John Paul Stevens

“ 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." ”

“ But as to persons that Congress subjected to liability, individual States may not exempt such persons from federal liability by relying on their own common-law heritage. If we were to uphold the immunity claim in this case, every State would have the same opportunity to extend the mantle of sovereign immunity to "persons" who would otherwise be subject to § 1983 liability. States would then be free to nullify for their own people the legislative decisions that Congress has made on behalf of all the People. ”

“ 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. ”

“ A state policy that permits actions against state agencies for the failure of their officials to adequately police a parking lot and for the negligence of such officers in arresting a person on a roadside, but yet declines jurisdiction over federal actions for constitutional violations by the same persons can be based only on the rationale that such persons should not be held liable for § 1983 violations in the courts of the State. ”

“ There is no question that the Circuit Court, which entertains state common-law and statutory claims against state entities in a variety of their capacities, ranging from law enforcement to schooling to the protection of individuals using parking lots, [23] has jurisdiction over the subject of this suit. That court cannot reject petitioner's § 1983 claim because it has chosen, for substantive policy reasons, not to adjudicate other claims which might also render the school board liable. The federal law is law in the State as much as laws passed by the state legislature. ”

“ 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 violations, that disagreement cannot override the dictates of federal law. "Congress surely did not intend to assign to state courts and legislatures a conclusive role in the formative function of defining and characterizing the essential elements of a federal cause of action." ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ A State may not, however, relieve congestion in its courts by declaring a whole category of federal claims to be frivolous. Until it has been proved that the claim has no merit, that judgment is not up to the States to make.
Respondents have offered no neutral or valid excuse for the Circuit Court's refusal to hear § 1983 actions against state entities. The Circuit Court would have had jurisdiction if the defendant were an individual officer and the action were based on § 1983. ”

“ The argument by amici that suits predicated on federal law are more likely to be frivolous and have less of an entitlement to the State's limited judicial resources warrants little response. A State may adopt neutral procedural rules to discourage frivolous litigation of all kinds, as long as those rules are not pre-empted by a valid federal law. ”

“ 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. ”

“ First, at oral argument-but not in their brief-they argued that a federal court has no power to compel a state court to entertain a claim over which the state court has no jurisdiction as a matter of state law. Second, respondents argue that sovereign immunity is not a creature of state law, but of long-established legal principles which have not been set aside by § 1983. We find no merit in these contentions. ”

“ We recognize that, if a special relationship exists between an individual and a governmental entity, there could be a duty of care owed to the individual. This relationship is illustrated by the situation in which the police accept the responsibility to protect a particular person who has assisted them in the arrest or prosecution of criminal defendants and the individual is in danger due to that assistance. ”

“ 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." ”

“ A State cannot "escape this constitutional obligation to enforce the rights and duties validly created under the laws of other states by the simple device of removing jurisdiction from courts otherwise compe tent." ”

“ 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, 93 S.Ct. 1785, 1789-1796, 36 L.Ed.2d 596 (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. ”

“ 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. ”