Howlett Ex Rel. Howlett v. Rose

delivered the opinion of the Court.

Section 1 of the Civil Rights Act of 1871, Rev. Stat. § 1979, now codified as 42 U. S. C. § 1983, creates a remedy for violations of federal rights committed by persons acting under color of state law. 1 State courts as well as federal courts have jurisdiction over § 1983 cases. The question in *359 this case is whether a state-law defense of “sovereign immunity” is available to a school board otherwise subject to suit in a Florida court even though such a defense would not be available if the action had been brought in a federal forum.

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Petitioner, a former high school student, filed a complaint in the Circuit Court for Pinellas County, Florida, naming the School Board of Pinellas County and three school officials as defendants. He alleged that an assistant principal made an illegal search of his car while it was parked on school premises and that he was wrongfully suspended from regular classes for five days. Contending that the search and subsequent suspension violated rights under the Fourth and Fourteenth Amendments of the Federal Constitution and under similar provisions of the State Constitution, he prayed for damages and an order expunging any reference to the suspension from the school records.

Defendants filed a motion to dismiss on various grounds, including failure to exhaust state administrative remedies. 2 The school board also contended that the court was without jurisdiction to hear the federal claims—but not the state claims—because the Florida waiver-of-sovereign-immunity statute did not extend to claims based on § 1983. App. 13-14. The Circuit Court dismissed the complaint with prejudice, citing a state case requiring state-law challenges to be first presented to the District Court of Appeal and the Florida Supreme Court decision in Hill v. Department of Corrections, 513 So. 2d 129 (1987). App. 19.

The District Court of Appeal for the Second District affirmed the dismissal of petitioner’s § 1983 claim against the *360 school board. 3 It held that the availability of sovereign immunity in a § 1983 action brought in state court is a matter of state law, and that Florida’s statutory waiver of sovereign immunity did not apply to § 1983 cases. The court rejected the argument that whether a State has maintained its sovereign immunity from a § 1983 suit in its state courts is a question of federal law. It wrote:

“[W]hen a section 1983 action is brought in state court, the sole question to be decided on the basis of state law is whether the state has waived its common law sovereign immunity to the extent necessary to allow a section 1983 action in state court. Hill holds that Florida has not so waived its sovereign immunity. We therefore do not reach appellant’s second issue in this case, i. e., whether under federal law a Florida school board is immune from a section 1983 law. There is no question under Florida law that agencies of the state, including school boards and municipalities, are the beneficiaries of sovereign immunity.” 537 So. 2d 706, 708 (1989) (emphasis in original).

The Court of Appeal acknowledged our holding in Martinez v. California, 444 U. S. 277 (1980), that a State cannot immunize an official from liability for injuries compensable under federal law. It held, however, that under Hill a State’s invocation of a “state common law immunity from the use of its courts for suits against the state in those state courts” raised “purely a question of state law.” 537 So. 2d, at 708. The Florida Supreme Court denied review. 545 So. 2d 1367 (1987). In view of the importance of the question decided by the Court of Appeal, we granted certiorari. 493 U. S. 963 (1989).

*361 II

The question in this case stems from the Florida Supreme Court’s decision in the Hill case. In that case, the plaintiff sought damages for common-law negligence and false imprisonment and violations of his constitutional rights under § 1983 from the Florida Department of Corrections for the conduct of one of its probation supervisors. Hill argued that the department was a “person” under § 1983, that it was responsible for the actions of its supervisor, and that it was subject to suit in the Circuit Court pursuant to the Florida waiver of sovereign immunity. Fla. Stat. § 768.28 (1989). 4 That statute provides that the State and its subdivisions, including municipalities and school boards, § 768.28(2), are subject to suit in circuit court for tort claims “in the same manner and to the same extent as a private individual under like circumstances,” § 768.28(5). 5 Although the terms of the waiver *362 could be read narrowly to restrict liability to claims against the State in its proprietary capacity, the Florida courts have rejected that interpretation. 6 In 16 cases arising under Florida statutory and common law, the State Supreme Court has held that the State may be sued in respondeat superior for the violation of nondiscretionary duties in the exercise of governmental authority. The Florida courts thus have entertained suits against state agencies for the violation of nondiscretionary duties committed in the performance of various governmental activities, including the roadside stop and arrest of an individual driving with an expired inspection sticker, 7 the negligent maintenance by city employees of a *363 storm sewer system, 8 the failure of a state caseworker to detect and prevent child abuse, 9 the negligent maintenance of county swimming pools and failure to warn or correct known dangerous conditions, 10 and the failure to protect a prison inmate from other inmates known to be dangerous. 11 Hill ar *364 gued that just as the State could be joined in an action for the violation of established state common-law or statutory duties, it was also subject to suit for violations of its nondiscretionary duty not to violate the Constitution. See Owen v. City of Independence, 445 U. S. 622, 649-650 (1980).

The trial court dismissed Hill’s § 1983 claim but entered judgment on the jury’s verdict in his favor on the common-law claims. On appeal, the District Court of Appeal affirmed the dismissal of the § 1983 claim and reversed the judgment on the common-law claim. It also certified to the Florida Supreme Court the question whether Florida’s statutory waiver of sovereign immunity permitted suits against the State and its agencies under § 1983. Department of Corrections v. Hill, 490 So. 2d 118 (1986).

The State Supreme Court answered that question in the negative. Hill v. Department of Corrections, 513 So. 2d 129 (1987), cert. denied, 484 U. S. 1064 (1988). Without citing any of its own sovereign immunity cases and relying solely on analogy to the Eleventh Amendment and decisions of the courts of other States, the State Supreme Court held that the Florida statute conferred a blanket immunity on governmental entities from federal civil rights actions under § 1983. 513 So. 2d, at 133. It stated: “While Florida is at liberty to waive its immunity from section 1983 actions, it has not done so. The recovery ceilings in section 768.28 were intended to waive sovereign immunity for state tort actions, not federal civil rights actions commenced under section 1983.” Ibid. The court thus affirmed the dismissal of the §1983 claim but reversed the Court of Appeal’s judgment on *365 the common-law claim and allowed the judgment for Hill on that claim to stand.

On its facts, the disposition of the Hill case would appear to be unexceptional. The defendant in Hill was a state agency protected from suit in a federal court by the Eleventh Amendment. See Quern v. Jordan, 440 U. S. 332, 341 (1979) (§ 1983 does not “override the traditional sovereign immunity of the States”). 12 As we held last Term in Will v. Michigan Dept. of State Police, 491 U. S. 58 (1989), an entity with Eleventh Amendment immunity is not a “person” within the meaning of § 1983. The anomaly identified by the State Supreme Court, and by the various state courts which it cited, 13 that a State might be forced to entertain in its own courts suits from which it was immune in federal court, is thus fully met by our decision in Will. Will establishes that the State and arms of the State, which have traditionally enjoyed Eleventh Amendment immunity, are not subject to suit under § 1983 in either federal court or state court.

The language and reasoning of the State Supreme Court, if not its precise holding, however, went further. That further step was completed by the District Court of Appeal in this case. As that court construed the law, Florida has extended *366 absolute immunity from suit not only to the State and its arms but also to municipalities, counties, and school districts that might otherwise be subject to suit under § 1983 in federal court. That holding raises the concern that the state court may be evading federal law and discriminating against federal causes of action. The adequacy of the state-law ground to support a judgment precluding litigation of the federal claim is itself a federal question which we review de novo. See Johnson v. Mississippi, 486 U. S. 578, 587 (1988); James v. Kentucky, 466 U. S. 341, 348-349 (1984); Hathorn v. Lovorn, 457 U. S. 255, 263 (1982); Barr v. City of Columbia, 378 U. S. 146, 149 (1964); NAACP v. Alabama ex rel. Patterson, 357 U. S. 449, 455 (1958); Rogers v. Alabama, 192 U. S. 226, 230-231 (1904); Hill, The Inadequate State Ground, 65 Colum. L. Rev. 943, 954-957 (1965). Whether the constitutional rights asserted by petitioner were “‘given due recognition by the [Court of Appeal] is a question as to which the [petitioner is] entitled to invoke our judgment, and this [he has] done in the appropriate way. It therefore is within our province to inquire not only whether the right was denied in express terms, but also whether it was denied in substance and effect, as by putting forward nonfederal grounds of decision that were without any fair or substantial support.'” Staub v. City of Baxley, 355 U. S. 313, 318-319 (1958) (quoting Ward v. Love County Board of Comm’rs, 253 U. S. 17, 22 (1920)). 14

*367 III

Federal law is enforceable in state courts not because Congress has determined that federal courts would otherwise be burdened or that state courts might provide a more convenient forum—although both might well be true—but because the Constitution and laws passed pursuant to it are as much laws in the States as laws passed by the state legislature. The Supremacy Clause makes those laws “the supreme Law of the Land,” and charges state courts with a coordinate responsibility to enforce that law according to their regular modes of procedure. “The 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; and the courts of the two jurisdictions are not foreign to each other, nor to be treated by each other as such, but as courts of the same country, having jurisdiction partly different and partly concurrent.” Claflin v. Houseman, 93 U. S. 130, 136-137 (1876); see Minneapolis & St. Louis R. Co. v. Bombolis, 241 U. S. 211, 222 (1916) (“[T]he governments and courts of both the Nation and the several States [are not] strange or foreign to each other in the broad sense of that word, but [are] all courts of a common country, all within the orbit of their lawful authority being charged with the duty to safeguard and enforce the right of every citizen without reference to the *368 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”); Hart, The Relations Between State and Federal Law, 54 Colum. L. Rev. 489 (1954) (“The law which governs daily living in the United States is a single system of law”); see also Tafflin v. Levitt, 493 U. S. 455, 469 (1990) (Scalia, J., concurring). 15 As Alexander Hamilton expressed the principle in a classic passage:

“[I]n every case in which they were not expressly excluded by the future acts of the national legislature, [state courts] will of course take cognizance of the causes to which those acts may give birth. This I infer from the nature of judiciary power, and from the general genius of the system. The judiciary power of every government looks beyond its own local or municipal laws, and in civil cases lays hold of all subjects of litigation between parties within its jurisdiction, though the causes of dispute are relative to the laws of the most distant part of the globe. *369 Those of Japan, not less than of New York, may furnish the objects of legal discussion to our courts. When in addition to this we consider the State governments and the national governments, as they truly are, in the light of kindred systems, and as parts of ONE WHOLE, the 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.” The Federalist No. 82, p. 182 (E. Bourne ed. 1947) (emphasis added).

Three corollaries follow from the proposition that “federal” law is part of the “Law of the Land” in the State:

1. A state court may not deny a federal right, when the parties and controversy are properly before it, in the absence of “valid excuse.” Douglas v. New York, N. H. & H. R. Co., 279 U. S. 377, 387-388 (1929) (Holmes, J.). 16 “The ex *370 istence of the jurisdiction creates an implication of duty to exercise it.” Mondou v. New York, N. H. & H. R. Co., 223 U. S. 1, 58 (1912); see Testa v. Katt, 330 U. S. 386 (1947); Missouri ex rel. St. Louis, B. & M. R. Co. v. Taylor, 266 U. S. 200, 208 (1924); Robb v. Connolly, 111 U. S. 624, 637 (1884). 17

*371 2. An excuse that is inconsistent with or violates federal law is not a valid excuse: The Supremacy Clause forbids state courts to dissociate themselves from federal law because of disagreement with its content or a refusal to recognize the superior authority of its source. “The suggestion that the act of Congress is not in harmony with the policy of the State, and therefore that the courts of the State are free to decline jurisdiction, is quite inadmissible because it presupposes what in legal contemplation does not exist. When Congress, in the exertion of the power confided to it by the Constitution, adopted that 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 [the State] as if the act had emanated from its own legislature, and should be respected accordingly in the courts of the State.” Mondou, 223 U. S., at 57; see Miles v. Illinois Central R. Co., 315 U. S. 698, 703-704 *372 (1942) (“By virtue of the Constitution, the courts of the several states must remain open to such litigants on the same basis that they are open to litigants with causes of action springing from a different source”); McKnett v. St. Louis & San Francisco R. Co., 292 U. S. 230, 233-234 (1934); Minneapolis & St. Louis R. Co. v. Bombolis, 241 U. S. 211 (1916); cf. FERC v. Mississippi, 456 U. S. 742, 776, n. 1 (1982) (opinion of O’Connor, J.) (State may not discriminate against federal causes of action).

3. When a state court refuses jurisdiction because of a neutral state rule regarding the administration of the courts, we must act with utmost caution before deciding that it is obligated to entertain the claim. See Missouri ex rel. Southern R. Co. v. Mayfield, 340 U. S. 1 (1950); Georgia Rail Road & Banking Co. v. Musgrove, 335 U. S. 900 (1949) (per curiam); Herb v. Pitcairn, 324 U. S. 117 (1945); Douglas v. New York, N. H. & H. R. Co., 279 U. S. 377 (1929). The requirement that a state court of competent jurisdiction treat federal law as the law of the land does not necessarily include within it a requirement that the State create a court competent to hear the case in which the federal claim is presented. The general rule, “bottomed deeply in belief in the importance of state control of state judicial procedure, is that federal law takes the state courts as it finds them.” Hart, 54 Colum. L. Rev., at 508; see also Southland Corp. v. Keating, 465 U. S. 1, 33 (1984) (O’Connor, J., dissenting); FERC v. Mississippi, 456 U. S., at 774 (opinion of Powell, J.). The States thus have great latitude to establish the structure and jurisdiction of their own courts. See Herb, supra; Bombolis, supra; Missouri v. Lewis, 101 U. S. 22, 30-31 (1880). In addition, States may apply their own neutral procedural rules to federal claims, unless those rules are pre-empted by federal law. See Felder v. Casey, 487 U. S. 131 (1988); James v. Kentucky, 466 U. S., at 348.

These principles are fundamental to a system of federalism in which the state courts share responsibility for the applica *373 tion and enforcement of federal law. In Mondou, for example, we held that rights under the Federal Employers’ Liability Act (FELA) “may be enforced, as of right, in the courts of the States when their jurisdiction, as prescribed by local laws, is adequate to the occasion.” 223 U. S., at 59. The Connecticut courts had declined cognizance of FELA actions because the policy of the federal Act was “not in accord with the policy of the State,” and it was “inconvenient and confusing” to apply federal law. Id., at 55-56. We noted, as a matter of some significance, that Congress had not attempted “to enlarge or regulate the jurisdiction of state courts or to control or affect their modes of procedure,” id., at 56, and found from the fact that the state court was a court of general jurisdiction with cognizance over wrongful-death actions that the court’s jurisdiction was “appropriate to the occasion,” id., at 57. “The existence of the jurisdiction creat[ed] an implication of duty to exercise it,” id., at 58, which could not be overcome by disagreement with the policy of the federal Act, id., at 57.

In McKnett, the state court refused to exercise jurisdiction over a FELA cause of action against a foreign corporation for an injury suffered in another State. We held “[w]hile Congress has not attempted to compel states to provide courts for the enforcement of the Federal Employers’ Liability Act, the Federal Constitution prohibits state courts of general jurisdiction from refusing to do so solely because the suit is brought under a federal law.” 292 U. S., at 233-234 (citation omitted). Because the state court had “general jurisdiction of the class of actions to which that here brought belongs, in cases between litigants situated like those in the case at bar,” id., at 232, the refusal to hear the FELA action constituted discrimination against rights arising under federal laws, id., at 234, in violation of the Supremacy Clause.

We unanimously reaffirmed these principles in Testa v. Katt. We held that the Rhode Island courts could not decline jurisdiction over treble damages claims under the fed *374 eral Emergency Price Control Act when their jurisdiction was otherwise “adequate and appropriate under established local law.” 330 U. S., at 394. The Rhode Island court had distinguished our decisions in McKnett and Mondou on the grounds that the federal Act was a “penal statute,” which would not have been enforceable under the Full Faith and Credit Clause if passed by another State. We rejected that argument. We observed that the Rhode Island court enforced the “same type of claim” arising under state law and claims for double damages under federal law. 330 U. S., at 394. We therefore concluded that the court had “jurisdiction adequate and appropriate under established local law to adjudicate this action.” Ibid. 18 The court could not decline to exercise this jurisdiction to enforce federal law by labeling it “penal.” The policy of the federal Act was to be considered “the prevailing policy in every state” which the state court could not refuse to enforce “‘because of conceptions of impolicy or want of wisdom on the part of Congress in having called into play its lawful powers.’” Id., at 393 (quoting Minneapolis & St. Louis R. Co. v. Bombolis, 241 U. S., at 222).

On only three occasions have we found a valid excuse for a state court’s refusal to entertain a federal cause of action. Each of them involved a neutral rule of judicial administration. In Douglas v. New York, N. H. & H. R. Co., 279 U. S. 377 (1929), the state statute permitted discretionary dismissal of both federal and state claims where neither the plaintiff nor the defendant was a resident of the forum State. 19 In Herb, the City Court denied jurisdiction over a *375 FELA action on the grounds that the cause of action arose outside its territorial jurisdiction. Although the state court was not free to dismiss the federal claim “because it is a federal one,” we found no evidence that the state courts “construed the state jurisdiction and venue laws in a discriminatory fashion.” 324 U. S., at 123. Finally, in Mayfield, we held that a state court could apply the doctrine of forum non conveniens to bar adjudication of a FELA case if the State “enforces its policy impartially so as not to involve a discrimination against Employers’ Liability Act suits.” 340 U. S., at 4 (citation omitted).

I V

The parties disagree as to the proper characterization of the District Court of Appeal’s decision. Petitioner argues that the court adopted a substantive rule of decision that state agencies are not subject to liability under § 1983. Respondents, stressing the court’s language that it had not “opened its own courts for federal actions against the state,” 537 So. 2d, at 708, argue that the case simply involves the court’s refusal to take cognizance of § 1983 actions against state defendants. We conclude that whether 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, as respondents would have it, 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.

If the District Court of Appeal meant to hold that governmental entities subject to § 1983 liability enjoy an immunity over and above those already provided in § 1983, that holding directly violates federal law. The elements of, and the defenses to, a federal cause of action are defined by federal law. See, e. g., Monessen Southwestern R. Co. v. Morgan, 486 *376 U. S. 330, 335 (1988); Chesapeake & Ohio R. Co. v. Kuhn, 284 U. S. 44, 46-47 (1931). A State may not, by statute or common law, create a cause of action under § 1983 against an entity whom Congress has not subjected to liability. Moor v. County of Alameda, 411 U. S. 693, 698-710 (1973). Since this Court has construed the word “person” in § 1983 to exclude States, neither a federal court nor a state court may entertain a § 1983 action against such a defendant. Conversely, since the Court has held that municipal corporations and similar governmental entities are “persons,” see Monell v. New York City Dept. of Social Services, 436 U. S. 658, 663 (1978); cf. Will, 491 U. S., at 69, n. 9; Mt. Healthy City Bd. of Education v. Doyle, 429 U. S. 274, 280-281 (1977), a state court entertaining a § 1983 action must adhere to that interpretation. “Municipal defenses—including an assertion of sovereign immunity—to a federal right of action are, of course, controlled by federal law.” Owen v. City of Independence, 445 U. S., at 647, n. 30. “By including municipalities within the class of ‘persons’ subject to liability for violations of the Federal Constitution and laws, Congress—the supreme sovereign on matters of federal law—abolished whatever vestige of the State’s sovereign immunity the municipality possessed.” Id., at 647-648 (footnote omitted).

In Martinez v. California, 444 U. S. 277 (1980), we unanimously concluded that a California statute that purported to immunize public entities and public employees from any liability for parole release decisions was pre-empted by § 1983 “even though the federal cause of action [was] being asserted in the state courts.” Id., at 284. We explained:

“‘Conduct by persons acting under color of state law which is wrongful under 42 U. S. C. § 1983 or § 1985(3) cannot be immunized by state law. A construction of the federal statute which permitted a state immunity defense to have controlling effect would transmute a basic guarantee into an illusory promise; and the supremacy clause of the Constitution insures that the proper con *377 struction may be enforced. See McLaughlin v. Tilendis, 398 F. 2d 287, 290 (7th Cir. 1968). The immunity claim raises a question of federal law.’ Hampton v. Chicago, 484 F. 2d 602, 607 (CA7 1973), cert. denied, 415 U. S. 917.” Id., at 284, n. 8.

In Felder v. Casey, we followed Martinez and held that a Wisconsin notice-of-claim statute that effectively shortened the statute of limitations and imposed an exhaustion requirement on claims against public agencies and employees was pre-empted insofar as it was applied to § 1983 actions. After observing that the lower federal courts, with one exception, had determined that notice-of-claim statutes were inapplicable to § 1983 actions brought in federal courts, we stated that such a consensus also demonstrated that “enforcement of the notice-of-claim statute in § 1983 actions brought in state court . . . interfered] with and frustrated] the substantive right Congress created.” 487 U. S., at 151. We concluded: “The decision to subject state subdivisions to liability for violations of federal rights . . . was a choice that Congress, not the Wisconsin Legislature, made, and it is a decision that the State has no authority to override.” Id., at 143.

While the Florida Supreme Court’s actual decision in Hill is consistent with the foregoing reasoning, the Court of Appeal’s extension of Hill to persons subject by § 1983 to liability is flatly inconsistent with that reasoning and the holdings in both Martinez and Felder. Federal law makes governmental defendants that are not arms of the State, such as municipalities, liable for their constitutional violations. See St. Louis v. Praprotnik, 485 U. S. 112, 121-122 (1988); Monell v. New York City Dept. of Social Services, 436 U. S. 658 (1978). Florida law, as interpreted by the District Court of Appeal, would make all such defendants absolutely immune from liability under the federal statute. To the extent that the Florida law of sovereign immunity reflects a substantive disagreement with the extent to which governmental entities should be held liable for their constitutional *378 violations, that disagreement cannot override the dictates of federal law. “Congre