Document ID: ./input/supremecourt_opinions/opinions/boundvolumes/524bv.pdf
Page Number: 428

524US2

Unit: $U91

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Cite as: 524 U. S. 381 (1998)

383

Opinion of the Court

David E. Lasker argued the cause and ﬁled a brief for

respondent.*

Justice Breyer delivered the opinion of the Court.
The question before us is whether defendants in a case
ﬁled in a state court, with claims “arising under” federal law,
can remove that case to federal court—where some claims,
made against a State, are subject to an Eleventh Amend-
ment bar. We conclude that the defendants can remove the
case to a federal court and that the court can decide the
nonbarred claims.

I

In 1993, the Wisconsin Department of Corrections dis-
missed Keith Schacht, a prison guard, for stealing items from
the Oakhill Correctional Institution, a state prison.
In Jan-
uary 1996, Schacht ﬁled a complaint in state court against
the Department and several of its employees, both in their
“personal” and in their “ofﬁcial” capacities. The complaint,
in several different claims, alleged that the Department and
its employees had deprived Schacht of “liberty” and “prop-
erty” without “due process of law,” thereby violating the
Federal Constitution and civil rights laws. U. S. Const.,

*A brief of amici curiae urging reversal was ﬁled for the State of
Indiana et al. by Jeffrey A. Modisett, Attorney General of Indiana, and
Jon Laramore, Geoffrey Slaughter, and Anthony Scott Chinn, Deputy
Attorneys General, and by the Attorneys General for their respective
States as follows: Bill Pryor of Alabama, Grant Woods of Arizona,
Robert A. Butterworth of Florida, Thurbert E. Baker of Georgia, Mar-
gery S. Bronster of Hawaii, James E. Ryan of Illinois, J. Joseph Curran,
Jr., of Maryland, Scott Harshbarger of Massachusetts, Frank J. Kelley
of Michigan, Mike Moore of Mississippi, Joseph P. Mazurek of Mon-
tana, Philip T. McLaughlin of New Hampshire, Frankie Sue Del Papa
of Nevada, Dennis C. Vacco of New York, Heidi Heitkamp of North
Dakota, Betty D. Montgomery of Ohio, John Knox Walkup of Tennes-
see, Dan Morales of Texas, Jan Graham of Utah, William H. Sorrell
of Vermont, and William U. Hill of Wyoming.