspects of the conduct of those within its borders”).
It may be true that it was “Congress’ judgment
that
all persons who violate federal rights while acting
under color of state law shall be held liable for damages.”
Ante, at 7–8. But Congress has not enforced that judgment
by statutorily requiring the States to open their courts to
all §1983 claims. See n. 8,
supra. And this
Court has “never held that state courts must entertain §1983
suits.”
National Private Truck Council, Inc. v.
Oklahoma Tax Comm’n,
515 U. S. 582, 587, n. 4
(1995). Our decisions have held only that the States cannot use
jurisdictional statutes to discriminate against federal claims.
Because NYCLA §24 does not violate this command, any policy-driven
reasons for depriving jurisdiction over a “federal claim in
addition to an identical state claim,”
ante, at 8, are
irrelevant for purposes of the Supremacy Clause.
This Court’s decision in
Howlett is
not to the contrary. Despite the majority’s assertion,
Howlett does not stand for the proposition “that a State
cannot employ a jurisdictional rule ‘to dissociate itself from
federal law because of disagreement with its content or a refusal
to recognize the superior authority of its source.’ ”
Ante, at 6 (quoting
Howlett, 496 U. S., at 371).
As an initial matter, the majority lifts the above quotation—which
was merely part of a passage explaining that a “State may not
discriminate against federal causes of action,”
id., at
372—entirely out of context.
Howlett’s reiteration of
McKnett’s neutrality command, which is all the selected
quotation reflects, see 496 U. S., at 372–373, offers no refuge to
the majority in light of its concession that NYCLA §24 affords
“equal treatment” to “federal and state claims.”
Ante, at
8.
Howlett instead stands for the
unremarkable proposition that States may not add immunity defenses
to §1983. See
ante, at 7, n. 5 (explaining that
Howlett held that “a Florida school board could [not]
assert a state-law immunity defense in a §1983 action brought in
state court” because “the ‘elements of, and the defenses to, a
federal cause of action are defined by federal law’ ” (quoting
496 U. S., at 375)). A state law is not jurisdictional just because
the legislature has “denominated” it as such.
Id., at 381.
As the majority observes, the State’s “invocation of
‘jurisdiction’ ” cannot “trump” the “Supremacy Clause
inquiry,”
ante, at 11–12. The majority, therefore, is
correct that a state court’s decision “to nullify a federal right
or cause of action [that it] believe[s] is inconsistent with [its]
local policies” cannot evade the Supremacy Clause by hiding behind
a jurisdictional label,
ante, at 6, because “the Supremacy
Clause cannot be evaded by formalism,”
ante, at 13.
Rather, a state statute must in fact
operate
jurisdictionally: It must deprive the court of the power to hear
the claim and it must not preclude relitigation of the action in a
proper forum. See
supra, at 28–29.
Howlett proved
the point by striking down a state-law immunity rule that bore the
jurisdictional label but operated as a defense on the merits and
provided for the dismissal of the state court action with
prejudice. See 496 U. S., at 359;
supra, at 22–23.
But the majority’s axiomatic refrain about
jurisdictional labels is entirely unresponsive to the issue before
the Court—
i.e., whether NYCLA §24 operates
jurisdictionally. Unlike the Florida immunity rule in
Howlett, NYCLA §24 is not a defense to a federal claim and
the dismissal it authorizes is without prejudice. See 9 N. Y.
3d 481, 490, 881 N. E. 2d 180, 186 (2007) (explaining
that “the Legislature did nothing more than exercise its
prerogative to establish the subject matter jurisdiction of state
courts” and that “litigants like plaintiff can use the federal
courts to pursue section 1983 claims” against correction officers).
For this reason, NYCLA §24 is not merely “denominated” as
jurisdictional—it actually is jurisdictional. The New York courts,
therefore, have not declared a “category” of §1983 claims to be
“ ‘frivolous’ ” or to have “ ‘no merit’ ” in
order to “ ‘relieve congestion’ ” in the state-court
system. See
ante, at 7–8 (quoting
Howlett, supra,
at 380). These courts have simply recognized that they lack the
power to adjudicate this category of claims regardless of their
merit.
The majority’s failure to grapple with the
clear differences between the immunity rule at issue in
Howlett and NYCLA §24 proves that its decision is
untethered from precedent. And more broadly, the majority’s failure
to account for the important role of claim preclusion in evaluating
whether a statute is jurisdictional undermines the important line
drawn by this Court’s decisions between subject-matter jurisdiction
and the merits. See
Marrese v.
American Academy of
Orthopaedic Surgeons,
470 U. S. 373, 382
(1985) (“With respect to matters that were not decided in the state
proceedings … claim preclusion generally does not apply where ‘the
plaintiff was unable to … seek a remedy because of the limitations
on the subject matter jurisdiction of the courts’ ” (quoting
Restatement (Second) of Judgments §26(1)(c)(1982))); see also
Arbaugh, 546 U. S., at 514–516;
Steel Co., 523 U.
S., at 94.
The majority’s principal response is that
NYCLA §24 “is effectively an immunity statute cloaked in
jurisdictional garb.”
Ante, at 12. But this curious
rejoinder resurrects an argument that the majority abandons earlier
in its own opinion. See
ante, at 7, n. 5. The
majority needs to choose. Either it should definitively commit to
making the impossible case that a statute denying state courts the
power to entertain a claim without prejudice to its reassertion in
federal court is an immunity defense in disguise, or it should
clearly explain why some other aspect of
Howlett controls
the outcome of this case. This Court has required Congress to speak
clearly when it intends to “upset the usual constitutional balance
of federal and state powers.”
Gregory, 501 U. S., at 460.
It should require no less of itself.
At bottom, the majority’s warning that
upholding New York’s law “would permit a State to withhold a forum
for the adjudication of any federal cause of action with which it
disagreed as long as the policy took the form of a jurisdictional
rule” is without any basis in fact.
Ante, at 13,
n. 9. This Court’s jurisdictional neutrality command already
guards against antifederal discrimination. A decision upholding
NYCLA §24, which fully adheres to that rule, would not “circumvent
our prior decisions.”
Ibid. It simply would adhere to
them.[
Footnote 11]
B
The majority also incorrectly
concludes that NYCLA §24 is not a neutral jurisdictional statute
because it applies to a “narrow class of defendants,”
ante, at 7, and because New York courts “hear the lion’s
share of all other §1983 actions,”
ante, at 12. A
statute’s jurisdictional status does not turn on its narrowness or
on its breadth. See
Arbaugh, supra, at 515, n. 11.
Rather, as explained above, a statute’s jurisdictional status turns
on the grounds on which the state-law dismissal rests and the
consequences that follow from such rulings. No matter how narrow
the majority perceives NYCLA §24 to be, it easily qualifies as
jurisdictional under this established standard. Accordingly, it is
immaterial that New York has chosen to allow its courts of general
jurisdiction to entertain §1983 actions against certain categories
of defendants but not others (such as correction officers), or to
entertain §1983 actions against particular defendants for only
certain types of relief.
Building on its assumption that a
statute’s jurisdictional status turns on its scope, the majority
further holds that “having made the decision to create courts of
general jurisdiction that regularly sit to entertain analogous
suits, New York is not at liberty to shut the courthouse door to
federal claims that it considers at odds with its local policy.”
Ante, at 11. But whether two claims are “analogous” is
relevant only for purposes of determining whether a state
jurisdictional statute discriminates against federal law. This
inquiry necessarily requires an evaluation of the similarities
between
federal and
state law claims to assess
whether state-court jurisdiction is being denied to a federal claim
simply because of its federal character.
In contrast, the majority limits its analysis
to state-law claims, finding discrimination based solely on the
fact that state law provides jurisdiction in state court for claims
against state officials who serve in “analogous” roles to the
correction officers. See
ante, at 10. The majority’s
inquiry is not probative of antifederal discrimination, which is
the concern that first led this Court in
McKnett to find a
Supremacy Clause limitation on state-court jurisdictional autonomy.
Consequently, there is no support for the majority’s assertion that
New York’s decision to treat police officers differently from
correction officers for purposes of civil litigation somehow
violates the Constitution. See
ante, at 10.
Worse still, the majority concludes that §1983
claims for damages against “other state officials” are
“sufficiently analogous to petitioner’s §1983 claims” to trigger a
Supremacy Clause violation.
Ante, at 10–11, and n. 6.
Under this reasoning, if a State grants its trial courts
jurisdiction to hear §1983 claims for damages against
any
state official, the State’s decision to deny those courts the power
to entertain some narrower species of §1983 claims—even on
jurisdictionally neutral terms—
a fortiori violates the
Supremacy Clause. The majority’s assurance that its holding is
applicable only to New York’s “unique scheme” thus rings hollow.
Ante, at 12. The majority is forcing States into an
all-or-nothing choice that neither the Constitution nor this
Court’s decisions require. See
FERC v.
Mississippi,
456 U. S. 742, 774,
n. 4 (1982) (Powell, J., concurring in part and dissenting in
part) (“It would not be open to us to insist on adjudication in a
state court of a federal claim arising beyond the jurisdiction of
the local court” (internal quotation marks omitted)).
Indeed, the majority’s novel approach breaks
the promise that the States still enjoy “ ‘great latitude … to
establish the structure and jurisdiction of their own
courts.’ ”
Ante, at 10 (quoting
Howlett, 496
U. S., at 372). It cannot be that New York has forsaken the right
to withdraw a particular class of claims from its courts’ purview
simply because it has created courts of general jurisdiction that
would otherwise have the power to hear suits for damages against
correction officers. The Supremacy Clause does not fossilize the
jurisdiction of state courts in their original form. Under this
Court’s precedent, States remain free to alter the structure of
their judicial system even if that means certain federal causes of
action will no longer be heard in state court, so long as States do
so on nondiscriminatory terms. See
Printz, 521 U. S., at
906, n. 1. (explaining that “the States obviously regulate the
‘ordinary jurisdiction’ of their courts”);
Johnson v.
Fankell,
520 U. S. 911, 922, n. 13 (1997)
(“We have made it quite clear that it is a matter for each State to
decide how to structure its judicial system”). Today’s decision
thus represents a dramatic and unwarranted expansion of this
Court’s precedent.
IV
“[I]n order to protect the
delicate balance of power mandated by the Constitution, the
Supremacy Clause must operate only in accordance with its terms.”
Wyeth, 555 U. S., at ___ (slip op., at 3) (Thomas, J.,
concurring in judgment). By imposing on state courts a duty to
accept subject-matter jurisdiction over federal §1983 actions, the
Court has stretched the Supremacy Clause beyond all reasonable
bounds and upended a compromise struck by the Framers in Article
III of the Constitution. Furthermore, by declaring unconstitutional
even those laws that divest state courts of jurisdiction over
federal claims on a non-discriminatory basis, the majority has
silently overturned this Court’s unbroken line of decisions
upholding state statutes that are materially indistinguishable from
the New York law under review. And it has transformed a single
exception to the rule of state judicial autonomy into a virtually
ironclad obligation to entertain federal business. I respectfully
dissent.
Footnote 1
Alexander Hamilton’s recognition of
“concurrent jurisdiction” should not be mistaken for a suggestion
that the Constitution
requires state courts to hear
federal claims. See
ante, at 5 (opinion of Stevens, J.).
He merely understood that the States would be “divested of no part
of their primitive jurisdiction” and state courts “in every case in
which they were not expressly excluded by the future acts of the
national legislature … [would] of course take cognizance of the
causes to which those acts may give birth.” The Federalist No. 82,
at 132. Hamilton thus assumed that state courts would continue to
entertain federal claims consistent with their “primitive
jurisdiction” under state law.
Ibid. But he remained
skeptical that state courts could be forced to entertain federal
causes of action when state law deprived them of jurisdiction over
such claims. See Hamilton, The Examination No. 6, (Jan. 2, 1802),
in 25 Papers of Alexander Hamilton 484, 487–488 (H. Syrett ed.
1977) (“[I]t is not to be forgotten, that the right to employ the
agency of the State Courts for executing the laws of the Union, is
liable to question, and has, in fact, been seriously
questioned”).
Footnote 2
See also Collins, Article III Cases, State
Court Duties, and the Madisonian Compromise, 1995 Wis. L. Rev.
39, 144 (1995) (hereinafter Collins) (“It is … extremely difficult
to argue from the debatable assumption that state courts would be
under an obligation to take all Article III judicial business in
the first instance—as a quid pro quo for the Constitution’s
noninclusion of any reference to lower federal courts—to the
conclusion that such a duty still existed when the second half of
that bargain was decisively rejected (in the Madisonian Compromise,
no less)”); Pfander, Rethinking the Supreme Court’s Original
Jurisidiction in State-Party Cases, 82 Cal. L. Rev. 555, 596
(1994) (“The framers may well have assumed that the federal system
would simply take the state courts as it found them; state courts
could exercise a concurrent jurisdiction over any federal claims
that fit comfortably within their pre-existing jurisdiction—what
Hamilton in
The Federalist called their primitive
jurisdiction—so long as the federal claims were not, by virtue of
congressional decree, subject to the exclusive jurisdiction of the
federal courts. It seems unlikely, however, that the framers would
have chosen to compel the state courts to entertain federal claims
against their will and in violation of their own jurisdictional
limits” (footnotes omitted)).
Footnote 3
As proposed by Luther Martin, the Clause
provided as follows: “ ‘[T]hat the Legislative acts of the
[United States] made by virtue [and] in pursuance of the articles
of Union, and all treaties made [and] ratified under the authority
of the [United States] shall be the supreme law of the respective
States, as far as those acts or treaties shall relate to the said
States, or their Citizens and inhabitants—[and] that the
Judiciaries of the several States shall be bound thereby in their
decisions, any thing in the respective laws of the individual
States to the contrary notwithstanding.’ ” 2 Farrand
28–29.
Footnote 4
Madison did not believe that federal courts
were up to the task. See Letter from James Madison to Thomas
Jefferson (Oct. 24, 1787), reprinted in 3
id., at 131, 134
(“It may be said that the Judicial authority, under our new system
will keep the States within their proper limits, and supply the
place of a negative on their laws. The answer is, that it is more
convenient to prevent the passage of a law than to declare it void
after it is passed; that this will be particularly the case, where
the law aggrieves individuals, who may be unable to support an
appeal [against] a State to the supreme Judiciary; that a State
which would violate the Legislative rights of the Union, would not
be very ready to obey a Judicial decree in support of them, and
that a recurrence to force, which, in the event of disobedience
would be necessary, is an evil which the new Constitution meant to
exclude as far as possible”). He had even less faith in state
courts. See 2
id., at 27–28 (“Confidence can (not) be put
in the State Tribunals as guardians of the National authority and
interests”). In light of Madison’s mistrust of state courts, any
suggestion that he drafted Article III to require state courts to
entertain federal claims, or that he advocated for the inclusion in
the Constitution of a provision guaranteeing the supremacy of
federal law as a means of accomplishing that same goal, would be
doubtful. Madison appears to have preferred that the state courts
hear as little federal business as possible.
Footnote 5
The majority contends that the Full Faith and
Credit Clause and the Privileges and Immunities Clause support its
view of the Supremacy Clause because each “compel[s] States to open
their courts to causes of action over which they would normally
lack jurisdiction.”
Ante, at 11, n. 7 (citing
Howlett v.
Rose,
496
U. S. 356, 381–382 (1990)). But the majority has it backwards.
The Full Faith and Credit Clause and the Privileges and Immunities
Clause include a textual prohibition on discrimination that the
Supremacy Clause lacks. See Art. IV, §1 (“Full Faith and
Credit shall be given in each State to the public Acts, Records,
and judicial Proceedings of every other State”); Art. IV, §2
(“The Citizens of each State shall be entitled to all Privileges
and Immunities of Citizens in the several States”). The Framers’
decision to address state-to-state discrimination in these two
clauses without taking similar steps with respect to federal-state
relations governed by the Supremacy Clause aligns with reasons
given for abandoning the Articles of Confederation, see The
Federalist No. 42, p. 292 (E. Bourne ed. 1947) (J. Madison)
(describing the Full Faith and Credit Clause as “an evident and
valuable improvement on the clause relating to this subject in the
articles of Confederation”), and the principle of dual sovereignty
that the Constitution preserves, see
Texas v.
White, 7 Wall. 700, 725 (1869). Accordingly, contrary to
the majority’s supposition, there are in fact strong “reason[s] to
treat the Supremacy Clause differently,”
ante, at 11,
n. 7, from the Full Faith and Credit and Privileges and
Immunities Clauses.
Footnote 6
Other decisions also have articulated this
antidiscrimination principle. See,
e.g.,
Johnson
v.
Fankell,
520 U. S. 911 (1997);
Missouri ex
rel. Southern R. Co. v.
Mayfield,
340 U. S. 1 (1950);
Herb v.
Pitcairn,
324 U. S. 117 (1945);
Miles
v.
Illinois Central R. Co.,
315 U. S. 698 (1942).
The outcomes in these cases nonetheless preserved state-court
jurisdictional autonomy. In
Johnson and
Herb, the
Court sustained the state-court dismissals of the federal claims as
nondiscriminatory. See
Johnson,
supra, at
918–920;
Herb,
supra, at 123. In
Mayfield, the Court never decided whether the state court
had jurisdiction over the relevant federal claim; rather, it
remanded the case to the Missouri Supreme Court based on the state
court’s possibly erroneous interpretation of federal law at issue
in that case. See 340 U. S., at 4–5. Finally, in
Miles,
the Court struck down a Tennessee decision that enjoined a citizen
of that State from pursuing a FELA action in Missouri state court
“on grounds of inequity.” 315 U. S., at 702. The Court correctly
held that, so long as jurisdiction existed under Missouri law, the
Tennessee court could not rely on its own notions of “inequity” to
thwart the vindication of a federal right in state court.
Ibid.
Footnote 7
Despite suggestions to the contrary, see
ante, at 5;
Howlett v.
Rose,
496
U. S. 356 (1990), the Court’s decision in
Bombolis,
241 U. S. 211, which held that the
Seventh Amendment does not require a unanimous jury verdict when
federal civil claims are adjudicated in state court, provides no
support for the antidiscrimination principle. As quoted above, the
Court (in dicta) accurately summarized the holding of
Second
Employers’. See 241 U. S., at 222. The Court also reiterated
that before a state court owes a duty to enforce federal law, it
must have subject-matter jurisdiction over the claim under state
law. See
id., at 221 (“[L]awful rights of the citizen,
whether arising from a legitimate exercise of state or national
power … are concurrently subject to be enforced in the courts of
the State or nation when such rights come within the general scope
of the jurisdiction conferred upon such courts by the authority,
State or nation, creating them”);
id., at 222 (explaining
that state courts are “charged with the duty to safeguard and
enforce the right of every citizen without reference to the
particular exercise of governmental power from which the right may
have arisen, if only the authority to enforce such right comes
generally within the scope of the jurisdiction conferred by the
government creating them”).
Footnote 8
Because 42 U. S. C. §1983 does not
pre-empt NYCLA §24, there is no need to reach the more difficult
question of whether Congress has the delegated authority under the
Constitution to require state courts to entertain a federal cause
of action. Compare
Printz v.
United States,
521 U. S. 898, 907 (1997) (suggesting
that Congress’ authority in this regard was “perhaps implicit in
one of the provisions of the Constitution [Article III, §1], and
was explicit in another [Article VI, cl. 2]”); Prakash, Field
Office Federalism, 79 Va. L. Rev. 1957, 2032 (1993) (“As a
matter of original understanding, the Founding Generation
understood that state courts could be commandeered to enforce
federal law”), with
Prigg v.
Pennsylvania, 16
Pet. 539, 615 (1842) (concluding that state courts could not “be
compelled to enforce” the 1793 Fugitive Slave Act); Collins 45
(concluding as an original matter that “states did not have to
accept unwanted federal civil and criminal judicial business, and
that Congress could not compel them to do so”).
Footnote 9
The history surrounding §1983’s enactment
also supports this conclusion. See
Felder v.
Casey,
487 U. S. 131, 158 (1988),(O’Connor,
J., dissenting) (“[T]he original version of §1983 provided that the
federal courts would have exclusive jurisdiction of actions arising
under it. This fact is conclusive proof that the Congress which
enacted §1983 over 100 years ago, could not possibly have meant
thereby to alter the operation of state courts in any way … .
Abandoning the rule of exclusive federal jurisdiction over §1983
actions, and thus restoring the tradition of concurrent
jurisdiction … did not leave behind a pre-emptive grin without a
statutory cat” (internal quotation marks and citations
omitted)).
Footnote 10
If by asserting that state law is not
permitted to “undermine federal law,”
ante, at 9, the
majority instead is arguing that NYCLA §24 is a procedural rule
that too heavily “burdens the exercise of the federal right” in
state court, see
Felder, 487 U. S., at 141, its argument
is equally misplaced. First, the majority concedes that NYCLA §24
is not a state procedural rule. See
ante, at 12,
n. 8. Second, applying the reasoning of
Felder to a
jurisdictional statute like NYCLA §24 would overrule all of the
Court’s decisions upholding state laws that decline jurisdiction
over federal claims, and would virtually ensure that in future
cases, no state jurisdictional rule will be upheld as
constitutional. By simply rendering a federal claim noncognizable
in state court, a statute depriving a state court of subject-matter
jurisdiction (even under the terms and conditions permitted by this
Court’s precedent) will always violate
Felder’s command
that a state rule must not undermine the “remedial objectives” of a
federal claim, see 487 U. S., at 138. The jurisdictional statute
also will unavoidably implicate
Felder’s concern that a
state rule should not inevitably produce a different outcome
depending on whether a claim is asserted in state or federal court,
see
ibid. A state jurisdictional statute necessarily will
result in a different outcome in state court, where it will cause
dismissal of the federal claim, than in federal court, where that
claim will be heard. It is for this reason that the Court has been
careful to keep its examination of state jurisdictional statutes
and state procedural rules in different categories.
Footnote 11
The majority also suggests that allowing
jurisdictional neutrality to be the test “would create a blind spot
in the Supremacy Clause” because a procedural rule that too heavily
burdens a federal cause of action would be struck down as
unconstitutional while “a State could express its disagreement with
(and even open hostility to) a federal cause of action, declare a
desire to thwart its enforcement, and achieve that goal by removing
the disfavored category of claims from its courts’ jurisdiction.”
Ante, at 12, n. 8. This is incorrect for at least two
reasons. First, as explained above, a State may permissibly
register its hostility to federal law only by subjecting analogous
state-law claims to equally disfavored treatment. See
supra, at 19–20. Hostility to federal law is thus
irrelevant under this Court’s precedent—the Supremacy Clause is
concerned only with whether there is antifederal discrimination.
Second, the majority obscures important differences between
procedural rules, like the notice-of-claim rule at issue in
Felder, and neutral jurisdictional statutes like NYCLA
§24. Unlike a neutral jurisdictional statute, which merely prevents
a state court from entertaining a federal claim, failure to comply
with a state procedural rule will result in dismissal of a federal
claim with prejudice. See
Felder, 487 U. S., at 151
(explaining that the State’s “outcome-determinative law must give
way when a party asserts a federal right in state court”). Contrary
to the majority’s assertion, therefore, it is not that state courts
with “unconstitutionally burdensome procedural rules did not go far
enough”—it is instead that they went too far by placing an
insurmountable procedural hurdle in the plaintiff’s path that led
to a judgment against him on the merits.
Ante, at 12,
n. 8. As a result, the Court’s assessment of whether a state
procedural rule too heavily burdens a federal right does not have
any bearing on the Court’s continued adherence to the neutrality
principle as the sole determinant in evaluating state-law
jurisdictional statutes.
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