Conflicts of Jurisdiction

Conflicts of Jurisdiction: Federal Court Interference with State Courts

One challenging the constitutionality, under the United States Constitution, of state actions, statutory or otherwise, could, of course, bring suit in state court; indeed, in the time before conferral of federalquestion jurisdiction on lower federal courts plaintiffs had to bring actions in state courts, and on some occasions since, this has been done.1 But the usual course is to sue in federal court for either an injunction or a declaratory judgment or both. In an era in which landmark decisions of the Supreme Court and of inferior federal courts have been handed down voiding racial segregation requirements, legislative apportionment and congressional districting, abortion regulations, and many other state laws and policies, it is difficult to imagine a situation in which it might be impossible to obtain such rulings because no one required as a defendant could be sued. Yet, the adoption of the Eleventh Amendment in 1798 resulted in the immunity of the state,2 and the immunity of state officers if the action upon which they were being sued was state action,3 from suit without the state’s consent. Ex parte Young 4 is a seminal case in American constitutional law because it created a fiction by which the validity of state statutes and other actions could be challenged by suits against state officers as individuals.5

Conflicts of Jurisdiction and the U.S. Constitution

Conflict between federal and state courts is inevitable when the federal courts are open to persons complaining about unconstitutional or unlawful state action which could as well be brought in the state courts and perhaps is so brought by other persons, but the various rules of restraint flowing from the concept of comity reduce federal interference here some considerable degree. It is rather in three fairly well defined areas that institutional conflict is most pronounced.

Conflicts of Jurisdiction: Developments

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References

This text about Conflicts of Jurisdiction is based on “The Constitution of the United States of America: Analysis and Interpretation”, published by the U.S. Government Printing Office.

Notes

[Footnote 1] For example, one of the cases decided in Brown v. Board of Education, 347 U.S. 483 (1954), came from the Supreme Court of Delaware. In Scott v. Germano, 381 U.S. 407 (1965), the Court set aside an order of the district court refusing to defer to the state court which was hearing an apportionment suit and said: “The power of the judiciary of a State to require valid reapportionment or to formulate a valid redistricting plan has not only been recognized by this Court but appropriate action by the States has been specifically encouraged.” See also Scranton v. Drew, 379 U.S. 40 (1964).

[Footnote 2] By its terms, the Eleventh Amendment bars only suits against a state by citizens of other states, but, in Hans v. Louisiana, 134 U.S. 1 (1890), the Court deemed it to embody principles of sovereign immunity that applied to unconsented suits by its own citizens.

[Footnote 3] In re Ayers, 123 U.S. 443 (1887).

[Footnote 4] 209 U.S. 123 (1908).

[Footnote 5] The fiction is that while the official is a state actor for purposes of suit against him, the claim that his action is unconstitutional removes the imprimatur of the state that would shield him under the Eleventh Amendment. 209 U.S. at 159-60.